Volcano Near Mexico City Becomes More Active 114
benfrog writes "Popocatépetl, a volcano that sits 34 miles east of Mexico City, has begun a series of small eruptions. It's feared that larger eruptions would not only endanger people within range of its explosions, but disrupt life in Mexico City with ash clouds. 'People in the village of Xalitzintla said they were awakened by a window-rattling series of eruptions. Mexico’s National Disaster Prevention Center said one string of eruptions ended in the early morning, then the volcano started up again at 5:05 a.m., with at least 12 eruptions in two hours.' More than 30 million people live within sight of the volcano."
Well (Score:4, Funny)
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You're right! With all the talk about carbon dioxide we've been ignoring the consequences of methane pollution.
Ash and Mexico City (Score:3)
disrupt life in Mexico City with ash clouds
The air quality of Mexico City is very dirty, so dirty that birds actually die while they were flying and fall down from the sky
And I read somewhere that an American diplomat once commented that the dust you see in Mexico City is mostly made up of dried manure
In light of this, a little bit volcano ash won't do much harm to Mexico City
Improvement in the last 20 years (Score:2)
Well... As a Mexican living in Mexico City, I beg to differ. And have some first-hand information.
Our air is not as clear and clean as it (c|sh)ould be, of course. But neither is the air of any ~20 million people city. Starting in 1989, very important programs to improve the air have been implemented. Some ideas –some bad, some good– were also scrapped in the process. The main points:
The most polluting industries have been moved farther away from the city (or relocated to other places in
Re:Ash and Mexico City (Score:4, Informative)
I wonder how many American cities you have been too. LA and Mexico City have the same issue, they are both built in a depression which traps the pollution, so they both have the same issue of a haze. New York however has very little in the way of air pollution, though I wouldn't want to swim in the rivers running through the city. :) Pollution issues in cities mostly has to do with geography, until we move from ICE, it is something we can't do too much about.
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until we move from ICE, it is something we can't do too much about.
That's not really true. Smog has been redued by emission controls in California. If you'd lived in LA in the1970s, you'd know there's a lot that can be done about Smog. http://thegoodhuman.com/2012/03/04/smog-in-los-angeles [thegoodhuman.com]. You couldn't see a mile back then...it was like living in a forest fire. Things can be done, but not with Republicans and climate change denying Teabaggers running things.
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Interestingly, Mexico doesn't have any emissions controls. Cars there aren't even sold with catalytic converters like cars here have been required to since the 70s. So if Mexico City has similar geography to LA, then Mexico City probably has pollution similar to LA in the 70s.
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Interestingly, Mexico doesn't have any emissions controls. Cars there aren't even sold with catalytic converters like cars here have been required to since the 70s. So if Mexico City has similar geography to LA, then Mexico City probably has pollution similar to LA in the 70s.
That's ridiculous. Yeah, for any "small government" idiots (that would include people who think they're libertarian, are too uneducated to even know what the term really means, right-wingers, tea-baggers, and people who think they're conservative, but also don't really know what that actually means) who may be reading this; This is what you get when there's no government regulation or a government with regulation, but no enforcement power. That's pretty much a scandal of state capitalism. Had a feeling
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Actually, it's worse: apparently, US taxpayers are paying to have these trucks fitted with catalytic converters:
http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2011/04/us-pays-to-put-catalytic-converters-on.html [blogspot.com]
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More than you, apparently:
http://azstarnet.com/news/blogs/senor-reporter/emissions-tests-required-in-mexico-but-not-catalytic-converters/article_330c6e04-1f92-11e1-a900-001871e3ce6c.html [azstarnet.com]
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/04/11/20110411arizona-mexico-truck-pollution-regulation.html [azcentral.com]
http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2011/04/us-pays-to-put-catalytic-converters-on.html [blogspot.com]
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Thats just pure bullshit. Not the manure you mention but the entire statement. Mexico city is no worse than any american city and compared to many it is as pure as spring water. Maybe you should actually visit a place before badmouthing it.
Yeah? Did you do this in Mexico City? http://thegoodhuman.com/2012/03/04/smog-in-los-angeles/ [thegoodhuman.com] I really don't think so. Mexico is fine and dandy, but I've seen what comes out of your tailpipes and it's unregulated, like any 3rd world country.
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Montezuma's Revenge.
See, this is why... (Score:1)
...we need to move away from volcano-generated electricity, and decommission all volcanos near population centers immediately.
Re:See, this is why... (Score:5, Funny)
But I can keep my volcano based supervillain lair, right?
