More On the East African Rift

Hot Springs on Dallol Mountain, 2008

According to Eruptions, Photovolcanica has some beautiful photos from an area of the East African Rift. After reading that I immediately clicked on the link and another link and ooo-ed and awww-ed at the photos. And thought about how much I would like to buy a ticket and go look at this for myself.

Of course I would not enjoy the trip because I do not like to be hot, but that is beside the point. I would really like to SEE this for myself. And, as is true at Yellowstone, SMELL it for myself. :-)

More On Yellowstone Caldera

Could Yellowstone National Park’s caldera super-volcano be close to eruption?By Daniel Bates
Last updated at 12:26 PM on 25th January 2011
Scientists are predicting that the world's largest super-volcano in one of America's most popular national parks could erupt in the near future.

Yellowstone National Park’s caldera has erupted three times in the last 2.1million years and researchers monitoring it say we could be in for another eruption.
They said that the super-volcano underneath the Wyoming park has been rising at a record.It would explode with a force a thousand times more powerful than the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980.
Spewing lava far into the sky, a cloud of plant-killing ash would fan out and dump a layer 10ft deep up to 1,000 miles away.

Two-thirds of the U.S. could become uninhabitable as toxic air sweeps through it, grounding thousands of flights and forcing millions to leave their homes.

But hampered by a lack of data they have stopped short of an all-out warning and they are unable to put a date on when the next disaster might take place.

When the eruption finally happens it will dwarf the effect of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which erupted in April last year, causing travel chaos around the world.

The University of Utah's Bob Smith, an expert in Yellowstone's volcanism told National Geographic: ‘It's an extraordinary uplift, because it covers such a large area and the rates are so high.

‘At the beginning we were concerned it could be leading up to an eruption.’
But he added: ‘Once we saw the magma was at a depth of ten kilometres, we weren't so concerned.

‘If it had been at depths of two or three kilometre we'd have been a lot more concerned.’

Robert B. Smith, professor of geophysics at the University of Utah, who has led a recent study into the volcano, added: ‘Our best evidence is that the crustal magma chamber is filling with molten rock.

‘But we have no idea how long this process goes on before there either is an eruption or the inflow of molten rock stops and the caldera deflates again’.

The Yellowstone Caldera is one of nature’s most awesome creations and sits atop North America’s largest volcanic field.

Its name means ‘cooking pot’ or ‘cauldron’ and it is formed when land collapses following a volcanic explosion.

In Yellowstone, some 400 miles beneath the Earth’s surface is a magma ‘hotspot’ which rises to 30 miles underground before spreading out over an area of 300 miles across.

Atop this, but still beneath the surface, sits the slumbering volcano.

Scientists monitoring it believe that a swelling magma reservoir six miles underground may be causing the recent uplifts.

They have also been keeping an eye on a ‘pancake-shaped blob’ of molten rock he size of Los Angeles which was pressed into the volcano some time ago.

But due the extreme conditions it has been hard to work out what exactly is going on down below, leading researchers unable to say with certainty what will happen - or when.

Since the most recent blast 640,000 years ago there have been around 30 smaller eruptions, the most recent of which was 70,000 years ago.
They filled the caldera with ash and lava and made the flat landscape that draws thousands of tourists to Yellowstone National Park every year.

‘Clearly some deep source of magma feeds Yellowstone, and since Yellowstone has erupted in the recent geological past, we know that there is magma at shallower depths too,’ said Dan Dzurisin, a Yellowstone expert with the U.S. Geological Survey at Cascades Volcano Observatory in Washington State.

‘There has to be magma in the crust, or we wouldn't have all the hydrothermal activity that we have.

‘There is so much heat coming out of Yellowstone right now that if it wasn't being reheated by magma, the whole system would have gone stone cold since the time of the last eruption 70,000 years ago.’

Great Rift Valley Changing Quickly

This is one of those articles that I read and I just want to get up from my chair here at the computer, dance around awhile in joy, then hop on a plane and go take a look myself. I really want to SEE this! Can you imagine? All my life I've read and been told that geological change happens at a snails pace - verrrrrry slooooow. Suddenly, a place on earth that I kind of keep tabs on (any article or info on this place that I happen to come across is immediately read by me - don't always understand it, but I read it!) is changing geologically at a very FAST pace. I know there were all those earthquakes in the Gulf of Aden last year, shoot, there was even one there this past week! And tonight I came across this article in my roaming around on the internet. (If you don't want to read it, just scroll down to where the black print starts again.)

