ON BIRDS, FLIGHT, TURBULENCE AND SURVIVAL

In the winter, flocks of sea birds visit our local beach in St. Augustine, Florida. Ring Billed Gulls, and black-headed Laughing Gulls, Caspian and Sandwich Terns, Turnstones, Sandpipers, and others gather into large flocks which settle on the sandy beach, heads to the wind, to rest from their constant quest for food.  Unlike the well-fed, human beach visitors, who lounge near-by  on beach blankets with their snacks and drinks handy, wild birds are almost always hungry. All wild creatures live on a knife edge which separates hunger (leading to starvation and death) and satiety (survival). 

In nature food sources are often scarce and widely scattered. Each day birds must struggle to exploit sea and shore to capture sufficient food-energy (i.e. calories) to off-set the energy expended to capture that food and that required for body maintenance. We may term this the “food in-energy out” energy equation for survival.  In spring, reproductive needs increase demands for calorie capture. One way to balance the daily energy equation of survival is to be extremely efficient in energy expenditures. One aspect of this requirement is to reduce energy consumption by efficient use of rest times.

So I was very much dismayed when I saw a chubby young boy racing along the beach purposely attempting to flush hundreds resting birds, forcing them to rise up in fright, circle over the beach and land a short distance downwind. I watched as this youngster repeated the process over and over again. The birds were forced to waste energy they had captured with great effort…and which they needed for survival. The boy was wasting his energy, of which he had an obvious surplus, and that of hundreds of wild birds who could little afford the loss.  I eventually interceded politely on the side of the birds. 

Rest is one way of reducing energy expenditure. But being more efficient in the expenditure of energy is also a critical strategy that birds and all wild animals must master for their individual survival and for the survival of the species.

PELICANS

On that same beach, I often watch our local Brown Pelicans (Pelecanis occidentalis ) flying by just offshore. These are huge birds with wingspans of more than seven(7) feet, and may weigh over 12 pounds. They have big webbed feet and enormous long beaks with an expendable fish pouch (of 2.5 gallons capacity)  to temporarily hold their squirming prey. Just to become air borne they require an expenditure of an enormous  amount effort by employing their powerful muscular wings. And keeping themselves aloft also requires great expenditure of energy. When small schooling fish congregate one marvels at their ability to dive headlong into the ocean with a great splash to capture prey in their huge expandable (bottom)beak. When traveling from one place to another  just off shore they typically  skim just above the tops of the breaking surf. This  pattern of flight over tops of breaking waves gives them a flight advantage. 

Almost every day, once can observe small pods or flocks of these large birds flying south from their roosting and resting grounds on Anastasia Island flying south to the shoal water and shoals of small schooling fish at Matanzua Inlet about 14-15 miles away along the Florida coast. The birds make the return trip in the late afternoon..for a round trip of about 30 miles. 

I have not calculated the energy expended per bird..but I suspect lofting a twelve pound body into the air and maintaining flight speed over a round trip distance of 30 miles requires a substantial expenditure of energy. To do so they must be completing successful fishing trips…capturing enough calories in the form of prey (fish) to make the trips worth while. 

But the two way travel costs in energy expended has to be deducted from the calories they consumed in their active pursuit of fish at Matanza. Long travel times to acquire these food sources could potentially outweigh the survival value of the captured calories in fish consumed in Matanza. Long  energy-intensive trips to secure widely scattered food sources can disrupt the “calories expended vs calories gained” survival equation. One validly questions: are these long trips worth the energy expended?

But watching the pelicans fly back and forth revealed a flight strategy they use  to reduce energy consumed in f;light on these long, thirty-mile trips.

Pelicans fly just a foot or two over the crests of breaking waves. Ocean waves vary with wind speed and direction and grow to great heights from 1-2 feet in calm seas to 7-10 feet in storms. Other factors are the origin of the wave and the slope of the sea floor.  

As each average  3-5 foot wave crests, two forces are at work. (1) As the wave rises in height the rising  water surface forces air directly above the water surface  upward as it rises.  Thus a 3-5 foot wave may produce an upward air current just above the wave crest of similar magnitude. (2) As the wave curls into a crest and begins to collapse on itself it entrains air forward and produces turbulence* near the crest. The circulating air at the crest may form eddies, parts of which have an upward component.  Pelicans flying over the foamy blue- green crest are thus buoyed upwards by several feet or more by the rising column of air and by the upward component of turbulent flow at the wave crest. 

