Mount Doom Eruption post (for wiley)

Archival footage is archival

Apparently Mount Tongariro has been doing its thing, with steam escaping though a few new holes in the side. In the absence of actual footage (no-one was pointing a camera at the mountain at the right time, while all the CGI facilities in NZ are tied up with Peter-Jackson-related activities), the media are showing scenes of volcanic ash covering the roofs of Mrs Thynne-Myrtle's chicken coops in a township downwind.

Let the record show that I was warning about the potential for disaster two years ago, but NO-ONE LISTENED.

Enlarged view

UPDATE: The top of Mount Tongariro is a real dog's breakfast with umpteen craters nested or overlapping in the Venn Diagram from Hell. This is what happens when you invite Frank Gehry to design a volcano.

The Te Māri craters are the most recent extension to the complex, and that's where Sammath Naur, the Cracks of Doom are steaming. They look about 10 meters wide. Or else you can believe the breathless journamalists for the NZ Herald -- Auckland's Paper of Record (the record in question being a Cliff Richards 45 single from 1978) -- who write about

three new vents in the mountain each a kilometre wide

before passing out from anoxia. Of course distances look larger when you are a hobbit. Anyway, what are a few orders of magnitude among friends?

In the latest developments we read that a hut has been damaged, and that Judy Bailey -- noted for her newsreading skills -- had walked along the Tongariro trail the day before things became exciting.