The Earth Story

Volcanoes of Ice Instead of Fire

We typically associate volcanoes with fire, but in winter some temporary ice volcanoes appear in certain areas, such as the Great Lakes of North America.

Ice volcanoes can form when an ice shelf develops on a large water body. As the ice shelf builds, waves push floating ice against the shelf as they crash into it, piling ice and snow into a cone. Waves also formcracks in the ice as they travel under the shelf. Waves then force water up through the cracks and into the growing cones, which can be as much as 10 meters high. Initially these ice volcanoes will be right at the edge of the ice shelf but as the shelf continues to expand, the volcanoes get cut off from the water. Even so, if waves are high enough, these volcanoes may continue to erupt and grow as waves push under the ice shelf and the water finds the volcano as an outlet, similar to Kiama blowhole previously coveredhttp://on.fb.me/161dYcj.

Ice volcanoes can be very unstable and the ice around them may be thin, so it is best to observe them from a distance rather than risk falling into icy water.

See an ice volcanoes erupt in this YouTube video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-DlX_DR93WQ

Image credit: Jack Pal https://www.flickr.com/people/49054780@N02/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/49054780@N02/5151896399

Read more: http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/ice/ http://www.wpr.org/ice-volcanoes-are-popping-shores-great-lakes http://www.weather.com/science/nature/news/great-lakes-oddity-ice-volcanoes-20140301

saraartuso Go in the blow hole they said... it'll be fun they said...🐳🏝

Kiama blowhole

Standing close to Kiama blowhole when it bursts out a huge fountain of seawater to a height of 25m can almost sound like a volcano erupting. You do not want to stand very close to it (supposedly a whole family was once washed away by standing to close to it) Kiama blowhole is located along the coast of New South Wales in Australia and is also known as the Big Blowhole, mainly due to the fact that there is a ‘Little Blowhole’ a few minutes away. The indigenous population knew the place as Khanterintee. Kiama is believed to be the biggest blowhole in the world.

Blowholes are formed when sea caves grow land inwards vertically and eventually expose themselves to the surface. When the sea reaches the sea cave in the right conditions (usually a turbulent and swelled sea) the water is pushed upwards and rushes out of the opening up into the air. Thus, again, you do not want to get to close to the sea cave with the danger you might get pulled in and come out through the blowhole. In case of Kiama the wind has to come from the southeast to enter the mouth of the cave and compress the air within the cave. Little Blowhole bursts out its water when winds come from the north.

-OW-

Image: Courtesy of Celcom. Kiama blowhole spraying water.

References: http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/kiama-blowhole http://www.kiama.com.au/blowhole

Hummanaya Blowhole, Sri Lanka

Wow, check out the blowback from this wave - Devil’s Tear, Indonesia

Rainbows in the mist from whales, off Laguna Beach, California - @erubes1

Humpback season off the Hawaiian Islands

Awesome views including that waterfall and a great blowhole, with some questionable editing, Kauai

SPOUTING HORN—KAUAI, HAWAII

The waves crash against the rocky shore. A roar erupts as the water explodes like a volcanic blast out of a hole punched into the coastline. What you are witnessing is Spouting Horn blowhole, which is a powerful, beautiful, and loud feature on the Kauai coast that attracts many spectators annually.

Spouting Horn can be found at Lawai Beach in the southern portion of the island. It is the remnant of volcanic activity that occurred between 500,000 and 3.6 million years ago that helped to form the Hawaiian island chain. Spouting Horn is part of a lava tube, which forms when lava solidifies around its edges due to cooling from the atmosphere. This newly-formed wall of solid rock allows molten liquid lava to flow through its center; the walls act as insulators, so the lava inside can stay hot for a long time. Eventually, the lava inside flows outward and drains when the eruption stops, leaving a cave behind. The mouth of the Spouting Horn cave is on the shore.

When waves hit the shore, water enters the sea-level mouth of the lava tube, compresses air in the tube, and shoots water upward through a hole in the rocky shore. A roaring sound that is said to sound like breathing or hissing is generated from the pressurized air leaving the tube through cracks in the rock as the water moves through the cave. Ancient Hawaiians believed that a lizard goddess named Kaikapu made the sound. Kaikapu was vicious and would dine on those who fished or swam along the beach. The goddess was trapped by a boy named Liko in the lava tube when he lured her into the cave and stabbed her with a sharp stick. She is said to be hissing and roaring in anger from inside the cave, and the water spewing from the hole is her breath.

The hole that the water shoots through was probably caused by weathering and erosion from the sea waves when the water level was higher in the past. If the waves are strong and high, the intensity of the spray is larger and louder. Sometimes, the spray has reportedly reached 18 meters (60 feet).

-Jeanne K.

I took this photo of Spouting Horn in July 2011. I hope you enjoy it!

References: http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2002-04/how-did-spouting-horn-kauai-come-exist

http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2012/10/spouting-horn-on-kauai-hawaii.html

http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/LavaTubes/description_lava_tubes.html

http://www.kauai-hawaii.com/destinations.php?51

http://www.gohawaii.com/kauai/regions-neighborhoods/south-shore/spouting-horn

For more information on lava tubes on the Hawaiian Islands, please see: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=504141972980185&set=a.352867368107647.80532.352857924775258&type=3&theater

 I believe the message in this video is to hold tightly onto your phone or camera while filming near a blowhole on a day with high waves.

This counts as incredible timing. Videographer on a boat off the coast of Iceland is visited by a blue whale and captures the encounter on camera. My word that thing is enormous, look at its size compared to the waves! Also...note how blue the water is while we’re at it.

Atalanta, pulsing... Blowholes happen when the power of the waves smashing and booming in a cliff cave (erode a pathway to the surface and shoot up a jet of water with each passing wave. In this slow motion movie, taken at the Bufadero de la Garita on Gran Canaria the usual lightning speed is transformed into a dance of water, air and power. The cave is a lava tube, formed when a crust of magma froze at the surface of the flow, allowing the liquid rock underneath to flow in its own homemade 'river channel' towards the Atlantic Ocean. Loz Image credit: Simone Mainetti Simone's facebook page: http://bit.ly/1sliCxj http://bit.ly/1TRKDFg http://bit.ly/1T81bdl

Wait for it....