[Rockhounds] Earthquake Swarm Hits World’s Largest Volcano

Sun Apr 4 07:40:26 PDT 2021

Hi Doug,

Indeed! If you're photographing a weakly (almost wrote weekly 😉) fluorescent specimen and the exposure time is say 30 sec., a short lived tremor won't affect the photo. You need 30 sec. for the mineral to register. What IS registered as a blur during a 2 sec. tremor won't even be visible in the photo. 
When an observatory makes photos of faraway galaxies, they may need exposures that last for days. I don't think that a few seconds of mayhem will affect the shot much. Could become visible if there are bright foreground stars in the photo... those may come out blurry 😉 

Going ALL the way up Mauna Kea, beyond the visitors center, actually requires a 4X4 but I've seen tourists drive up there in nearly every conceivable vehicle. We were taken up by Bill Heacox who was astronomer at University of Hawaii at Hilo. One of the domes on Mauna Kea houses his "students telescope". 
We had an amazing experience while up there. We stayed until after dark to see the galaxy. (We already had a taste of the Pacific clear skies from about 800 m up the slopes of Mauna Loa... magnificent starry nights). So when it got REALLY dark, we saw the moon, Jupiter and one other star. No galaxy... no nothing! Very weird until Bill explained:
We were on an altitude where many people get sick from the height. I had no symptoms whatsoever but my friend was not well... He had to sit this one out in a folding chair and under a blanket. My wife had a serious migraine attack.
The problem is that you starve your brain of oxygen, at between 4.100 and 4.200 meters. The air pressure is so low that you are not to go up there if you have been scuba diving shortly before. You'd risk getting 'the bends', or Caisson disease if you did that!
Now, what happened is that our brains, being deprived of oxygen, couldn't fully function. The brain then has to 'prioritize', choose which functions are needed for survival and a sharp vision and lots of contrast between dark and light isn't one of them. That's why we didn't see many stars... Just the brightest, the moon and Jupiter and just the brightest few stars.
We drove some 1.300 meters down to the visitors center and there, low and behold, the Milky way showed itself in all its splendor. All you need is enough air 😉 That is a sight to see! 

Apart from that but comparable: I once suffered a serious internal bleeding, the day after undergoing surgery. From that I learned how the brain organizes a phased shutdown. First you lose vision sharpness, everything becomes somewhat blurred. You also lose the ability to think straight. Then you loose color vision: you start seeing in grey tones. I was watching a tennis tournament and I said to my wife "honey, our TV set is broken"... Then I realized that my wife had lost all color too, so I said "oops honey, are you broken too?" (see? No straight thinking!) Lastly, you start hearing a loud, high pitched ringing while your vision turns to only black and white, no more greys.  At that point you lose all peripheral vision, as if you're looking through the barrel of a shotgun. Then you go unconscious due to blood loss. Funny thing is: you fall on the ground, unconscious but as you lie down, the blood rushes back to your head and suddenly you're conscious again, complete with sharp vision and color vision. At that point: stay down and call for help. It's not a pleasant experience but rather an "interesting" series of sensations. 

Now don't try this at home, kids 😉

Cheers
Axel

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Rockhounds <rockhounds-bounces at rockhounds.drizzle.com> Namens Doug Bank
Verzonden: zondag 4 april 2021 6:15
Aan: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors <rockhounds at rockhounds.drizzle.com>
Onderwerp: Re: [Rockhounds] Earthquake Swarm Hits World’s Largest Volcano

Having only gone partway up that mountain, I think they probably would be more worried about wind than tremors. As a photographer, though, you certainly would prefer that everything is super steady. 

I do appreciate your point about a few seconds of vibration during a lengthly exposure. I kind of assume the same thing when I take a 30 second exposure of fluorescent rocks, but it can affect the sharpness of the image.

Doug

> On Apr 3, 2021, at 5:12 PM, Axel Emmermann <axel.emmermann at telenet.be> wrote:
> 
> If I was asked to design a telescope on a place like that, it would float on oil, and have tremor-proof  dampeners.
> I don't know how they actually did it but I think they probably have 
> that covered, Linda 😉
> 
> Cheers
> Axel
> 
> 
> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: Rockhounds <rockhounds-bounces at rockhounds.drizzle.com> Namens 
> linda at middleearthminerals.com
> Verzonden: zaterdag 3 april 2021 21:39
> Aan: 'Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem 
> collectors' <rockhounds at rockhounds.drizzle.com>
> Onderwerp: Re: [Rockhounds] Earthquake Swarm Hits World’s Largest 
> Volcano
> 
> I wonder if those long-exposure photos made through the telescopes are messed up when an earthquake rumbles through?  Perhaps not, because by definition, the long exposure means they're only gathering a few photons at a time, and if the earthquake moves the telescopes for a few seconds out of many minutes, a few stray photons might not matter?  Obviously, just guessing, so if someone else knows, please enlighten (yes, pun intended) me!
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rockhounds <rockhounds-bounces at rockhounds.drizzle.com> On Behalf 
> Of Kreigh Tomaszewski
> Sent: Saturday, April 3, 2021 12:33 PM
> To: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors 
> <rockhounds at rockhounds.drizzle.com>
> Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Earthquake Swarm Hits World’s Largest 
> Volcano
> 
> Mauna Kea is about 35 miles from Mauna Loa, with a big valley between them.
> 
> On Sat, Apr 3, 2021 at 2:07 PM Tim Fisher <nospam at orerockon.com> wrote:
> 
>> Isn't that dangerously close to the Mauna Kea telescopes? I don't see 
>> anything mentioning them.
>> 
>> Tim Fisher
>> Http://OreRockOn.com
>> Email nospam at orerockon.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Rockhounds [mailto:rockhounds-bounces at rockhounds.drizzle.com] 
>> On Behalf Of Kreigh Tomaszewski
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2021 6:41 PM
>> To: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem 
>> collectors
>> Subject: [Rockhounds] Earthquake Swarm Hits World’s Largest Volcano
>> 
>> An earthquake swarm continues on Mauna Loa, known as the world’s 
>> largest active volcano. While nearby smaller Kilauea Volcano is 
>> erupting, Mauna Loa is not yet at this time. But that could change with time.
>> 
>> Beginning at 2:30 am HT on March 29, 2021, the U.S. Geological 
>> Survey’s
>> (USGS)  Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO)  recorded over 130 
>> earthquakes beneath the northwest side of Mauna Loa’s summit, about  26 miles west
>> northwest of the town of Volcano, Hawaii.   According to HVO, most of these
>> earthquakes are occurring in a cluster about  1 mile  wide and  3.5–5 
>> miles below the surface.
>> 
>> The swarm continues this morning, with a 2.6 earthquake recorded in 
>> Pahala at 2:03 am HT.
>> 
>> The largest event in the sequence, so far, was a magnitude-2.7 
>> earthquake, with the bulk of the events being less than magnitude-2.
>> Only one event was reported felt by a resident and was described as 
>> weak shaking with a maximum Intensity of II on the Modified Mercalli 
>> Intensity Scale.
>> 
>> https://weatherboy.com/earthquake-swarm-hits-worlds-largest-volcano/

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