Kilauea Eruption 12/23/24

[MyManao]

I'm not sure I understand the premise here.

I don’t know what to tell you Tom. I don't find any published material that includes a discussion, with examples, of the diurnal as recorded by the tilt network here.. For me it’s just common knowledge.. stuff discussed around the dinner table.. it’s baked in ever since we first got continuous tilt.. around 1990.. it’s been a part of what we see and talk about. Instead all the published material, at least what I find on the freely available side, use tilt to describe events rather than go into the nuances of the tilt’s background noise itself. But hey, if you happen to run into anyone else that looks at all that regularly ask them what they think.

I have already pointed out that it's easy to average out the long term on Mauna Loa’s summit record in that it’s flat.. the only real change we see is the diurnal itself. I am only playing with the difference here at Kilauea where we see the diurnal superimposed on the inflation and what it might mean to the overall rate of change being recorded if we subtract those daily steps and make the otherwise average rate of change the same throughout the time being recorded. 

But hey, if you have another interpretation..

As to whether this all could mean there's a corresponding increase in the influx of magma, verses those steps are purely atmospheric, that’s getting down in the weeds. Is the expansion of the rock asymmetrical and as such is it somehow creating a larger void space below it that is hydraulically responded to? Or, is the pressure of the rock’s expansion down as much as it is up? I lean more to the later, and as such speak in terms of chopping off the steps, subtracting them from the total, rather than taking the overall rate of change at face value.

[TomK]

My problem is understanding what diurnal temperatures have to do with the magma deep underground. Daily temperature variations only go a few meters deep in rocks, which are so small compared to magma's temperature. A few degrees of temperature change are insignificant compared to the magma, and the recent eruptions are not correlated with atmospheric temperature. So, your hypothesis doesn't seem to stand up to initial scrutiny, even though I don't know what it is. If there's something I missed, let me know.

[MyManao]

My problem is understanding what diurnal temperatures have to do with the magma deep underground.

In other words you are not comprehending what's being said..

We're talking about a meter's readings. Not magma.. other than tangentially.. and the meter is in a bore hole 3 - 4 meters underground, in rock that is effected by the daily heating and cooling cycles of the atmosphere. A meter that measures the tilt of the ground it is in and from which changes in magma volume are inferred by the tilt signal recorded. As such the atmospheric influences are seen, sometimes, in the record of the tilt as noise. We're talking about the noise..

[TomK]

We're talking about the noise..

Well, OK. If you are relying on noise, I see no reason for you to make claims about anything that relies on that instrument. What else do you have to back up your hypothesis if it's noisy and can't be trusted? And to be clear, I'm still not sure what your hypothesis is.

[kalianna]

Thanks for your clear explanation My Manao.

[TomK]

Thanks for your clear explanation My Manao.

Just asking for clarification, but what clear explanation are you referring to?

[Durian Fiend]

The two fountains were quite high this AM, tall enough to be visible from the Kilauea Iki parking lot.

I was just there for a run in the rain, didn't make the trek to Devastation parking lot, etc.

[MyManao]

Just asking for clarification..

Ok, I've been hosed with the demands of my 'day job' the last so long and am sorry for the delay in responding.. but here I'll give it one more try..

We have a machine, we call it a tilt meter, that records tilt (just like a carpenter’s level does) at the point it is deployed. Tilt meters as they are used in Hawaii by HVO are explained here..

https://www.usgs.gov/programs/VHP/tiltme...-volcanoes

It is a simple matter of recording a point, a “bubble” as explained in the referenced article, and then plotting its changes on a graph. The machine itself has no contact with, and in no way is directly tied to, the magma that is assumed to be the driving force of the larger ground changes being seen, recorded, by the meter. Just as we place tilt meters where they can record ground tilt they can be installed on any structure, for instance they are installed in dams to record the deformation caused by the force of the water being held back by the structure, as explained here..

https://jewellinstruments.com/wp-content...meters.pdf

In Hawaii we employ tilt meters to record ground motion, often called deformation, that is associated with magmatic processes adjacent to the deployed instrument. I say adjacent to because if an instrument were placed directly above a source and all that happened was the ground moved vertically then there would be no tilt to record. Though you will note there is also a network of GPS stations which don’t have the same limitations as a tilt meter.

