Benvironment

This the Laacher See.  A caldera lake in Germany that is the product of a volcanic eruption a mere 12,900 years ago.

There’s still thermal activity here, and the lake routinely bubbles as carbon dioxide escapes from below.  It bubbles away happily, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  It’s been bubbling for a long time actually.  In fact it’s been bubbling for centuries.  Unsurprisingly it’s therefore been a popular tourist trap for donkey’s years, with an estimated two million visitors per year.

I gleaned all of the above after a ten minute search on the internet.  Unfortunately for the well-meaning, decent and intelligent citizens of the world, that bastion of integrity and accuracy (The Daily Mail) appeared not to have done their background homework upon ‘discovering’ the caldera in what must otherwise have been a slow news week.  Or perhaps more accurately they consciously chose to ignore the background homework lest it interfere with a bit of 2012 doom-mongering at the arrival of the new year.

I’ve mentioned the excellent Eruptions blog before, where vulcanologist Erik Klemetti keeps an eye on volcano shenanigans, posting interesting stories and some stunning images of volcanic activity around the world.  Well he picked up on the Daily Mail story back in January, not least because the tiresome, lazy journalism of the Daily Mail et al is a particular bete noir for Mr Klemetti, who is always quick to calm the fears that ripple around the world after these stories appear.

Perhaps inevitably, doom-mongering stories have become more frequent since the Icelandic President, Ólafur Grímsson warned Europe that should Katla erupt it would herald a new dark age in every sense of the word…..and of course, the impending apocalypse scheduled for December 21st 2012.

Anyway here’s what Erik Klemetti posted in reaction to the Daily Mail story on 2nd January this year:

A quick post today about a tremendously terrible “article” in the Daily Mail this morning. The headline reads “Is a super-volcano just 390 miles from London ready to blow?” It is, of course, referring to the Laacher See in western Germany – a caldera volcano that had a large eruption 12,900 years ago that covered a significant area of Europe with ash and tephra. Surely impressive considering how few people know about the caldera volcanism in central Europe.

The article in the Daily Mail is about as substance free as you can produce – it starts off with the usual doom claptrap: “a sleeping super-volcano in Germany is showing worrying signs of waking up.” Now, you have to look carefully for what their supposed signs are – all two of them.

1. ” This monster erupts every 10 to 12,000 years and last went off 12,900 years ago, so it could blow at any time.” No source for this recurrence interval and we all know that using poorly constrained recurrence intervals like we have at Laacher See is no way to say a volcano is (ugh) “due for an eruption”.
2. “Volcanologists believe that the Laacher See volcano is still active as carbon dioxide is bubbling up to the lake’s surface, which indicates that the magma chamber below is ‘degassing’.” Which, of course, Laacher See has been doing for centuries. There are stories of monks dying from asphyxiation due to carbon dioxide hundreds of years ago. I personally saw carbon dioxide bubbling when I was at the Laacher See 5 years ago (see below). Sure, it is a sign that magma is degassing, but magma passively degases all the time and is by no means, when presented as the only evidence, a sign of a volcano being “ready to blow”. I love how the video at the bottom says that it “claims to show carbon dioxide bubbling in the lake in November 2011“. Stunning considering you can go there anytime and see it (see below).

Look at the geologist tremble in fear at the carbon dioxide bubbling at Laacher See. Oh wait, no, they’re not because its perfectly normal (Image by Erik Klemetti taken in August 2007).

And honestly, there is no more substance to the article beyond this – no source, no named “experts”, nothing. So, the Daily Mail decided to run with a article proclaiming the imminent danger of the Laacher See based on it being supposedly “overdue” and that there are carbon dioxide seeps in the lake, something that have been there for hundreds if not thousands of years. This is the volcanic equivalent of the Daily Mail going out and saying “Massive hurricane to hit London?” because they looked out the window and saw a cloud. Irresponsible, lazy journalism at its finest.

The problem is that this kind of poor reporting with no sources spirals in today’s internet media age. Another article today purports that “fresh activity near a dormant ‘super volcano’ in Germany has left experts worried about a possible eruption.” The source? The Daily Mail article. I’m sure by the end of the day that more or more “news” sites and discussion boards will be citing the Daily Mail article as proof of the impending doom from Laacher See.

This is clearly pandering to the 2012 Apocalypse crowd – we’re going to be seeing article after article about all the calamities that might befall the Earth during this year based on no scientific evidence whatsoever. Let me repeat that: There is NO scientific evidence for a “doomsday” in 2012. None. Sorry folks, look elsewhere and stop buying into this tripe. In the meantime, we’ll try not to drown in the sea about terrible media reporting.

Well, if you’re anything like me you’ll be delighted to know that the Daily Mail have been ordered to remove that story from their website.  In a post on his Eruptions website the other day, Erik Klemetti said how he’d been contacted by Tabloid Watch about a development concerning the Daily Mail article.  Apparently someone had complained to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) about the chronic inaccuracy of the story.

The PCC “considered the assertion that the volcano was about to erupt had not been supported by sufficient evidence or expert opinions.”……and upon review, they found that the story had breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice”.

So now it’s been removed.  Fantastic!  Naturally however, clicking through to the original article only shows you an error page, which trys to place the blame on YOU, Dear Reader, for having entered the URL incorrectly.  No apology or retraction, no admission of scaremongering or citing the PCC.  Just an error page.  You can however see the original title of the article in the URL when you click through.

Of course……I’ll have to eat my hat come December 21st if the Laacher See caldera erupts unexpectedly and destroys western Europe.  But I’m ready for that eventuality…..just in case: