This is a distressing story. From Iceage Now:
https://www.iceagenow.info/japan-underwater-supervolcano-stirring-life/
Bold by me.
Japan – Underwater supervolcano stirring to life
February 15, 2018 by RobertA giant lava bubble is expanding at Kikai volcano, a supervolcano just 31 miles south of Japan’s main island of Kyushu.
More than 31 cubic kilometers (7.4 cubic miles) of lava have shoved the seabed up around 2,000 feet, creating a giant dome with a diameter of about six miles.
The rising dome, with its peak is now less than 100 feet (30 m) below the ocean’s surface, is estimated to contain a much more immense volume of lava than the Yellowstone or Long Valley calderas.
The area also contains active hydrothermal springs and dense streams of gas bubbling up from the sea bed.
“The most serious problem that we are worrying about is not an eruption of this lava dome, but the occurrence of the next supereruption,” said Yoshiyuki Tatsumi a volcanologist at Kobe University in Japan and lead author of the new study published in Nature Scientific Reports.
Dr. Tatsumi thinks the chances of a supereruption in the within the next 100 years are only about 1 percent. But when that eruption comes, it could eject nearly 10 cubic miles of magma (not ash, but magma!), enough to cover almost all of Japan in ash nearly eight inches thick, he found.
Researchers say such an eruption could kill some 100 million people who live within its fallout zone, which includes the cities of Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Osaka.
Such an eruption would also have a serious effect on global climate. Temperatures would plunge and crops would fail.
There’s more, so hit the link.
The question, of course, is will this erupt just a little, as such calderas sometimes do, or blow the whole lot.
Musings from the Chiefio 
A few weeks ago I glanced over a few recent scientific articles that linked cosmic rays to silica magma based volcanic eruptions. Their claim was that cosmic rays interacted with the silica causing increased pressure which could explain why the biggest eruptions take place during grand solar minimum conditions. I will dig up these reports and link them here. Other wide spread news from MSM claimed that Yellow Stone Volcano was under “extreme pressure” threatning the entire wheatbelt. Just google it. For now I provide you with a video with an interview with John Casey who claims that the Eddy Minimum will cause a repeat of the mega quake in the New Madrid Fault Line destroying cities and infrastructure.https://youtu.be/QxGBoTLzrOk
Nice video with lots of great shots of recent weather phenomena, ocean retreat from ports and beeches, the next earth magnetic reversal and more.
Explosive volcanic eruptions triggered by cosmic rays….?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234022172_Explosive_volcanic_eruptions_triggered_by_cosmic_rays_Volcano_as_a_bubble_chamber
Also have a look at the links published under each youtube video from Oppenheimer Ranch Project. The guy posts a new video every day providing you with an almost 350 degree view of what is going on in the world, great graps and scientific reports. Adapt 2030 is another youtube channel covering similar subjects.
By the way, It looks like the latest quakes that toppled entire buildings in Taiwan can be subscribed to another complex of sea volcano’s close to the coast of Taiwan. In Indonesia yesterday an active sea volcano surfaced creating an new island. The ring of fire wasn’t called ring of fire for nothing.
Same Japanese volcano, different information?: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21066-w#Fig1
Kadovar Island Borneo, eruption breaches ocean surface: https://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/350414/lava-build-up-from-kadovar-volcano-emerges-from-sea
I found this line particularly interesting:
” We also speculate that the snowball Earth event was triggered by successive large-scale volcanic eruptions triggered by increased cosmic-ray flux due to nearby supernova explosions. “
While there is no hard evidence of the supernovas, it is good to see that real science continues to question how things happen.
Caldera outbreak in Kyushu. Worst offender is Aso, with 4 caldera forming eruptions in the last 300,000 years. 5 others in the last 300,000 years with Kikai being the second most recent. Dome forming and inflation are not uncommon following a caldera-forming eruption. If you were to be worried about anything in Japan, Iwo Jima ought to be much higher on the list, as it is inflating too. Cheers –
Click to access calderas_location.pdf
Don’t forget that recent Oh-Oh discovery that the rate of isotopic decay is not a constant but seems to vary with the solar cycle. Forget which way it went, but nothing like having the U and Th in the core change rate to oscillate your magma…
Given all the demonstrated correlation, I’m pretty certain we will be seeing a return to the 1800s style “smoking islands” all over the place.
NASA had some data on the variable rate of beta decay. There are some ideas as to why at http://arxivblog.com/?p=596, with some further links. “In 2006, Jenkins says the decay rate of manganese-54 in their lab decreased dramtically during a solar flare on 13 December.” (sic)
Ron Hammack’s work on the variability of both alpha and beta decay when the samples were subjected to high static voltages seems to have disappeared from the net, though I have got copies of a lot of it, and there have also been several patents raised for such rate-changing ideas to get nuclear power without the large (and expensive) containment normally needed. Since such devices aren’t in use, though, and I haven’t run experiments myself on such rate-changing ideas, I regard it as interesting hearsay worth more work at some point. There was also the report that Xenon became radioactive when ionised to +35, spontaneously fissioning.