High-Speed Geology
Violent Seismic Activity Tearing Africa in Two
, by Axel Bojanowski

The fissures began appearing years ago. But in recent months, seismic activity has accelerated in northeastern Africa as the continent breaks apart in slow motion. Researchers say that lava in the region is consistent with magma normally seen on the sea floor -- and that water will ultimately cover the desert.

Cynthia Ebinger, a geologist from the University of Rochester in New York, could hardly believe what the caller from the deserts of Ethiopia was saying. It was an employee at a mineralogy company -- and he reported that the famous Erta Ale volcano in northeastern Ethiopia was erupting. Ebinger, who has studied the volcano for years, was taken aback. The volcano's crater had always been filled with a bubbling soup of silver-black lava, but it had been decades since its last eruption.


The call came last November. And Ebinger immediately flew to Ethiopia with some fellow researchers. "The volcano was bubbling over; flaming-red lava was shooting up into the sky," Ebinger told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

The earth is in upheaval in northeastern Africa, and the region is changing quickly. The desert floor is quaking and splitting open, volcanoes are boiling over, and seawaters are encroaching upon the land. Africa, researchers are certain, is splitting apart at a rate rarely seen in geology.

The first fracture appeared millions of years ago, resulting in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The second fracture, stretching south from Ethiopia to Mozambique, is known as the Great Rift Valley, and it is lined with several volcanoes. Millions of years from now, it too will be filled with seawater.

Could Go Quickly

But in the Danakil Depression, in the northern part of the valley, the ocean could arrive much sooner. There, low, 25 meter (82 foot) hills are the only thing holding back the waters of the Red Sea. The land behind them has already dropped dozens of meters from previous levels and white salt deposits on the desert floor testify to past encroachments of the sea. But lava soon choked off its access.

For now, no one can really say when the sea will finally flood the desert. But when it does, it could go quickly. "The hills could sink in a matter of days," Tim Wright, a fellow at the University of Leeds' School of Earth and Environment, said at a recent conference hosted by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco.

In the last five years, the geologic transformation of northeastern Africa has "accelerated dramatically," says Wright. Indeed, the process is going much faster than many had anticipated. In recent years, geologists had measured just a few millimeters of movement each year. "But now the earth is opening up by the meter," says Loraine Field, a scholar at the University of Bristol who also attended the conference.

Earth tremors cause deep fissures to form in the desert floor and the ground in East Africa is shattering like broken glass. Researchers in the Gulf of Tadjoura, which juts into Djibouti from the Gulf of Aden, have recently registered a barrage of seismic shocks. "The quakes are happening on the mid-ocean ridge," Ebinger reports.

Shifting Tectonic Plates

Lava gushes out of fissures in these underwater mountain ranges to constantly create new earth crust -- when it hardens, it becomes part of the sea floor. As the magma surges upward, it spreads the ocean floor on both sides, shifting tectonic plates and causing tremors.

In recent months, the quaking in the Gulf of Tadjoura has been getting closer and closer to the coastline. As Ebinger explains, the splitting of the ocean floor will gradually extend to dry land. This is already the case along some fault lines in the Ethiopian desert, creating a geological spectacle that can otherwise only be witnessed deep below the surface of the ocean.

Even the pattern of earthquakes supports the conclusion that the desert landscape is transforming into a deep seafloor, according to a recent article in the Journal of Geophysical Research published by Zhaohui Yang and Wang-Ping Chen, two geologists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The researchers have recorded several strong earthquakes at a shallow depth in northeastern Africa similar to ones that are otherwise only seen on mid-ocean ridges far out at sea.

In recent months, researchers have also recorded an up-tick in volcanic activity. Indeed, geologists have discovered volcanic eruptions near the earth's surface at 22 places in the Afar Triangle in northeastern Africa. Magma has caused fissures up to eight meters (26 feet) wide to open up in the ground, reports Derek Keir from the University of Leeds. While most of the magma remains beneath the surface, in places like Erta Ale it has made its way above ground.

