I believe the islands are north of Australia and Guinea....
Posted on 04/06/2005 9:04:25 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Need some big ones to go off...that way the Global warming folks will all be moaning about Global cooling...
As with the tsunami, this could be due to the tons and tons of bombs dropped on Iraqi children by the evil US. /DU idiot mode.....
I believe the islands are north of Australia and Guinea....
Scroll down through the thread to see a great satellite shot and a fascinating photo of the volcano taken two years ago.
Wow. Thanks. :)
Burp.....
Pinatubo (precursor to main blow):
Thanks for the Ping!
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Underway at sea in a 635-ship armada steaming through the Western Pacific, plans and maps marked "SECRET: Operation Forager" were being studied and restudied by men of rank: Navy, Marine and Army flag officers, veterans of 2 and a half years of combat with Japanese imperial forces who, though highly vaunted, had not achieved a victory since December 1941.
The Americans, however, sensed victory and an end to the colossal slaughter called World War II as being within reach.
According to the commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet, Admiral Ernest J. King, the Mariana Islands were the key to the Central Pacific. His finger pressed a map and traced the invisible lines of communication for Japan's "Inner South Seas Empire." ADM King believed the Marianas were ideal as bases from which the Pacific Fleet could strike east at the Palaus, the Philippines, Formosa or China. Further, Air Force General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold saw the Marianas as an ideal forward base for the new B-29 Superfortresses that could each carry 10,000 pounds of ordnance 1,200 miles all the way to Tokyo and release it with a vengeance.
ADM Chester W. Nimitz, CinC, Pacific Fleet, was ordered to seize the Marianas beginning 15 June 1944. LtGen Smith commanded expeditionary troops composed primarily of the Second and Fourth Marine divisions and the Army's 27th Infantry Division who would do the seizing.
Known as the greater Marianas, Guam, Saipan and Tinian are rugged, mountainous, wooded islands. The 13-mile-long island of Saipan included the capital, Garapan, a West Coast city that was home to 10,000 people. More than 30,000 Japanese forces also garrisoned the island. LtGen Yoshitsugu Saito commanded the soldiers of the 43d Division, 47th Independent Mixed Brigade, and various tank, antiaircraft and engineer units.
Up the coast from Garapan was Tanapag Harbor, where Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo concentrated his naval defense force. How things had changed for the admiral since December 1941. The winds of war had not been favorable to Nagumo, who had led the 7 Dec. attack on Pearl Harbor. Now out of favor with the high command, Nagumo, exiled to Saipan, concerned himself with fixing what few heavy guns he had into key defensive positions on the island.
How unkind of that volcano to interrupt the farmer in his field.....
Not a "super" volcano.
Yikes. Pagan itself has an active stratovolcano that erupted explosively several times in the 80s.
I'm glad it didn't cough while you were there!
One unknown observation: on leaving Pagan sailing north, we saw a sea-arch on the east (windward) coast ten times bigger than the one on Cabo San Lucas. And knowbody even knows it's there.
We hiked up a cinder ridge as far as we could, and saw caldera lakes with that sick green color water, with mud islands in the center. If you slipped from the ridge line of the cinder shoulder, you would slide all the way into a caldera, like an enormous insect eating plant. Other worldly.
I can actually see my little island. That small speck in the vast Pacific Ocean..
Checked your home page....rofl!
Some parts of NM are like being on an island....
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