*Note: Fluids like air and water flow over smooth surfaces in what is termed streamline flow pattern. When fluids encounter rough irregular surfaces or barriers to movement the fluid flow (air or water) is altered as it passes over and around these irregularities and results in swirling currents, eddies and irregular flow termed  turbulent flow or turbulence.

Viewing flying pelicans from shore one can observe them as they rise a few feet above each wave peak, then set their wings to glide ahead as they descend in elevation (in effect coasting “downhill”). They glide with set wings. During this glide they may alter their flight path slightly using alterations in wings or tail feathers to direct their course over another rising wave (and its energy saving lofting turbulence). In this way they enormously reduce energy expenditure for flight by essentially taking advantage of air currents which loft them upward permitting them to glide to lower elevations until reaching another updraft atop a new cresting wave. The view of their flight pattern from the beach may be described as “stepped”. 

They continue this pattern, making use of the tiny mechanically induced wave updrafts to effect a low energy coasting “downhill” flight as they fly from one breaking wave to the next.   Infrequently, they may have to flap their wings to adjust their height upward, when their course does not coincide with a cresting wave.  However, many observations from shore indicate that they are most often in glide mode with wings fixed rather than actively beating their wings to stay aloft.  

Estimating their efforts, I suspect that being buoyed upward from wave-crest to wave-crest over most of the thirty mile trip—perhaps more than two thirds of it—the birds are saving a great deal of muscular effort (and caloric expenditure) as they travel to their most productive fishing grounds each day. 

Often pelicans fly among human surfers.  Surfers use the same mechanical energy of cresting waves for their own purposes. In their case, they (surfers) slalom down the slope of the steep wave front toward shore, at right angles to the direction that pelicans fly . Surfers make graceful and entertaining use of the steep wave front of a large ocean wave which, rushing toward shore, rises steeply as it “feels” the shoaling sea bed. Surfers are also using “down hill”  gravity induced motions (like Pelicans) as they coast down-slope with no muscular effort on the rapidly moving and steeply rising wave as it speeds toward shore.

When waves are unavailable, or sea conditions too calm, pelicans will seek other places where updrafts occur to facilitate their flight. On most days at the seashore the sun heats land faster and to a higher temperature than transparent ocean water. This situation generates steady air currents (termed “sea breeze”) which occur off-shore over the water and move toward the warmer land where warming air is rising. As these winds or “sea breezes” flow over land they often encounter natural obstacles or barriers to their flow such as sand dunes, trees, or man-made structures such as thirty to forty-foot high beach-side buildings. These barriers to flow deflect air upward creating updrafts which are sought out by pelicans. The updraft lofts the heavy bird to a higher elevation, from which level the bird simply sets its wings and glides downslope like a glider airplane, until it encounters another updraft to carry it upward again and permit it to glide down elevation to another updraft. 

Other bird species use different energy conserving strategies as they travel from one place to another, or use them as they seek out prey. Glacially deposited coastal bluffs on Long Island’s (New York) North Shore rise to a height of 100-200 feet above the North Shore beaches. These topographic barriers to air flow can create very effective updrafts used by several species of birds. 

ON GULLS

I have observed Ring Billed Gulls, Herring Gulls and Great Black-Backed Gulls riding updrafts created along Long Island’s North Shore “bluffs” or sea cliffs. Sea birds will fly along the edge of the cliff face—for long distances to conserve energy. 

On one occasion while standing at the top of a beach access stairway in late spring, on a warm sunny day, I made interesting observations of gull behavior. From this high point at the top landing of the beach stairway I watched several Ring Billed Gulls flying back and forth close to the cliff edge. They were flying back and forth padding my location on the stairway-landing only 30-50 feet away, as they cruised along the cliff edge at about 120-130 feet above the beach. They passed just seaward of me as they traveled east for several hundred feet following along the cliff-face, then turned around 180 degrees heading west while remaining on the same course keeping close to the cliff face.

On each turn I watched them fly pass, intrigued with how close they were to me as well as the reason for their unusual repetitive flight pattern.  Buoyed by the updraft off the beach they glided past with their wings set and unmoving.  At frequent intervals they would briefly flap their wings to gain elevation, then snap their beaks at something in the air, as if consuming some tiny morsel. Finally, after several close passes I observed the cause and purpose of these “beak snapping” and flight pattern. On each pass they were catching tiny winged ants flying on a seasonal nuptial flight and carried upward by air currents. 