Re:See, this is why... (Score:5, Funny)
...we need to move away from volcano-generated electricity, and decommission all volcanos near population centers immediately.
No no no. The problem is that we're using antiquated volcano design with inferior failsafes.
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Agreed. With a large enough containment field we could discharge the magma flow safely and carefully. Unfortunately, the technology to do this won't be invented for another 47 years.
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Not a heat issue, it's a pressure issue. The fluid rock in the mantle squezes up into magma cavities underneath under the volcanos.
Now, it's possible to have a solid rock cap on top of such a cavity, but that results in massive explosions of smoke and ash (see pictures of cone-type volcanos) rather than long flows of very fluid magma (see pictures of shield-type volcanos).
Granted, it's been a couple decades since I covered any of this in a geography class, so I could be wrong.
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It has been awhile. I think you mean geology, not geography...
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Nope. The class's name was geography. Once upon a time, they also taught some geology under those classes. That I remember.
Earthquake link? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/region/N_America.php [usgs.gov]
Shows 4.3 and 5.1 in Central America in the past day...
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Re:Earthquake link? (Score:5, Informative)
There are always magnitude 2 - 6 earthquakes around the Pacific Rim - that's why it's called the 'ring of fire'. So yes, it's related, but pretty much business as usual.
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A disclaimer: I don't believe it's plate tectonics.
(Or lizards.)
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Of course, we all know the eruption date (Score:5, Funny)
December 21
relax, 8 more months to go
Victory (Score:1)
Here's a hint (Score:4, Informative)
Go Google the location of the plates and fault lines, then look at earthquakes for the last 10 years and you will see a pattern.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ypalM7eSBEQ/SdzT_ajylVI/AAAAAAAAAbM/XNB1-z6lvKg/s1600-h/tectonic_map.jpg [blogspot.com]
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/byyear.php [usgs.gov]
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Jesus in a plate? Oh, Christ, it's already been done.
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Before or after the guacamole is consumed?
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Not really, I see a bunch of earthquakes in random locations along fault lines. Show me a map for the 10 years before that, and then ten years before that, etc... and then we'll talk. Until then, all you have is pseudo-scientific bullshit.
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A major volcanic eruption in Mexico City would be quite unfortunate, for more than just the obvious reasons. It could throw Mexico into turmoil and set the stage for an attempted coup. Mexico City is presently one of the few safe places left in the country from the criminal gangs (drug lords and their organizations) who are vying for power.
Check the surroundings first (Score:2)
I live in Mexico City. The Popocatepetl is a very well known and well studied volcano. And no, although it's 35Km away from the city's South Eastern outskirts, Mexico City is by far not at risk. The eruption –in case it happens– would most likely not be a violent one (i.e. as with St. Helen or with Chichonal). This volcano has been passively active for thousands of years. Volcanic activity did increase, yes, but it happens every few years — I'm not sure if it was in 2000 or 2004, but we ev
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By taking a random 10 year period and trying to "find a pattern", that's what he was doing.
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Need more virgins (Score:5, Funny)
Fast.
Slashdotters, be afraid.
Re:Need more virgins (Score:4, Insightful)
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What's the matter? You don't believe in LGBT volcano gods?
Or GOP senators?
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Wouldn't it be female volcano gods that you would sacrifice the male virgins to?
Or I guess gay volcano gods. But still, a volcano god that wants males is statistically more likely to be female than gay.
Says so right in my volcano god almanac.
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Wouldn't it be female volcano gods that you would sacrifice the male virgins to?
I'm trying not to get the Slashdot communities hopes up.
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Nah, we're quite safe. We all know that only female virgins are sacrificed.
As it turns out, not even a female virgin sacrifice is quite as effective as the right kind of adult:
A man who would come here of his own free will.
A man who has come here with the power of a king by representing the law.
A man who would come here as a virgin.
A man who has come here as a fool.
Well fellow Slashdotters, two or three out of four ain't bad!
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In other news, archaeologists have discovered an ancient Mayan textile depicting ritual sacrifice of "neckbeards" to placate the volcano god, Slashdopetl.
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Oh, wait (Score:1)
Absolutely... (Score:1)
...evacuate 30 million people. Plus all of Mexico City. Many of whom have limited resources.
Oh... maybe you're not as smart as you think you are.
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Let's assume your health is average. You can walk 2 miles per hour with just the clothes on your back. You might be able to do 20 miles of this on the first day. The 2nd day is blister day.
Now let's throw in the posessions you might need or don't want to leave, like your silver coin collection that would get looted if you left it behind. Let's add grandma and grandpa. Don't forget the kids.
