Super volcano Italy: Campi Flegrei eruption could kill millions

[Luis Adam Bree]

BIG ONE: Campi Flegrei in Naples, Italy could kill millions when it blows
Around two thousand years ago Mount Vesuvius erupted, destroying the Roman city of Pompeii and killing an estimated 1,500 people.
Today, a far more sinister supervolcano named Campi Flegrei is lurking underneath Naples in Italy.
Shock research, revealed last month, warned that the “big daddy” of Vesuvius is showing signs of “reawakening” and may be on the brink of going off.
Should it blow in a “big one” eruption, experts told Daily Star Online thousands, possibly millions, of people across Europe would be killed “immediately” from incineration and suffocation.
Dense black ash clouds would block out the sun, plunging the continent into months, if not years, of eerie darkness.
DANGEROUS: An cloud of ash hangs over Vesuvius after an eruption in 1944
Tens of billions would be instantly wiped off the global economy as air travel, industry and farming would be ground to a halt.
The environment would take a pounding too as a boiling black cloud of hit gas would shoot into the atmosphere, triggering acid rain and accelerating global warming.
Worryingly scientists cannot predict and have no idea when it will next blow its top.
Dr. Luca De Siena, Geophysics professor at University of Aberdeen, is one of the leading experts researching the volcano.
Campi Flegrei last blew in 1538 in an eruption lasting eight days that formed a new mountain, Monte Nuovo.
Could THIS happen again in 2017?
The eruption of the Eyjafjallajokul volcano in Iceland in 2010 almost completely halted air travel across Europe – the largest disruption of air travel since WW2. The pillar of smoke and ash reached a height of 11km, and reached as far away as Russia. Could this happen again in 2017?

NASA
AERIAL VIEW: Campi Flegrei is the largest volcanic feature along the Bay of Naples
“In case of a big one, it could affect our chances to live in Europe, immediately killing hundreds of thousands if not millions.”
Dr. Luca De Siena
But its most cataclysmic eruption came when it was formed around 39,000 years ago in a devastating blast that threw masses of lava, rock and debris into the air.
Professor De Siena said current activity does not suggest a “big one”, though “a small could take place”.
He told Daily Star Online: “In case of a small one, similar to the eruption in 1538, people living near the point of the eruption would be affected.
“We are still talking of thousands of people who could die/lose their houses, and the warning would be much less than for a big one.
“The economy of the entire Europe would be still in danger because of consequences.
“In case of a big one, it could affect our chances to live in Europe, immediately killing hundreds of thousands if not millions.
“Ashes would cover the sun, possibly for days/months/years, affecting humanity, fauna, and flora in other continents.”
DISTAR
MAPPED: Multi-source volcanic risk map of the Campania Region
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Volcanologist Stefano Carlino, of National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, told Daily Star Online predicting the next eruption is “not possible”.
Dr Carlino has lead a team drill at the volcano in a bid to predict future eruptions.
What scientists call an uplift, when molten magma rises to the surface, has been bubbling over since 2005.
He said this slow 11-year movement of boiling hot fluid “could represent a long term preparation to an eruption”.
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REAWAKENING: Campi Flegrei has been dubbed the ‘big daddy’ of Vesuvius
He said: “Based on the present dynamic of the Campi Flegrei caldera, the expected next eruption is a smaller one, possibly similar to the last occurred in 1538.
“In this case a very minor part of the 350,000 people living inside the caldera zone will be in danger.
“But we don’t know what will change in the future behaviour of the volcano.
“The worst scenario, which is very unlikely, is a catastrophic ignimbrite eruption.
“An event like this will involve directly at least three million of people and indirectly many regions of Italy.”
“People should keep high their perception of risk.”
PROTOTHEMAN
UNSURE: Scientists have no idea when the volcano will erupt
To mitigate the effects of the eruption, Dr De Siena said volcano monitoring techniques need to be improved.
De Siena, who spent four years studying the volcano, said funding for research needs to be ramped up.
However, he said the future looks bleak regardless.
He said: “In case of the big one, disastrous consequences would be difficult if not impossible to mitigate.
“We must become conscious that a volcano eruption of this kind may completely change our way of living – and in the future will surely do.
“To mitigate this means to invest in technologies that allow humanity to survive and prosper even after.”