Looking down toward the beach I observed a ragged thin column of flying ants which were likely Pavement Ants (Formica) a member of the Tetramorium genus in full nuptial flights. The swarming winged ants were mating. They are tiny, only a fraction of a centimeter the ddlargere ones only about 1/4 inch long, but the swarmers, both males and females, have large wings and can fly well. 

On this late spring day the updraft carried thousands of winged ants aloft. A sea breeze crossing the beach deflected air upward and somewhere along the base of the cliff it passed a swarming ant colony. The current carried the ants upward toward the cliff face. The incredibly opportunistic and adaptable gulls which are food generalists (scavengers, predators, food thieves, garbage and refuse eaters) were simply taking advantage of an almost “free” high protein snack. Each ant is only a fraction of a gram, but since they could be captured and consumed with little or no input of energy required by the gull. They were well worth consuming.

WILD GEESE

We have all seen (and heard the honking of) wild geese (Canada Geese, Branta canadensis) as they migrate overhead in spring and fall. They pass overhead almost always in “V” formation.  Often I would try to count the number of birds in each flight. Frequently the numbers ran up into thirty to forty birds in the noisy “V” formation. The formation “legs” are not always of equal length.  But why do they fly in formation? Turbulence here too aids their flight. 

But few know how turbulence and need to conserve energy on long migratory flights plays a part in this unusual pattern. 

When a flock of Canada Geese take to the air, they gather into a “V” shaped flight pattern to reduce energy consumption. By flying in the “V” pattern they reduce the amount of energy they consume by 20-30% as compared to the amount of energy they would have had to expend flying solo. Thus there is a huge advantage to flying in the “V” pattern. Geese use less energy than flying out-side of the pattern

Why? A goose (or gander) flying at the head of the “V” creates turbulence at the tips of its wings. The long feathers  (the primaries) open and close in flight in a circular motion to drive the bird forward or to provide thrust. The primary feathers which move in a circular pattern push air backward to create thrust (forward). The feathers have cross sectional shape (that of an “airfoil” shape). The primaries also produce “lift” to help keep the bird aloft.  Closer to its body main portion of the wing—aeroplane wing shape in cross section—i.e. the airfoil shape of the wing, also creates lift just like that of an airplane wing. When the wings are not beating (primaries are not in circular motion) the wings produce little forward thrust, but have a cross sectional shape that generates lift. 

But it is the primary feathers of the goose leader and their circular motion which cause turbulence (or circular eddies in the air). These currents form in the air, then as the bird passes continue to circulate with remnant energy as the lead goose move ahead. The eddies or circulating currents form a a trailing “eddy” with an upward swirling air current component in the air. This turbulence persists long enough for the following bird to take advantage of the minor updraft in the eddy to reduce the effort required for it to stay aloft. This pattern of eddies  streams rearward from the direction of flight in a widening “V” shape behind the lead goose. Geese simply orient themselves into locations behind the lead goose to take advantage of these useful, serendipitous air currents 

Following the lead goose, the second tier and subsequent tier of birds gain an advantage by flying within this area of turbulence which acts to reduce effort. But does it simply buoy them up or does it reduce their effort to create thrust? That may be a question for some reader to answer. 

But it is likely that each flowing bird likely intensifies the effect with their wings create. Thus  each of the following pairs can fly with less effort as a result. Following geese find these areas of turbulence where they can reduce muscular effort.  They remain in those positions which occur in the characteristic “V”.  The lead goose is expending more energy than the followers. As what one would except when the lead goose tires, another may take its place to spread the effort across the flock evenly.

All ways in which birds can make us of turbulent flow to use less energy!

Those strange little “winglets” on the tips of modern aircraft…reduce wing tip turbulence..a flow of air rising up from the wing tip to create “drag” or counter currents of air which retard thrust. 

  

BEEF PRICES, WHY SO HIGH?