So we have an instrument, a meter, in an environment that is both deep enough in the ground to get a clean reading of its motion without being overwhelmed by interference, noise, from the surface, and yet is not deep enough to avoid being influenced by the heating and cooling of the surrounding rock due to atmospheric changes. And, I am talking about, pointing out, the effects of the atmosphere, as recorded by the tilt meter, and seen superimposed over the larger changes being driven by the magmatic processes when plotted, as is the case in the HVO sourced graphics I have included in my earlier posts.

If that does not get through, as I said, if you’re really interested maybe find someone in your own personal hui that knows this kind of stuff to explain it to you. Isn’t there still a TO or two up there that are alumni of HVO?

Btw.. anyone having followed my posts here over the years knows that I often, regularly, cite the tilt as my source of whatever I am going on about. In fact, the day in 2018 when during a storm that would not let up for three days to come so as to let us in and able to see what happened, when the magma column under Puu Oo collapsed (which lead to the onset of the Leilani eruption) I said as much right here on PW. Tilt meters are cool. And omg are they sensitive.. and the digital ones employed now are fantastic. Online all the time streaming, as kalianna pointed out, the life’s rhythms of Mother Nature. To me, this is one of the most enriching parts of life..
 
As to that noise.. there’s all kinds. The steady daily heating and cooling which I am sure is a big concern to the astronomy community as well as just a passing fancy here in this discussion. And, please, do not confuse my use of the term noise to say it degrades the data, it's just a part of it. The nuances that are so important to know to understand what's actually being 'seen'. 

And then there’s the random events like waves crashing against the shore of the island that create their own wave forms. More noise. I assume you see them with your telescopes. Are you now able to digitally identify them and cancel them out of your final products like you do the more predictable twinkling of starlight? Btw, years ago, a whole lot of years ago, I did a bunch of remodeling in the basement of the CFHT for the very purpose of limiting how much of that kind of “noise" got to the inner ring of their foundation.

Simple stuff.. definitely not rocket science.

And, since you mention in your model the magma is deep within the volcano, keep in mind that during pauses in the surface eruptions the magma comes to within feet of the surface, and is technically erupting, and the surrounding rock can itself be effected by the daily changes in the atmosphere. More on the way HVO thinks of this eruption can be read in this recent Volcano Watch..

https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/n...ay-beneath

[TomK]

So, let's get this right. Are you suggesting that the USGS instruments buried a few feet underground are immune to diurnal temperature cycles, but the same cycles may increase magma flow much deeper underground? In addition, what is the correlation between diurnal cycles and the current eruptions?

And no, the telescopes on Mauna Kea do not detect waves crashing on the shore.

[MyManao]

So, let's get this right. Are you suggesting that the USGS instruments buried a few feet underground are immune to diurnal temperature cycles..

Ok, Tom, to recap..

I wrote..

does that change in tilt that happens because of the heating and cooling of the atmosphere

And wrote again..

the meter is in a bore hole 3 - 4 meters underground, in rock that is effected by the daily heating and cooling cycles of the atmosphere

And again..

So we have an instrument, a meter, in an environment that is both deep enough in the ground to get a clean reading of its motion without being overwhelmed by interference, noise, from the surface, and yet is not deep enough to avoid being influenced by the heating and cooling of the surrounding rock due to atmospheric changes.

And still after all that you came back with..

You are suggesting that the USGS instruments buried a few feet underground are immune to diurnal temperature cycles

If I say something and you say I said the opposite of what I said.. never shall the two mean the same thing no matter how hard you try.. round hole square peg and all that. And science, you know, impartial observation, which you seem incapable of making, be damned.

As to the ‘noise’ the waves make.. when I was remodeling the basement of the CFHT, and keep in mind this is a long time ago, Gus’ brother still worked at HVO so there might have been some technical help from that quarter, but regardless, I was shown studies of seismic events being recorded.. some were predictable.. vibration of a pump or some such machinery elsewhere in the building, and then some were random and eventually it was figured out that a good bunch of the random vibrations came and went with the wave sets that broke against the islands. Back then the effort was to isolate the inner pad of the foundation that the scope sits on from vibrations coming from and through the outer ring that the dome and the rest of the facility’s infrastructure sits on. But the resolution, the amplitude, of the ‘noise’ they were trying to identify and stop was at the same level as the noise from the coastline.

But hey, don't worry your little head about it. Obviously all this is outside your wheelhouse. Beyond the scope of your comprehension. And still, no matter, all’s to the good.