Day: August 25, 2011

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Earthquakes in Öræfajökull volcano

I do not have a time for long blog post about this at the moment. But here is a short overview of earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano.

Since the year 1991 there have been total of three earthquake swarms (with the one in last week) in Öræfajökull volcano. The two earthquake swarms where in the year December 2005 and in September 2008. Total of 70 or so earthquakes have taken place in this earthquake swarms. But only 30 or so earthquakes in the main crater of Öræfajökull volcano.


Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano between the year 1991 and to 2011. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.


Earthquakes inside the main crater of Öræfajökull volcano from the year 1991 to 2011. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

All pictures are from here.

Currently the earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano is quite low. So I am not expecting anything for a long, long time now. The reason why earthquakes are taking place might be new magma. But this also might be due the glacier and pressure changes on the rock because of that. But I find the later idea less likely then the first one. But it hard to know for sure at the moment what actually is the real case now.

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The importance of good science in geology (and other fields too)

I am not going to make this a long blog post.

I know that many of you find that I have been unfair when it comes to deal with certain ideas about geology and how it works. The truth however is that this was a lot more then just a idea, or a hypothesis. The claim was that “evidence” had been found for the claim to support. But from what I did see, no evidence where provided in support of the claim. To to be fair, it was sad that this idea might be wrong and wrong it was in my opinion.

This is what I call bad science. It is something that is not going to work and is never going to. The scientific method (wiki) is well established way of proofing claims and ideas.

For instance, all that I do in terms of geology and other fields of science fall all under this process. If I fail it is a important step, because it at least gave me a result to work with. When doing science, it is important to life with the fact not everything that is done is going to work up, or even get that far before it fails so spectacular that they did notice in the next lab over.

I do not dismiss everything that I read. But I am going to dismiss it if no evidence is provided with the claim in question. I my self is working on few ideas, that I have at least started from start up around 40 to 50 times on times. Just because it failed my test and did not fit the data that was observed.

This is how progress is made. With hard work and good scientific method. What is not progress is Pseudoscience (wiki) that in fact return nothing in the short and long term. I have for too long seen this happens on the internet and I am not going to let this happen to any of my blogs that deal with science topics (including this one here. It is a slow, slow blog).

Ideas are good and all that. Just tell the world if you have any data or not when you put your idea forward.

I also want to point out this two articles here. They are not science in them self. But they might explains one or two things about why I am strict on this matter and with the comments. But I want to keep this blog clean and good for all my readers.

5 Ways to Stop Trolls From Killing the Internet (Cracked.com)
Internet Argument Techniques (Cracked.com)

Thanks for the understanding.