Wired.com is reporting that on the Colombia-Ecuador border, ancient volcanoes that have had no historically recorded eruptions and probably no eruptions at all for than 10,000 years, are now showing significant signs of heating up.
The Cerro Negro de Mayasquer and Cerro Chiles volcano complex, and the associated mountain range have had over 4300 quakes (mostly small) in the last 24 hours.
The governments on both sides of the borders have already evacuated 12,000 residents, and are preparing for what could be dramatic eruptions, and extended dislocated populations.
(Mt St. Helens dome was principally Dacite. Andesite is characteristic of subduction zones.)
The quakes are relatively shallow, 3 to 5 km deep, the mountains are deforming according to instruments, and wells in the area have become contaminated by sulfur and iron. All of these are signs of rising magma.
USGS Earthquake map here.
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Monday October 27 2014, @01:30PM
I can easily see myself wasting too much time playing with the USGS Earthquake map. That's a very good interactive resource.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday October 29 2014, @02:36AM
The USGS site is a great resource for a lot of things. I wonder if there has been increased activity along the subduction zone leading up to this, or if there is absolutely nothing known that predicts this. Something has to have changed the magma flow.
P.S. I was poking around on that map and could not help but notice the many earthquakes close to the "safe" nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Dunbal on Monday October 27 2014, @01:31PM
This is all because people still insist in driving SUV's I tell you. Manbearpig is real! I'm serial.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 27 2014, @04:00PM
Hi serial, I'm parallel! Nice to meet you.
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Monday October 27 2014, @04:19PM
What the fuck has your post to do with TFA?
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Monday October 27 2014, @06:10PM
Absolutely nothing at all. Go figure.
(Score: 2) by mrchew1982 on Monday October 27 2014, @08:05PM
I almost forgot about that southpark episode...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 27 2014, @01:37PM
and we have a great Hollywood movie.
Seriously though, this is pretty significant news.
“In accord with the forecast given to us by the Geological Service, the change of alert level from yellow to orange means anticipated eruptions in the coming days or weeks,” Marquez told the media.
So our movie doesn't sound too far off into the future.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 28 2014, @01:36PM
as long as they don't try to pass Tom Cruise off as an Ecuadorean guy.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Funny) by VLM on Monday October 27 2014, @02:30PM
Looking at the map, I suppose it depends on the prevailing winds, but isn't this going to totally screw next years coke crop?
We need a bitcoin dark market in drug futures, a small team of somewhat competent geologists and botanists could make an absolute killing in the coke market if this thing erupts big.
Just throwing out a better dotcom startup idea than the current crop of existing startups.
There's also a minor secondary crop grown in Columbia, that being the coffee plant, so maybe traders in that could make some dough.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday October 27 2014, @05:24PM
Just throwing out a better dotcom startup idea than the current crop of existing startups.
I see what you did there.