Set to blow? Supervolcano Campi Flegrei reawakening near Naples, could hit 500,000 people

The last eruption of the supervolcano took place back in 1538, but was much smaller in scale. The blast did, however, create a new hill – Monte Nuovo.

Since 2005 scientists have been detecting an increase of low-level activity and heating, as well as ground and magma deformation in the area. In 2012 the status of the volcano was changed from ‘green’ (quiet) to ‘yellow’ (scientific attention).

"These areas can give rise to the only eruptions that can have global catastrophic effects comparable to major meteorite impacts," Giuseppe De Natale, head of a project to monitor the volcano, told Reuters back in 2012.

Set to blow? Supervolcano Campi Flegrei reawakening near Naples, could hit 500,000 people

This is news because of a recent study:

Here we use the results of physical and volatile saturation models to demonstrate that magmatic volatiles released by decompressing magmas at a critical degassing pressure (CDP) can drive volcanic unrest towards a critical state. We show that, at the CDP, the abrupt and voluminous release of H2O-rich magmatic gases can heat hydrothermal fluids and rocks, triggering an accelerating deformation that can ultimately culminate in rock failure and eruption. We propose that magma could be approaching the CDP at Campi Flegrei, a volcano in the metropolitan area of Naples, one of the most densely inhabited areas in the world, and where accelerating deformation and heating are currently being observed.

www.nature.com...

No, not good. Not good at all. A large eruption from Flegrei would make Vesuvius look like a walk in the park. Flegrei is one of the few active supervolcanoes on the planet. A caldera forming eruption (CFE) would be catastrophic not only for Italy, but it could potentially affect the whole world.

At Yellowstone we see swarms sometimes, and some light ground deformation that comes and goes. But we've never seen the critical degassing signs there that Flegrei has been giving off in the last years. i don't worry much about supervolcanoes, but this has me extremely concerned. These are scientists saying that the magma degassing is reaching the critical point that could tip the scales.

And if it tips, the only question remains: How much eruptible magma is in there?

Damn, I was expecting a very cold winter. I just wasn't prepared for a "nuclear" winter. If this blows big, and it could seeing as the last one was smaller, we could be looking at darkness, crop failures, ash everywhere, noxious gases circulating the planet, and worse. All we can do is hope like hell it dies down and goes back to sleep.

It's the end of the World

And I feel fine.

It's the end of the World

And I feel fine.

"It’s not clear exactly if or when the volcano will erupt, according to Chiodini, but if it does, it “would be very dangerous” for the local population."

Those damn preppers are looking smarter and smarter, huh? I won't worry for another 500 years. After all, a mere 100 years ago Earth was reported to be 1.6 billion years old, and in less than 75 years, scientists changed it to 4.6 billion years old. Maybe in 75 years scientists will decide Campi Flegrei has 500,000 years before it erupts.

a reply to: ScreamingNinjas

Well I'm not fine I've only had 6beers so the volcano gonna have to wait,I got an earthquake coming

TrueAmerican:

All we can do is hope like hell it dies down and goes back to sleep.

I am sure you realise that that scenario is not likely to happen. Magma activity has been pushing upwards towards the surface through cracks in the crust, melting the bedrock above it as it goes, widening the crack further, allowing the pressure below to continue pushing upward, until we have reached the situation that gases are being pumped out of the rock at the surface, and behind the gases magma follows.

The only way your scenario could occur (to my mind at least) is for the bottom layers of the crust fall down into the magma and open up a tangential chamber into which the magma can flow and lower the pressure pushing upwards. This hypothetical chamber will, of course, fill up in time, and pressure will build again. So, unfortunately, it is going to erupt at some point in time. It isn't a matter of 'if', but 'when'?

You are quite right that if this caldera erupts (the whole of Naples bay is the caldera) it could be potentially quite disastrous for Europe, and the northern hemisphere in general. it is certainly something to keep an eye on. Perhaps this might be the traditional Christmas time natural catastrophe?

So just how big are the magma chambers below this beast? No one knows for sure, but they have done extensive modeling efforts in an attempt to further understand the system:

Magma chamber of the Campi Flegrei supervolcano at the time of eruption of the Campanian Ignimbrite

Paola Marianelli1, Alessandro Sbrana1 and Monica Proto1

1Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Pisa, via Santa Maria 53, 56126 Pisa, Italy

Abstract

A supereruption that occurred in the Campi Flegrei area, Italy, ca. 39 ka had regional- and global-scale environmental impacts and deposited the Campanian Ignimbrite (CI). We attempt to shed light on critical aspects of the eruption (depth of magma chamber, intensive pre-eruptive magma conditions) and the large-volume magma plumbing system on the basis of information derived from analyzing melt inclusion (MI) data. To achieve these aims, we provide new measurements of homogenization temperatures and values of dissolved H2O within phenocryst-hosted MIs from pumices erupted during different phases of the CI eruption. The MI data indicate that a relatively homogeneous overheated trachytic magma resided within a relatively deep magma chamber. Dissolved water contents in MIs indicate that prior to the eruption the magma chamber underwent radical changes related to differential upward movement of magma. Decompression of the rising trachytic magma caused a decrease in water solubility and crystallization, and trachytic bodies were emplaced at very shallow depths. The proposed eruptive model links portions of the main magma chamber and apophyses with specific eruptive units.

geology.gsapubs.org...

and:

As discussed earlier, magma chambers volumes are best constrained by caldera-related
extrusive volumes. It should be safe to assume that the magma chambers are of a larger volume
than their caldera-related extrusions, but by how much remains unknown.

www.lanl.gov...