An Ocean Without Water

Scientists have also noted that the kind of magma bubbling up in the region is the type otherwise only seen spewing forth from mid-ocean ridges deep below the water's surface. One of its signature characteristics is a low proportion of silicic acid. The magma coming out of Erta Ale has the same chemical composition as the kind that emerges from deep-sea volcanoes. The entire region increasingly resembles an ocean floor -- one without water.

The new burst in activity began in 2005, when a 60-kilometer-long fissure suddenly formed in the Afar Depression. Since then, roughly 3.5 cubic kilometers of magma have gushed forth, according to Tim Wright -- enough to cover the entire area of London to an average person's height.

From a geological perspective, the speed with which the magma is pushing forth is astonishing. It has been channeling its way through the rock below the earth's surface at speeds of up to 30 meters per minute, reports Eric Jacques from the Institute of Earth Physics of Paris. Satellite measurements attest to the consequences: In one 200-kilometer stretch welling up with magma, the ground looks like asphalt on a hot summer day. Magma is also pooling up under the Dabbahu Volcano in northern Ethiopia, Lorraine Field reported in San Francisco.

Continuing to Expand


The satellite data has also shown that a much larger area has been scarred by fissures than previously assumed, says Keir. Subterranean currents of magma are also causing ground temperatures to spike in eastern Egypt, a team of geologists from Egypt's National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics recently reported in Seismological Research Letters. At the AGU conference, Columbia University's James Gaherty reported that magma eruptions have ripped a 17-kilometer gash into the desert floor in the northern part of Malawi and that the lateral pressure they have exerted has even lifted the surrounding earth up to 50 centimeters (20 inches) in places.

The most violent upsurge of magma in recent years, though, happened in an unexpected place. In May 2009, a subterranean volcano erupted in Saudi Arabia. A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 5.7 accompanied by tens of thousands of milder tremors forced 30,000 to seek shelter. Magma spewed out of the ground in an area about the size of Berlin and Hamburg combined, Sigurjon Jonsson from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology reported at the AGU meeting. The fact that the eruption took place almost 200 kilometers (124 miles) away from the fault line in North Africa "surprised all of us," says Cynthia Ebinger. And the world's largest geological construction site continues to expand. Loraine Field confirms that more and more magna is pushing its way to the earth's surface, adding that: "The magma chamber is reloading."

Oxford University's David Ferguson predicts a considerable increase in volcanic eruptions and earthquakes in the region over the next decade. They will, he says, "become of increasingly large magnitude."

So, wouldn't it be fun to go there, to see the lakes of lava, to look at what God is doing to this earth right now? To see it, hear it, smell it, even taste it in the air. It may seem silly to you, but this is very exciting for me. Obviously. :-) haha.

Two things have caught my interest today - Yellowstone caldera is bulging again (I think they call it 'breathing') and this on the Horn of Africa. I read about both here on the internet and both were mentioned in my geology class today. I thought that was an interesting coincidence. I also learned today in geology what the differences are between magma/lava that forms sea beds and land - and here it was in this article again. I understood what the article was actually talking about because of the class. How cool is that?!

So, there may be a new sea formed in the very near future - hours or years from now, but near in the chronicles of time. What I'd really like to see is a time-lapse of all of it happening - from when the land began to sink and tear apart to the time it is an actual sea. Maybe God will show us things like that in heaven? Who knows! And of course, being who I am, I'm wondering how this all fits in to the happenings of the tribulation. I can see so many ways it would/may/will.

Now, I'm off to see if I can find any other stuff about this on the internet. This was fairly detailed for the lay person, so I might not find much more that is really understandable by me, but who knows! Photos would be nice - lots of them!

Why Do I Want to Study Geology?

Why do I want to study geology, you might ask? Well, here are a few reasons (this post is very picture heavy):
WyomingWyoming
Jackson Lake, Grand Tetons National Park, WyomingCanyonlands National Park, UtahYellowstone National Park, WyomingYellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Colorado National Monument, ColoradoColorado National Monument, Colorado
Colorado National Monument, Colorado
Colorado National Monument, Colorado
Arches National Park, Utah
Near Moab, Utah


These are just a handful of the photos I have from places we've traveled over the years. I've left out the volcanoes (Mount Rainier, Seattle, Washington) and other assorted mountains, other than the Tetons, that I have photos of, including Pikes Peak

All of these were taken within the last 10 years while we've traveled on our Home Ministry Assignments. BUT each place is a place we visited before Mel and I joined the mission group for which we work. We traveled to these States and most of these places many years ago and knew they were there already and wanted to see them again. In fact, my family took us to Yellowstone and to Colorado National Monument when I was just a kid. (Should find a couple of photos of the Sand Dunes to put on here, too!)

