It is 18 January 2006, I was asked my opinion on a message posted about a prediction of a large earthquake in Mexico. It is 20 years since the slip fault at Playa Azul occured that did so much damage in Ciudad de México. I hadn't read about it and it was not mentioned on any of the disaster prevention sites I follow in Mexico. I did learn some things and have posted them here as a memory device. For example, there is a section on Mexico by the USGS. On that web page are numerous references to Mexican sources in English and Spanish. I can pretty well read about volcanoes in Spanish but there are a lot of new words when they start talking about terremotos. If I visit using FreeBSD and Konqueror, it will translate the Spanish into poor English. That is a good start. The web site that seems to be similar to the USGS is called "Servicio Sismológico Nacional". A page about earthquakes is titled "Acerca de Sismos". They comment about predicting earthquakes but there is nothing predicted for January (enero) 2006.
If you have come by this site because I have items on Colima, México, you really won't find anything on the earthquake. I did come across a diario or periódico (newspaper) in ciudad de México. The name is El Universal Online. When I found the site, there were 43 photographs of the earthquake damage. In case you have problems, the photo gallery in Spanish is "Fotogalería" and then you have 2 choices. They are "Imágenes de actualidad" and "Sismo en México". The "actual images" and the seismo images have some overlap but the earthquake images are disappearing from the actual images, which really appear to be their current list of images. The sismo en México is the complete list of earthquake images. The images on El Universal are old enough to no longer be on the archive. You have 2 choices and they are the "temblor" section of Volcandecolima, which has a number of photographs, and the Documentos Electrónicos section of CENAPRED. This section also includes information on other events in Mexico.
The really sad images were of people holding their wakes with the caskets in the street because their houses were damaged and they were afraid to stay inside. There are a number of Méxican Newspapers online and there is a site in Australia called "Online Newspapers" that you can choose the drop down menu on North America (excluding USA) and then choose México. The earthquake was been on the front page for 3 days starting on miércoles (Wednesday), jueves (Thursday), and viernes (Friday). They have disappeared now. There may be a way to find them in the archives; however, I was not successful in the conversion of my English search techniques into español.
In case you have missed my interest in volcano's, let me bring it up again and describe some areas that I find interesting. I have found it really interesting to watch the sun come up on volcanos. Why a volcano? It is really simple. It is because they have really high quality volcano cams pointed at them. Most of them are also the largest peak in the neighborhood and you can travel to places you have never been or might not ever go. For example, there is a web cam pointed at Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. People usually don't think of it as a volcano but the central region is a massive collapsed caldera. I frequently leave my Internet browser pointed at "Volcán Popocatépetl". The images right now are not as good as they were in the past. The image is refreshed once a minute. If you are running a modem and the network is a little slow, the previous image may not have completed before you start receiving the next one. The volcano expositions at (Exposiciones del CENAPRED) has some absolutely awesome volcano photographs by Alejandro Boneta and equally awesome paintings by Jorge Obregón.
I learned about another site recently from an email from the webmaster. It is a group on msn.com called "volcandecolima". It has everything from facts about Volcán de Colima to drawings by the niños. This has been a missing area as far as this volcano goes and "volcandecolima" covers that area. The scientist side will find the site "Volcan de Colima" interesting. If you want to see recent photographs, the following two images are two of many from the "volcandecolima" site.
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Some times I think God created volcanoes so people could take photographs like these two. Boneta´s photographs of Popo are also very interesting. Volcanoes are almost always the highest hill in the neighborhood (cerror mas alto). You don´t appreciate the view until you look around from the top. Even in México, the really high ones have permenant snow coverage. They create their own weather system and photographs like the one of the river and Volcán de fuego de Colima are all to often moments to talk about for years. What state (pais) on the Pacific ring of fire doesn´t have a peak called Cerro Negro (black hill) or equivalent. I was told by the Director of INETR that they have more than one in some areas of Nicaragua.
Before you get too interested in watching volcanos, you need to know where the sun is shining. An image showing an occasional star is not very exciting. If a rock fall occurs exposing hot rock, that is an entirely different matter. An active volcano looks like it is alive at night. I have gotten used to where the sun is with respect to where I am located. Until you get used to it, there is a site with a Sun Clock. Even if you aren't interested in following volcanos, Tim Osborn's "Sun Clock" web site is worth visting.
I had found CENAPRED long before I found sites that were linked to it. There are two standout Internet sites that provide links to volcano cams because of their coverage. For volcanos around the world, I go to "STROMBOLI ON-LINE". They now have entries for 6 cams covering the Italian volcanoes but the one covering Stromboli was destroyed in the blast of 5 April 2003. Some of them may occasionally appear to be off line because of Internet activity due to an eruption. When they are broken, you see a message. That is your only clue.
The USA section has a number of sites. One is linked to Mt. Shasta Cam in California where you may see some truly awesome views of Mt. Shasta. Mt Shasta is a volcano but it also provides a view that can be seen for miles when you are driving to California or Oregon. I also visit the USGS's "VolcanoCams". The Mt. St. Helens cam is located on either place. The cam is being replaced right now and you only see an ancient image.
You can find a reference to TV Station KGW in Portland, Oregon on both sites. KGW has a web page, which requires a login, called "KGW Skycams". The login is free but you do have to register. KGW has a number of cams that it provides links to. The one on "Mountain / Valleys" has some interesting places that you can visit. If you are lucky, you may get to see some truly awesome views of Mt. Shasta in California or Mt. Hood in Oregon. If you want to see what the road conditions are like in Oregon or Washington, they have web cams on the passes. Timberline is one of the lodges on Mt. Hood. It may have banks of snow 20 feet deep in the winter.
What really prompted me to include this section is a web site that covers Lake Nyos in Cameroon. This cam hasn't worked since March 2002 but the information is still important. This is the lake that overturned and killed so many people and animals in 1986. CO2 is heavier than air and it flowed down the valleys and killed as far as 27 km away. Some scientists came up with a way to use the CO2 that is in solution to produce what they call a "soda spray jet". They hung a 140mm plastic pipe from a platform until the bottom end (-203 m) is close to the bottom of the lake. They pump water out of the plastic pipe and at some point, the CO2 that is in solution is begins to come out of solution and the bubles of CO2 hurry the water along creating a jet of water and CO2 around 50 meters in the air. This jet will continue until the concentration of CO2 in the lake is at a safe level. I would think that they could probably leave the jet running into the distant future. Unfortunately, you can not see what is happening because of the lack of coverage by the web cam.
There is a 2nd lake that is also dangerous called Monoun. They anticipate Monoun will be safe 2 or 3 years from now and Nyos in 3 to 5 years. There were other solutions but they cost too much. The system is malfunctioning right now and according to one of the scientists, the jet is only 6 meters high because the relief valve at -100 meters is also open. The 140mm pipe also controls how much CO2 is released into the atmosphere. You don't want the concentration of CO2 to rise in the caldera to where visiting the lakes is dangerous.
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