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October 01, 2007
Volcano Eruption Kills 8 - Jabal al-Tair, Yemen
Last night there was a volcanic eruption on the island of Jabal al-Tair - an island off the coast of Yemen. A naval base was occupied and there are reports that at least eight people have died. There were reports of seismic activity in the area during the last two weeks. According to reports from naval vessels in the area, the eruption was quite large with lava being thrown many meters into the air.
I was reading this news and trying to determine the location of the island. The coordinates in the Wikipedia story of the island were inaccurate (I'm updating the coordinates). And, searching with Google Earth did not show the location either. So, being a sailor, I turned to a nautical chart from Marineplanner.com. This gave me some coordinates, which I put into Google Earth. Unfortunately, there is no satellite photo for Google Earth for the island. So, I tried FlashEarth.com, and discovered that Ask.com has a low resolution satellite photo of the island. I grabbed a copy of the image and made an image overlay for Google Earth and placemarked the location - see it here 
. The interesting thing is that while Google Earth doesn't have a satellite photo, it does have the terrain data. So, you can see an approximation to the 3D terrain with the photo overlay helping to add some detail.
You can turn on the "Geographic Features->Volcanoes" layer in Google Earth, and it will show you the location of the island and provide you with some details about the volcano - at least as it was before the eruption.
Another thing I tried, was to turn on the USGS earthquake monitoring tool for Google Earth. Unfortunately, the layer - which shows seismic activity for the last week, does not show the reported activity for Jabal al-Tair. I'm wondering if there is a gap in the USGS data for this area?
Posted by FrankTaylor at October 1, 2007 09:30 AM
Comments
Posted by: Reto Meier at October 1, 2007 10:07 AM
I am just wondering why you didn't use the geonames.org database or the network link which has the island marked.
Posted by: azzimd at October 1, 2007 10:24 AM
azzimd, it was just about as fast for me to search on the marine chart as it was to do the Geonames search. However, Geonames is definitely a great resource. I wish Google would look into using Geonames within GE's search.
Posted by: Frank Taylor at October 1, 2007 11:22 AM
Hey Frank,
GE labels the island Jebel at Tair, not Jabel at tair like you have, I think thats the same island.
Posted by: John Sapyta at October 1, 2007 02:52 PM
You might want to try this link. It does show the earthquake activity in Yemen
http://www.emsc-csem.org/index.php?page=current&sub=detail&id=57228
Posted by: Ros at October 1, 2007 07:18 PM
Never would have expected that!
I believe a request for aerial imagery needs to made. That kind of coverage would be pretty incredible to have a before and after comparison.
Posted by: Stefan Lorimer at October 1, 2007 10:00 PM
Surely getting imagery of ask.com and displaying it in Google earth (or in fact publishing or distributing it in any way) is a copyright violation?
Posted by: Timothy at October 2, 2007 03:27 AM
The image Ask is using actually comes from a NASA Landsat image.
Posted by: Frank Taylor at October 2, 2007 10:28 AM
It never hurts to check Current Events first ;)
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1015689/
L.
Posted by: LuciaM at October 2, 2007 11:17 AM
NASA Earth Observatory has released this 15-meter-resolution KMZ file of Jebel at Tair
earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/jabalaltair_ast_2007281.kmz
Posted by: John Stone at October 10, 2007 01:09 PM
the volcano/ island is known as many names:
Jabal al-Tair, Jebel al-Tair, Jabal al-Tayr, Tair Island, Al-Tair Island, Djebel Teyr, and Jibbel Tir.
Posted by: Bethany at November 19, 2007 04:41 PM
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The USGS seismic data for Europe / the Middle East is a little lacking. I've found the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre tracks activity west of India a little more reliably.
You can see some minor quakes quite close to the island from yesterday and today on Earthquake! (http://earthquake.googlemashups.com) which uses the EMSC data as one of its sources.