All of my life, from the time I got my glasses in 2nd grade at least, I have been looking at geologic formations and wondering about them, thinking about them, enjoying them. Garden of the Gods, Pikes Peak, hogback ridges along the front range of the Rockies, mountains, prairies, different colored rocks I'd find, striped rocks, funny shaped rocks, and on and on it goes. Why I didn't want to be a geologist when I was in school - I have no idea! No, at that point I wanted to be a National Park Ranger, with the uniform and hat and badge and boots. Why I didn't go that direction - well, I went to Alaska instead. And maybe I was just too lazy to persue the education I would need to do either job. I flunked out of chemistry (well, I got a D in the class, same thing) because I didn't understand it from the first class on. Loved biology instead.

So now, at age 56, soon to be 57, I am finally studying geology. Who knows where I'll go from this introduction class? Maybe someday I'll earn my hammer and helmet! Maybe someday I'll understand what those rocks there on the side of Highway 24, just after 31st Street, are and why they stand straight up in multi-colored layers that are eroding at an alarming rate!

If geology is boring here in this part of Ukraine (think almost pancake flat dark brown dirt with nary a mountain in sight for a hundred miles and more), then I can get out these photos (I literally have THOUSANDS of them!) and look at them .... and remember .... and begin to understand.

Monday

Busy day today. Did some laundry, did some cleaning, did some studying, did some cooking, did some rearranging, did some reading, did a bunch of work on the computer with photos for a church in the States, talked with my daughter, son-in-law and 2 grandkids for over an hour on skype late tonight. Yes, it was a fairly busy day. Didn't do any embroidery or weaving, though.

I thought it was interesting that after writing about Lord of the Rings last night, at the very end of my post, while talking to my kids tonight they told me they watched the first two movies of the trilogy last night. Apparently my grandson was quite fascinated with Golum. :-) Why does this not surprise me? haha!

The sun actually shone for awhile today. I can't believe how much of a difference that makes for me! It was wonderful, that weak, watery sunshine coming through the window and splashing across the livingroom floor. Very nice. Which reminds me, I really need to wash the balcony windows!! As soon as it's not freezing again.I was surprised when I hung those jeans out to find that what was already out there had frozen spots at the clothespins (and no, I still have not found my box of clothespins - those out there have been out there for over a year!).

I am enjoying the class I'm taking via DVD on Intro to Geology, put out by The Teaching Company. The prof is really funny to me, in a dry humor sort of way, in a good old home boy kind of way, in a typical American kind of way. He makes me laugh just the way he phrases things. I've also noticed that it helps me think about other things, which is good. I've gone back and looked at a few of the photos from places we've been and just looked at some of the geology. And we haven't even gotten much past describing what plate techtonics and minerals are yet.

When I grow up I want to be a geologist. That's after I'm a space explorer astronomer first. And expert weaver artist. And a storm chaser, too. (Maybe I'll get the course on Weather next - we gave that to Andrew for Christmas and he says it's really good, he's learning a lot while watching it. That's very nice to hear!)

There are so many things I want to do! :-) So much I want to know. So much I want to see. I'm so thankful that in my day and age there are things like this course that I can take for a reasonable price in the comfort of my own home, at my own pace.

Life may not always be really happy, but it is seldom dull. That is good.

Rocks

I have always collected little stones. Not just in my shoes as I walk here and there :), but I actually look for beautiful stones. This is not an easy thing to do here in Kherson. There is a lot of dirt and dust and sand and muck, but not very many stones.