Kiss your 2 miles per hour good-bye, even if you have a cart. Urban Mexicans probably don't have donkeys or carts
Wow... (Score:2)
I have less imagination for distressed, poor people than you do. The setting you pictured us would belong in my imagination to a post-earthquake Haiti — and quite probably I'm being too discriminatory anway. Yes, I live in Mexico City. A city known for people having to cross 40Km in 2hr to get to work (because there's so much people and so many cars that traffic is just so slow downtown).
We so far have had nothing we have not seen over and over for the last hundreds of years. It's not gratuitous that
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Well, you have one of the largest cities in the world, and its completely surrounded by mountains. Given the past history from the volcano, trying a mass evacuation on foot would probably kill more people than the likely number that would be killed by not evacuating (noting that you need to weight the number that would be killed in a more-signif
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What the heck is wrong with me all of a sudden?
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Under the Volcano (Score:2)
The important question (Score:2)
Rush is Right! (Score:2)
Fix the demand side of the equation, and the supply side will fix itself.
If we just listened to Rush Limbaugh and locked up drug addicts like Rush Limbaugh, we wouldn't have any damn Zeta drug gang problem!
errr wait, that would only clear up the big pharma drug gang problem, never mind...
The Mayans were Right!!! (Score:1)
Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
What kind of idiot builds a city next to a volcano?
N from Edinburgh
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Dunno. Ask people in Tacoma, Olympia or Vancouver, WA or Portland, OR.
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Dunno. Ask people in Tacoma, Olympia or Vancouver, WA or Portland, OR.
Ahh, hipsters. Got it.
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They had a good reason. See there was this bird on a cactus eating a snake.
Can't argue with that.
peyote's a helluva drug [wikipedia.org]
Re:Stupid (Score:4, Informative)
What kind of idiot builds a city next to a volcano?
For any of us that happen to live in the northwest US or the billion or so others who are near the Pacific ring of fire, we don't really have much choice. Here in Bend, we're only 30 miles from a bunch of old volcanoes--one of them, South Sister, is developing a bulge that grows about 1 inch a year--but if we moved the city farther away, we'd be out in the desert without our wonderful view of the Cascade Mountains and quick access to the ski resort and the dozens of lakes up there. Who would want that? I think it's a lot easier for someone from Scotland (I assume *that* Edinburgh) to avoid volcanoes in his native land, eh?
In any case, lack of proximity does not equal safety. When Mt St Helens erupted in 1980, I was in Spokane, at least a couple of hundred miles away from it, and we got blanketed in ash that made life more difficult for weeks. We didn't suffer from pyroclastic flows or anything, of course, but it's not recommended to breath volcanic ash for any length of time (had to wear masks forever).
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yep, 'cos volcanic ash is very abrasive. Not to mention thixotropic when wet. Stuff turns to very dense mud at the merest sniff of moisture.
Re:Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Woosh! Edinburgh castle is famously built on a volcanic crag. So the city is built on the remains of a volcano. Though one extinct for a few hundred million years.
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could be something to do with the unbelievably fertile soil that usually parks itself around the base of the cone?
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Phrased in the form of a question, you correctly answered today's first Daily Double.
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w00t!
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Why kind of idiot builds on flood plains?
What kind of idiot builds on the coast?
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According the tradition, after the Meshica (aztec) leave Aztlan, they wandered for two hundred years, seeking a signal sent by their god Huitzilopochtli: An eagle on the top of a Cactus. And finally they found it..
In the middle of a lake, in a small Island.!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CodexMendoza01.jpg [wikipedia.org]
So, they built a great artificial Island aroun
the popo (Score:3)
...never seems to leave mexicans alone.
lol (Score:2)
+1 I know, right...
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theory has it that without some major eruptions in recent prehistory the planet would be a large ball of ice. (source: BBC Horizon: Snowball Earth (2001)). Volcanoes emit huge quantities of, among other things, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. All major greenhouse gases.
Seems to be business as usual (Score:2)
Uncharacteristically the weather is great and visibility today is spectacular. Could that be an omen?
Mayas training (Score:1)
Beans, beans, (Score:1)
call me volcano man (Score:1)
Is there a caldera there? (Score:2)
Does anyone know, is there a caldera there? When I google it, I see that there was one formed 12k years ago, but if there was one today, then you'd want to watch for a supersonic outgassing, because if that happens, the city needs to evacuate ASAP.
With the outgassing, my understanding is that the pressure reduces to one that is insufficient to hold up the ceiling of the caldera, so you then get a collapse, and a mega-explosion, a la Santarini, Krakatoa, and other such megavolcanos.
Any live web cam (Score:1)