Walking through my local food market on a recent day, one may observe customers hurrying along pushing oversized shopping carts, which they fill with nutritious and generally fair-priced fruits, vegetables, dairy, eggs, poultry, bakery goods and canned products.  But at the meat aisle traffic thins and slows. Here customers  practice “seulement regarde!”as they cautiously peruse neatly packed cellophane-wrapped red meats. They are clearly interested, but hesitate to stop, for to do so, and then move on without reaching in to chose a package would clearly imply that they could not afford to purchase the product on display. That is perhaps too troubling an admission.

But there is good reason for their behavior. In this average local food market 80%/20% ground beef sported a price tag of  $8 and $9 dollars per package, while beef stew-meat, in neat plastic containers were marked at $11 and $12 dollars each. Even beef soup-bones with no red meat attached were priced about $8 a pound. A single small, strip-steak retailed at $14 dollars, and an attractive “T” bone steak at $37 dollars. Passing customers could only look but not buy beef at these prices. 

HIGH BEEF PRICES: THE SPEAR POINT OF THE “AFFORDABILITY CRISIS” 

The Democrat’s attacks on the President’s domestic policies have crystallized around the nucleus of the nation’s consistent high prices for goods and services. They have  and molded into an effective weapon to attack the President which they call the “Affordability Crisis”.  The sharp point of that political thrust is the actual very high cost of beef which has remained at abnormal high levels.  

Well aware the Democrat attacks have  affected his popularity polls, the President, perhaps precipitously and unfairly, called on the beef industry to “lower prices” claiming that “beef was too expensive and that ranchers must lower them. He predicted that “prices would be coming down soon”.   A statement which had heavy consequences on some of his ardent supporters, 

Cattle ranchers and others in the beef industry were “unsaddled” by the President’s comments. Trump was “their guy” who they had just recently supported so unreservedly. But, overnight he quadrupled the amount of cheap Argentinian beef that could be imported, cut duties on imported Brazilian beef, and then  launched an investigation into meat packing industry for “price manipulation”.  These actions had some bad impact on the industry but nothing happened to lower prices for consumers. (To add to the problem of high pricing, the Trump administration was recently forced to cut beef imports[ from Mexico due to a serious outbreak of a cattle virus.   Less beef in the market place only helped to keep prices high.)

The result of the President’s responses, particularly his claim that “prices would come down soon”, was almost immediate. Feeder cattle “futures” on the Market dropped by 21% in December 2025 after hitting a high point on October 16, 2025–the very day Trump said he was going to lower prices.  

But prices at the food market did not budge.  What did change was the price that ranchers could get for “feeder cattle”.  A feed lot operator recounted how he bought 500 head of cattle at $5 dollars a pound live weight. On average each weighed in at about 500 lbs, Thus he had just paid about $2,500 per head for 500 steers ($1,250,000), but after Trump’s comments on prices “having to come down”, this investor watched the futures for those cattle drop to $2,200 per head almost overnight. So before he even transported his cattle to the feeder lot, he had already lost $150,000.   Ranchers, herders, feed lot operators lost out, but consumers were still paying high prices for beef.  (See “Cattle ranchers are hit by a push by President Trump to lower beef prices”: Reuters 12/24/25, “Not Happy Trump Supporter”)

BEEF PRICES COMPLEX REASONS 

The origin of the beef prices we all read with trepidation on the plastic packages in our meat aisles is more complex than we realize. Unlike poultry, hogs or eggs, beef production is a long term investment.  The time from the birth of a calf on a Nebraska cattle ranch to a finished beef carcass may take between one to two years (1-2 years) of  decision making, investment, hard outdoor labor by ranchers and feed lot operators to get a beef carcass that can be sold to a retail food market. That time frame is twice that much—4 years of care, feeding and adequate pasturage for the higher in demand organic or grass-fed cattle. 

In 1960 there were about 26 million head of cattle on USA cattle ranches, by 1970 that number rose to a maximum of about 45 million, and from that period on the numbers have declined year after year to the present time (2022 data) to 28 million or about 1960 levels.  Why the decline?

GOOD GRAZING LAND IS ESSENTIAL 

You can’t raise beef cattle in your back yard. Cattle require large tracts of arable land to flourish.  In the well-watered Northeast or Florida a cow and her calf (a cow-pair) may require a minimum of 1-2 acres of good pasture to flourish. Under more typical beef raising conditions in the western big beef states where variable rainfall, droughts, and less verdant pastures and ranges a cow-pair generally require 7 to 15 acres per pair. So cattle ranching in the big beef cattle states is an occupation and enterprise which require a lot of open spaces.  

