Etc.
A sleeping super-volcano in Germany is showing worrying signs of waking up.
It's lurking just 390 miles away underneath the tranquil Laacher See lake near Bonn and is capable of ejecting billions of tons of magma.
This monster erupts every 10 to 12,000 years and last went off 12,900 years ago, so it could blow at any time.
I didn't know there was a volcano, dormant or extinct, there; can learn something every day
Update: thanks to Marja, I found this:
The article in the Daily Mail is about as substance free as you can produce – it starts off with the usual doom claptrap: “a sleeping super-volcano in Germany is showing worrying signs of waking up.” Now, you have to look carefully for what their supposed signs are – all two of them.
Dammit. I've got a lot more reading to do
3 comments:
I feel like I should be stocking up on Jaegermeister, Spaten Oktoberfest beer, and Mauser rifles! They'll all be collector's items!
Too small for any type of 'super', it seems. 'Super' should perhaps be left to those volcanoes which would be able to create worldwide devastation, like the couple of ones you have, Yellowstone and Long Valley. The biggest eruption from this one would be of true concern for something like half of Europe, the rest of us would suffer some bad weather but for us the major concerns would be economical, not something like dying of ash inhalation.
Interesting, though. Perhaps not a place one should consider buying one's retirement home from. Even if there won't be an eruption, that type of lakes can give nasty surprises with those gases. There was that one in Africa where half of the people of surrounding villages suffocated to death when a large amount of carbon dioxide was released fast, a few years ago.
The scariest European one is probably Campi Flegrei, it has had a few big eruptions and it's very definitely still alive, the last time it got volcanologists seriously concerned for a while was in the beginning of the 80's. Ground rose enough to pretty much ruin one harbor, due to magma filling the magma chamber.
Even a small eruption there would take out Napoli, a big one could take out most of Italy and give serious grief to the whole area.
By the way, a good place to keep informed about volcanoes is the blog 'Eruptions', on 'Wired Science'.
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