Now, I come from a part of the world where there are a lot of stones. And not only stones, but rocks. I mean, really big rocks. Really, really big rocks. The Rocky Mountain kind of big rocks. This rock is located just a few miles from my parents home and there are many more like it in the surrounding area.BIG rocks. :)
I'm not sure when my rock collecting started. I can remember in my childhood receiving from someone a sheet of cardboard with little stones glued to it. Each stone was labeled as to what it was and possibly (I don't remember this exactly) where it came from. Some of those stones were beautiful. At least one looked like a nice chunk of caramel candy. Others just looked like the rocks we had out in the driveway, ho hum. I can remember actually licking that caramel colored stone - it was all smooth and shiny and looked really good - was it a stone or was it candy just pretending to be a stone? Ah, childhood - when life was simple. heh heh

The next real memory of my collecting stones comes from Alaska. I remember walking along a glacial river, a tributary to the mighty Copper River near Copper Center. I was with Mel and he was showing me 'his' Alaska. I was intrigued by the stones and rocks along the river bank. Many of them were a dark gray with brilliant white stripes running through them. I collected a handful of small stones, ones more unusual than the others due to the angles or widths of the stripes, and even a couple of pure white stones. I have no idea whatever happened to them. Maybe some day an geologist will excavate an area and wonder how those particular stones from the Copper River Basin in Alaska ended up in Fairbanks or possibly even in Colorado.

When we lived in the Wet Mountain Valley of Colorado we explored the area at every opportunity. One of the things I really enjoyed was collecting stones and rocks from different places. Green stones, maroon rocks, stripped rocks, yellow stones, and best of all, some pale tan and rust striped rocks. I ended up with a quart sized jar of different stones, all smaller than an inch in diameter, but beautiful in a variety of color, texture and pattern. The tan and rust striped rocks were/are amazing. The stripes were in circles and curly cues and waves. No two rocks were alike. I wanted a whole collection of them. Imagine the following photo as a rock you can actually pick up:Poor Mel got tired of finding rocks in the back of our van after I'd go out for a walk. I used them as borders for my flower gardens and even took some of them up to my parents place. My mother still uses them as borders around her flower gardens. When we left that place, I dug the most beautiful ones out of the garden border and they are in storage right now as I write this.

One of the beautiful things God has given us that we so often take for granted. How often do we look at the ground around us and see the diversity, the beauty, the gift God has given us? All too seldom, I fear.

I have a small collection of stones here in Ukraine, picked up along the river or out in a village we visited once. There are also stones from Spain, California and one may be from Oregon. Unfortunately, I love the way they look, but I forget exactly where they come from. Mixed in with those stones in the little display are seashells from the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea and Pacific Ocean, and several small pieces of driftwood from the Pacific.Several times Ukrainians have asked me why I have all those stones, shells and weird pieces of wood on that shelf. I say, "They each remind me of some place I have been." But there is more to it than that. They are beautiful. And I like them.

This morning, while checking out the articles on geology.com, I came across this video clip:Balancing Rocks by Bill Dan
There is more information about this guy, and others who do this, on Rock On, Rock ON!

Last night at our team prayer time, Mel gave a short devotional on what it means to 'enjoy God', mentioning Eric Liddell's famous quote: "God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure." We talked about what we do where we also feel God's pleasure. I showed this YouTube video to Mel and his first response was, "I hope he feels God's pleasure when he does this." I hope so. It is an amazing talent, what this man can do, a combination of God given eye-hand coordination and patience. As I watched him, I thought about how his eyes saw the stone and his hand held the stone and his arms felt the weight of the rock resting against his muscles - until suddenly, that weight was gone - resting instead totally on the stone beneath.

I like rocks. I'm glad God made rocks. I feel His pleasure when I enjoy His creation.

Found: A New Blog To Follow

Today has ended up being my unofficial "day off." Yesterday I spent most of the day working on Sunday School materials for the next few weeks, planning them in such a way that they can be used again in the future if someone would like to do so. So today I have done a lot more reading for pleasure on the internet, as well as writing the previous post "Pursuing The Road."

On geology.com today I found a new blog to follow: Earthly Musings - Blog Site of Wayne Ranney. Dr. Ranney has some incredibly beautiful photos on his blog. Many of them are from my favorite part of the world - the Four Corners area of the United States. In particular is this one:
The Colorado River
Photo by: Wayne Ranney, from his blog.

I look forward to reading through his past posts as well as reading what he writes in the future.

This particular photo just plain makes me homesick. So, I'll post one of my own here, too. And when I check it's properties, I see that I took this photo exactly 4 years and 2 days ago. Just think, 4 years ago this is where I was at....