The Eruptions blog links to reports of significant earthquake activity (6 quakes of 4.5+ on the Richter scale in the past week), radon outgassing, hot gas and hot water coming from wells, and more, from a volcanic area about 240 km WNW of Medina, Saudi Arabia, and 50 km from the Red Sea. USGS KML files showing worldwide earthquakes over the past week are available here. Here’s a Google Earth view of the area, with the earthquakes plotted as yellow dots:
The darker areas are basalt flows from earlier eruptions, and the red dots/blogs are likely cinder cones. The last eruption in this area took place about a thousand years ago.
As the Eruptions blog indicates, the data still isn’t conclusive, but some of these signs might be precursors of a volcanic eruption; Saudi Arabian authorities are evacuating people in a 40-km radius around the zone in question.
I saw a news item on this recently – the BBC I think.
Anyway, what are the error bars on those earthquake locations? Probably a few miles. Moderate sized earthquakes are rarely located very accurately unless there are a few seismometers in the area.
If the error bars are typical, then this dot map doesn’t really mean much. Heatmaps are rarely done well, but perhaps they would be more appropriate in this case?
The volcanologists weren’t very spot on with the one up here; although it is still erupting.
-Anchorage, AK
there was an eruption yesterday of 2.4+ according to the local news in saudi arabia , i’m just wondering does this mean that the magma is rising at low levels?
i just want everyone to know that my knowledge in geology is not that good but i’m tryin to learn