Lava Flows From Merapi - Indonesian Gvn. Holds Alert Level - Reuters

[hatrack]

JAKARTA - Lava flowed out of rumbling Mount Merapi, Indonesia's most active volcano, on Thursday but it stopped far away from inhabited areas on its slopes and in the foothills, a volcanologist said.

Gunung Merapi, or Fiery Mountain, is one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the Pacific "Ring of Fire" and has been rumbling for weeks. Experts have said an eruption could come anytime. But authorities have not yet raised the alert level from "2" to "1", which would require the immediate evacuation of people living under the volcano.

"It started from 2 a.m. (1900 GMT) and is still flowing until now to a valley 200 metres (650 feet) away from the peak," said volcano observer Sapari Dwiyono from the state-run Centre for Volcano Research and Technology Development in Yogyakarta, the nearest city to the volcano.

"The closest houses are 6 km (4 miles) away," he told Reuters, adding the flow could only be seen from the mountain's southeastern foothill.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/36238/story.htm

[sam sarrha]

1. Toba is the one to worry about, it started the last ice age.. The Tsunami

quake was 350 miles from Toba, a Supper Volcano.. probably the biggest.

Yellow Stone is another super volcano, the first of its 3 eruptions sent ash below Mexico City.. it is bulging which is a bad sign.. the bulge causes cracks and when the cracks reach the magma chamber it goes off.. the compressed gasses expand and keep blowing out till the chamber is empty. then they collapse, they dont make cones.

[applegrove]

2. Yes - those two would hurt the whole planet and Toba would kill

most of asia.

But the danger of this one is to the people nearby. Dead is dead!

[sam sarrha]

3. the last time Toba went off the Human population was reducet to 1,200

[hatrack]

4. I heard it was somewhat bigger - maybe 50K - but not much bigger

Toba was a borderline ELE.

Geology is a humbling discipline.

[phantom power]

5. I read 5K. Anyway, it was clearly a near miss for human extinction.

:hide:

[applegrove]

6. And wouldn't "human extinction" be a "huge tradgedy for the world".

REALLY?

[phantom power]

7. Personally, I think it would be tragic if humans went extinct.

I think it was probably tragic for the helpless humans who probably starved to death in the wake of that long-ago eruption. Maybe they lived long enough to watch their own children draw their last breath before they followed.

And if it happens again, it will be just as tragic. Maybe more so, since this time it would be billions of people, and their children. And, of course, who knows how many other species, as we're already seeing.

Yeah, that's all pretty tragic.

[applegrove]

9. For humans. But not tragic for the earth. Just like a smaller volcano

would be tragic for local villagers. But not for the rest of us as much.

[Dogmudgeon]

8. Toba is not likely to blow

It's been too active in recent geological time. I think it had a biggish eruption around 1820. Most such eruptions would be "biggish", but not "supereruptions". The Indonesian subduction zone is very active, and there are probably hundreds of little hot-spots that are worth being concerned about, but are not Earth-shaking.

Yellowstone ... now that is the one that should scare us. It's been on a very tight 650,000 year cycle, and the last supereruption was 650,000 years ago. The caldera has become markedly more active in the past fifty years, and it's nearly as big as it was during the biggest eruption about 2 million years ago. Not only has the ground been bulging, there have been gas ventings which have killed animals, and in some areas, the ground gets extremely hot, hot enough to start to melt running shoes. There have been several Yellowstone eruptions of all sizes in the past 20 million years.

Geological time having the scale that it does, the next eruption could happen tomorrow afternoon, or it could wait until the Year 5,000. It could be twice as big as the last big one, or it could be a mere burp. Either way, the place bears close watching.

--p!