A total blowout, big, would be almost on the order of a large Yellowstone eruption, or about 2000 cubic km. A supervolcano is defined as one that erupts more than 1000 cubic km of magma/ash/pumice.

a reply to: TrueAmerican

You know, this gives me a bit of a chill.

I've read and heard about increased volcanic activity correlating with solar minimums. This particular volcano is one hell of a candidate for a really bad scenario where it erupts, increases the albedo effect, and really pushes us into a scary situation of global cold and famine.

Let's hope not. Wouldn't want to go down the "year without a summer" history lesson.

a reply to: TrueAmerican

Al Gore and DiCaprio better get over there and carbon tax the damn thing before it spews forth a centuries worth of greenhouse gasses. In the meantime this will all be blamed on 'climate change'.

Yeah well, just keep in mind that I cannot monitor this thing the way I do Yellowstone for us. Yellowstone breathes the wrong way, and I know about it, because I have access to live seismic data feeds. At Flegrei, I don't. So if it goes into harmonic tremor in the middle of the night sometime, we're screwed.

Jesus. You better believe I am trying to get access to live data feeds, and the more I look, the worse this is getting:

In Campi Flegrei area the analysis with array methods of data recorded by ARF array permitted the discovery of low amplitude volcanic tremor of hydrothermal origin occurred in January 2015, a seismic signal never observed before in the area.

They've already detected low level tremor, last year. Holy crap. If that happened at Yellowstone, there would be mayhem. I will report back if I manage to get access to live data, but I seriously doubt I will. Keep your fingers crossed for me, folks.

a reply to: TrueAmerican

Wonderful, True. Great back stories and of course F&S.
Well, maybe not wonderful. But I have enough heads-up
before Saturday to launder the sackcloth one more time.
It looks like the ashes will be forthcoming from wherever soon.

So after a bit of checking, this is the best I can do for now, which is a real time webicorder plot of seismicity at one station, STH, which is sitting right in the middle of the caldera. For those that want to keep an eye on this and help me out, bookmark this link:

station STH.

Of course you all know I want the real time raw data feed so I can run spectro on it, like I do at Yellowstone. Spectro tells immediately what the heck is going on, including if any tremor, and lets me know immediately what is seismicity and what is not. But I just don't think that is available. Not to us lowly public, that is. But I will keep trying.

a reply to: TrueAmerican

I saw this posted yesterday but no one seemed to pay it much attention. As soon as I saw you made a thread on it, I got worried. How imminent are we talking?

a reply to: tigertatzen

Well all I know is I've never been a prepper, not even in the worst Yellowstone swarms. And I've been at this over ten years hardcore. But I am seriously thinking about it now. Why? Because when all the precursors are there, including the seismic, deformation, and most especially the gas emissions, and now TREMOR detected ( that was a year ago)... I mean Jesus. this thing could be serious. What worries me the most is what I know from studying how fast these things can happen. The actual eruption can literally blindside them (and us). And yet there all those poor souls sit, living literally within and around this massive beast. They are all going to die if the actual eruption takes them by surprise. And it well might. This is not your typical stratovolcano that usually announces it's coming.

thank you....only proofed that ATS is focused to certain posters
loll no hard feelings...:-)) TA is much moore expert than I...
only pleased that the Campi is now taking serious...!
go on TA
a reply to: tigertatzen

a reply to: TrueAmerican

Jesus. I know people who have family there. They live pretty much inside the caldera. Why is no one warning people about this in the media or anything? You're comparing this to Yellowstone, and the whole world is afraid of that sucker blowing...this should scare them even more.

I got chills everywhere when I saw you had typed about the tremor earlier. They haven't gone away. I read some terrifying information last year about the global impact, should a supervolcano like Yellowstone ever erupt. How many people out there do you think have even considered the possibility, much less the aftermath of something like this? I'm thinking not enough.

The thread earlier downplayed this quite a bit. They were talking about 5-10 years down the road, I think. Why would they not admit the actual scope of the danger? This is very disturbing. There are millions of people living there, right? Millions.

originally posted by: ressiv
thank you....only proofed that ATS is focused to certain posters
loll no hard feelings...:-)) TA is much moore expert than I...
only pleased that the Campi is now taking serious...!
go on TA
a reply to: tigertatzen

It was you! I was trying to find the thread to link here. I'm sorry people weren't paying attention. I was. I wouldn't have checked this forum again, had it not been for your thread catching my notice earlier. Thank you!

a reply to: tigertatzen

After reading the link I posted in its entirety, I think the residents of the caldera region would be the lucky ones.

It looks like humanity is never prepared enough for these types of environmental catastrophes when they occur.

If it did wait five to ten years, that would put it smack dab in the middle of the grand solar minimum. The havoc it would wreak would be biblical.

big differance with other known supervolcanos.is that the campi is partly submerged in seawater....
I suspect that the bay of Napels is the old caldera of the big eruption approx 40.000 years ago...
(turning the Sahara into an dessert.....)