 

[feettartar]

Boom!...Big, BIG boom!!!...And when it (and Yellowstone) blow, and they will, then whats left of those 8 billion people on this poor, distressed planet will just have to start eating each other, i would guess!

 

[deaddirty]

Campi Flegrei has just claimed three victims. Lesson 1 of How to Visit a Volcano: don't let your kids fall in!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ie-fall-volcanic-crater-solfatara-di-pozzuoli

Campi Flegrie seems to have had a seriously-big eruption in around 40,000 BC, but more recent eruptions have been much smaller. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlegraean_Fields ) And there are grounds for concern that an eruption of some sort may be imminent (including the recent earthquake on Ischia) but nothing scientifically-reputable that I can see to indicate the likely scale - Ok at worst it could be something catastrophic as big as 40,000 BC or bigger, but equally the 1538 eruption was nothing to write home about unless you were in the immediate area, and the smaller eruptions have been far more frequent than the super-event(s).
Generally the super-volcanoes make a great subject for millennial catastrophism since it's plausible and sooner or later one of them really will go off bigtime. But the chances of that happening within our lifetimes seem pretty low - several hundred ties less likely than nuclear war for instance. Even the c 40,000 BC Campi Flegrie eruption was only (or should that be 'only'?) as big as Tambora in 1815 - bigger than Krakatoa but still within the range of caldera-collapse eruptions than can and do happen to any large cone-type volcano sooner or later - a really big eruption empties the magma chamber so the cone falls in under its own weight, and if enough water gets in to generate a steam explosion as well then you get a seriously big bang. I think Mount Pinatubu was the most recent caldera-collapse - big enough to counteract global warming for a few years and take out a US Airbase nearby but most of us outside the Philippines didn't notice any effects. Granted a Tambora-scale event every few hundred years on average) would have more serious consequences in our increasingly over-populated and interconnected world, but I'm still going to sleep OK tonight!
Admittedly Yellowstone probably will a megadisaster if and when it next happens, and it's overdue. But at a period of c 6000,00 years give-or-take quite a bit that probably means it's likely to happen sometime within the next 10-20,000 years, and if you can convince me we're likely to last that long anyway I'll start worrying about it.

 

[alexonedeath]

I would be very unhappy living anywhere that natural disasters are expected, and the number of such places is growing. There have been a number of excellent and horrifying articles written about the Armageddon-style earthquake that is thought to be imminent and inevitable in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. The danger posed by the San Andreas fault pales in comparison.

 

[demon007]

Lol it's nothing on the scale of Yellowstone and Toba, Toba almost killed humanity off. If that blows it will rip indonesia apart because it will set off Tombora too.

Yellowstone as it's shown in the movie 2012... HELL YEAHHHHH

Conspiracy theories are everywhere regarding Planet X. The loonies think its close to Earth but NASA are deliberately telling us its fake to avoid worldwide panic. They think Nibriu's gravity is wrecking Earth's and will cause Hurricanes worse than category 5, Earth quakes and volcanic super eruptions.. I hope scientists are right and Snowdonia's Caldera has been dry for millions of years lol

 

[deaddirty]

I'm not sure if Snowdonia ever did have a major caldera collapse, but if so it was about 450 million years ago as North America was colliding with what became Western Europe, so I think we're safe on that one.

 

[deaddirty]

Now this one really is a bit scary, though at first sight it doesn't sound that way.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...48-hours/ar-AAthYFA?li=AAnZ9Ug&ocid=DELLDHP17
La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, was hit by a series of mini-earthquakes at the weekend, measuring between 1.5 and 2.7 on the Richter scale.
Between Saturday 7 and Tuesday 10 October the island experienced 50 tremors, with the biggest taking place on Saturday at 1pm.
However, the tremors took place at a depth of around 17 miles below sea level – deep enough that people on the island didn’t feel them.
La Palma is the most actively volcanic of the Canary Islands; its most recent eruption took place in 1971, when the Cumbre Vieja volcano spewed lava.
The recent set of tremors is catagorised as a “seismic swarm”, a phenomenon that is not considered abnormal, director of the IGN in the Canary Islands, María José Blanco, told Canarias7.
She noted, however, that they had “never recorded a similar swarm” since they started monitoring seismic activity on La Palma.
The IGN and the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (Involcan) are now keeping a closer eye on La Palma’s volcanic activity in light of the swarm.
La Palma is the most north westerly of the Canary Islands, home to more than 86,000 residents."

