Highly explosive volcanism at Galapagos

[Judi Lynn]

Highly explosive volcanism at Galapagos
by Staff Writers
Kiel, Germany (SPX) Jun 05, 2015


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Today's Galapagos islands at the volcanic Galapagos-
Hotspot are only about four four million years old.
Traces of older eruptions have been found in cores
obtained off the coast of Costa Rica. Image courtesy
from the GEBCO world map 2014.
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Understanding the volcanic activity on Earth is not only important in order to limit the impact of natural disasters, volcanic eruptions also have a large impact on the climate and evolution of life on our planet. However, many details in the history of volcanic activity are still unknown.

Scientists from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, together with colleagues from the USA, Taiwan, Australia and Switzerland, now have been able to track the development of the Galapagos volcanoes in the time frame between eight and 16 million years ago. In the process they encountered several surprise findings as they now report in the international journal Geology.

The study is based on several cores from the Cocos Ridge which stretches from the Galapagos Islands to Central America on the seafloor of the eastern Pacific Ocean. In spring 2011 and fall 2012, these cores were obtained about 50 kilometres off the coast of Costa Rica by the scientific drilling ship JOIDES RESOLUTION within the framework of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (now International Ocean Discovery Program, IODP).

"From the Miocene period alone, i.e. between 16.5 and 8 million years ago, we were able to identify 67 ash layers of volcanic eruptions in these cores," says Dr Julie Schindlbeck from GEOMAR, lead author of the study.
More:
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Highly_explosive_volcanism_at_Galapagos_999.html

[truedelphi]

1. There is a serious rise in volcanic activity.

The new volcano that went off in Chile this past few months has given rise to not one but two late-April, early May snowstorms here in California.

And scientists are now admitting that Mt Konocti, the volcano near Clearlake Calif. that all the experts considered to be dormant, resembles far too much its sister volcano in Chile. Since its sister volcano went off in 2011, we now have the US Geological Society places sensors on Mt Konocti's shoulders, so that residents here will have some six months. This would give us quite a bit longer than the mere six weeks the residents in Chile had!

It is almost like mother Earth does want to keep our planet at a lower temperature, and will not stop until the harm we are doing is reversed.