It seems reasonable that the orbiting electrons will produce a barrier to the nucleus emitting electrons, and that an imbalance between the electrons and protons in an atom will have some effect on nuclear decay. There’s not yet a lot of proof on this, though, since we were taught that electronic changes (thus also chemical changes) can’t affect the nucleus, so it’s a bit heretical.
Meantime, we also know that the polarity and strength of the solar wind varies throughout the year, and that the capacitance of the Earth is around 711µF. Although we think of “earth ground” as being constant, it therefore probably isn’t very constant at all but will vary throughout the year, and that thus the ratio of electrons and protons on the Earth will vary periodically and also when we get hit by a CME or other solar effects. Varying the electron/proton ratio of the Earth would thus change the barrier to nuclear decay. With QM tunnelling being an exponential function, then a small change in the actual barrier height can produce a larger change in the probability of the tunnelling happening. Maybe also neutrino flux from the Sun varies and this may have an effect as well.
It thus seems pretty likely that there is some variability of nuclear decay rate that is dependent in the Sun’s relative distance and activity. Since the temperature of the Earth internally is maintained by nuclear decay, then such a variability in decay rate would vary also the amount of heat generated and thus also vary the volcanic activity. More heat in the mantle would seem also like it ought to have an effect on both tectonic plate movement rate and subduction rate. Given that the solar radiation on the Earth doesn’t actually heat it but instead reduces the rate of heat loss (a Chiefio blog post several years ago) then increased temperature generation in the Earth (from nuclear decay) should give both an overall rise in temperature and an increased CO2 level (as well as more volcanic activity, of course). Of course, this would depend on the Sun rather than what humans are doing.
A comment may have disappeared to spam. If it’s just disappeared I’ll try to recreate it – this time I didn’t edit offline and copy/paste.
@ Simon Derricutt – I seem to remember some early studies on the variability of radioactive decay for ? tritium, radium – the isotope escapes me now. I’ve also scoured the internet looking for that ariticle – IIRC is was from the ’50s.
I have a vague memory of this being discussed in my physical chemistry classes in the 70s. Drilled into us was that dating things using decay products were *estimates* with *inherent errors* such that we were never to say “The Earth was 4.5 billion years old” but say “We estimate that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old +/- 1 billion years due to how we think the Earth formed and how we think chemical processes fractionate as solid solutions and/or crystals with respect to U/Pb concentrations”, with the emphasis on *estimate*.
I’m not too worried about this.
On average every few thousands to tens of thousands of years the Earth experiences a super-eruption that destroys a lot of things. The eruption of Campi Fliegri that destroyed Europe 40000 years ago, buried much of Europe in so much toxic ash that plants couldn’t grow again for 100 years. That eruption obliterated the Neanderthals to the point where the few remaining couldn’t recover their population.
Over the lifespan of the Earth there have been thousands of such events, yet life recovered and thrived again. Odds are we’ll destroy ourselves or reduce ourselves back to the stone age before the next super-eruption happens. In the meantime, all the volcanoes will bubble and burp and threaten but won’t reach the point of an earth-altering calamity.
@Chris:
Except Campi Fliegri is likely why Neanderthals are extinct and with me living near one of them, I’d rather not ignore the issues when one is acting up. I’d rather learn how to predict when somethinhg is about to happen…
So you know in which direction to run for a great escape? LOL
Jim2 – I don’t remember any reports about Tritium or Radium. AFAIK it’s only in the last decade or so that the variability of radioactive decay has really started to become noticed and has started to emerge from “crackpot idea” to “maybe there really is some variation”. Since it is after all a random process then measurement of variability is a little difficult, and it’s hard to be sure that the methods of measurement aren’t also varying subtly. Still, there are disagreements on the actual rates of decay from different experimental sets and it does seem pretty likely that the rate is not as constant as we thought. To get good data, we need carefully-controlled experiments that last several years, so it’s not cheap to get the basic data and needs people who are chasing a hunch.
Still, as a possible explanation for global temperature changes, it seems it may be useful. Because of the mass of the Earth it would seem there’d be quite a lag between changes in nuclear activity and the change in volcanic activity and surface temperature. I’ve however no idea as to how we could work out what the previous solar activity was and what its effect was. As a hypothesis, it’s not really falsifiable, so it’s just a potential explanation.
@R. de Haan:
Mostly so I can look at the ash maps and figure out how far way to be so I CAN “run away”. AND when to start the running.
So in California, I’m likely OK and west is water, so not a lot of help. Maps show South not good in historic ash falls, so my “bug out” would be a nice coastal week vacation with family to some camp grounds I know of with good fishing on the Oregon coast. That’s survivable even in a Volcanic Winter.
Alternatively, in a year or two, when in Florida, I’d head down to a nice key I know of near Miami. Also very survivable. IF things started to look probable, instead of marginal, a nice ocean going sport fishing boat (bought “on credit” ‘ 8-) would be a great solution for heading further south and getting food from the sea.
Somebody is going to survive these things, might as well be me and mine…