Cumbre Vieja is the volcano which started to crack in a 1949 eruption, raising fears that in the next major eruption the whole west side could landslide off into the Atlantic causing a mega-tsunami up to 30-60m high on the US East Coast - though this is controversial and both the likelihood and the scale may very well be exaggerated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumbre_Vieja
On the other hand, if you want something to keep you awake at night: this scenario does not include the possibility that the collapse could de-load the roof of the magma chamber, causing an explosive degassing followed by caldera collapse with the potential for seawater entry to the magma chamber - which is the recipe for a very big bang indeed.

 

[Whybother]

Wasn't the deepest hole drilled just fall short of 8 miles?

Hmmm. How did they measure the origin of a tremor to conclude that the depth was 17 miles below sea level? How do they even triangulate that?

People probably figured it all out, right?

 

[alexonedeath]

Whybother, those are JUST the sort of questions deaddirty loves to answer! No doubt he will get back to you presently with a monograph on the subject, including several Wiki links for further reading. He is a WEALTH of information on everything imaginable.

 

[deaddirty]

Thanks Alex! I am no expert on volcanoes, but I've got a fairly scientific mind and can normally understand the science fairly well and spot at least the or obvious pseudoscience, gross exaggerations, and unsourced statements.
I'm not sure how they measure the depth of a tremor, but it's clear that measurements are accepted in the scientific literature and they don't normally quote an error term so I guess the accuracy must be pretty good. OI have a friend who is a professional and could certainly tell me, but he's not answering his emails at the moment so I think he's away.
A lot of the stuff on Cumbre Vieja is from the more shall we say 'excitable' press, but I'm just Googling to find the more reliable scientific sources:
https://watchers.news/2017/10/09/cumbre-vieja-volcano-earthquakes-canary-islands/
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/la-palma-volcano-earthquakes.html
http://www.la-palma24.info/en/La-palma-earthquake/
https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=383010
http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2017/07/14/la-palma-part-2/
Putting this lot together, the existence and depths of the earthquake swarms does seem to be reliable, and in fact another swarm is occurring today. That sounds like good evidence of deep magma movement, but at that depth it's perhaps less than 50% probable that that will lead to a surface eruption, and if it does it's probably several months to several years away ( a rule of thumb seems to be that if a deep swarm is the first warning of an eruption, it's followed by progressively shallower swarms, then surface deformation and ground warming (both detectable by satellite monitoring), with generally 6-18 months from deep swarm to surface eruption. But the process can stop at any stage (presumably there's not enough new magma to trigger an eruption, or in one recent Icelandic case it got as far as smoke and a little bit of ash breaking through the ice cover, then it turned sideways and the swarms migrated 50 miles north over the next few months as dyke injections before suddenly breaking surface as a large fissure eruption - the Cambridge Uni team who were monitoring it were shaken awake at 4am by the earthquake as it surfaced, and their tracking was so accurate that they just had time to retrieve their equipment before the lava reached it). Or it can go the other way - the Ontake eruption in Japan in 2014 occurred shortly after a deep swarm with no other warning, but that was a steam explosion due presumably to water in the pipe from the magma chamber to surface - and it was a very minor eruption except that it happened on a fine Sunday afternoon without any public warning so 63 hikers who were near the crater got killed.
As for the likelihood of a massive landslide and mega-tsunami, it's clear that the 2001 paper making those claims has been severely challenged - I'm not clear that it's been disproved as one of those links claims, but the potential scale is probably seriously exaggerated.
What worries me a bit about the challenges though is that they're all talking solely in terms of the unlikelihood of a major collapse, but none of them seem to take account of the Mount St Helens event, where the intrusion of a thick sill of lava into the side of the volcano did trigger a major landslide, which in turn de-loaded the magma so it degassed explosively and blew the whole side of the mountain out with considerable force. Fortunately that did not in turn de-load the magma chamber enough for that to explosively degass and blow the whole top of the volcano off followed by caldera collapse, which was presumably a possibility. And presumably a similar sequence could theoretically happen at Cumbre Vieja, with the added worst-case scenario that unlike St Helens CV is close to the sea so there's the possibility of seawater getting into the caldera collapse which must get you to a Krakatoa-scale event. Even that doesn't get you to a tens-of-metres tsunami in UK or the US East Coast though, o I don't think youall need to heading for the top of Trump Tower!