In the big three “beef states” of Texas, Missouri, Nebraska, (origin of about 1/3 of our beef) beef cows are raised on the vast open ranges where cattle ranches may occupy tens of thousands of semi dry or arid acres.  In the spring, on these ranches, cows give birth to their calves.  The calf stays with its mother until it is weaned.  By 6-8 months of age, when it reaches about 500-600 lbs it may be sold and sent off as a “feeder calf” to a “feed lot” operation where it may remain for six months to a year.  When it reaches a market weight of 1000 lbs to 1500 lbs it is ready for sale as a steer and is sold for slaughter. 

It’s biology! Cattle are grazers..they eat grass..To grow adequate grass rangelands require adequate soil moisture. Some of that is derived from winter snows—as spring snow melt— and after that more is required in June when the dry season begins in the west. This June rain must come from adequate rainfall during the spring and summer months.   

The key period for cattle raising is in the month of June during at which time the cattle must have acceptable grazing to survive and grow profitably. The quality of the grazing and amount  is the key to a successful profitable outcome for ranchers.  In recent decades June rains (as well as winter snows cover) have been scarce or highly variable. Such long term weather phenomena are classed as droughts. 

BEEF PRODUCING STATES ARE NATURALLY DRY AND ALSO DROUGHT PRONE 

Our far western states are almost all challenged by droughts. The ten big “beef states” in our west almost all occur in a geographic area that is naturally arid with much of it classified as “hot summer, continental climate”.  Read that as hot dry arid summers, cold harsh winters. 

The reason for their aridity is geography.  In the latitude of the USA prevailing winds come from the west and southwest. These winds carry moisture-laden Pacific Ocean air, and as they rise over the California, Oregon and Washington coast mountain ranges and then the Sierra Nevada and Olympics the rising moist air cools and forms clouds which  drop abundant rain and snow on the west slopes of these mountain ranges. The resulting drier air flows over these highlands and descends over the eastern slopes, warming up (adiabatic heating) and decreasing in humidity as it descends into the western deserts in Utah, Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico  (These deserts are the result of this weather process).  

This same Pacific air, now warmer and lower in humidity, continues east into eastern Colorado and eastern New Mexico where it is forced to rise again as it climbs the western  slopes of  the Rockies, losing more moisture as it does so.  

These air masses are then exceptionally dry as they descends on the eastern slopes of the Rockies, into the Dakotas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri warming as air pressure increases and its humidity decreases even further to near desert like levels.  As a result, the weather (and climates)  in most of our states west of the 100th meridian (longitude) are exceptionally dry, as a result of (mountain) of orographic lifting and dehydration.  This is a result of geography alone. 

These western states, west of  the 100 degree west-longitude line  have climates characterized by variable and limited rainfall.  In many areas in the west  are classed as “desert”. 

The western big10 beef producing states typically have a rainfall from 10-to 20 inches of rain/snow equivalent. Whereas the northeast and southeast USA have on average about 30–40 inches of more rain annually.  Some areas are borderline desert. (Deserts are defined as having less than 10 inches of rain, high rates of evaporation, few permanent streams sparse discontinuous vegetative cover.)

Today these arid western states are characterized with burgeoning human populations, expanding urban and suburban areas, and increasing use of ground water for agriculture, irrigation and industry. In 1900 there were nine (9)million people living west of the 100th meridian, in 1960 that number jumped to 30 million and  by 2000 to sixty to seventy (60-70) million at the present time (2025) 116 million people call that region home. That increase in population is dramatic, but one must remember that this surge in population came in an area with a static level of water resources. More people, more farmers, more irrigation, more pumping of groundwater and lowering of stream and groundwater pond levels and all with the same amounts of rain and snow pack to replenish the shortfall. The west is running out of water by using water in an unsustainable way. 

This overuse of rainwater and groundwater resources affects ranchers and the beef industry too. Over use  lowers ground water levels, dries up streams that once were water sources for grazing herds, and dries up ponds and lakes used for the same purpose. 

Periods of drought do occur naturally and in cycles. During the La Niña/El Nino sea water temperature at the equator swing back and forth from high to low due to the strength of easterly winds. These cycles alter the rain patterns in the western USA.  During the La Niña phase of this oscillating phenomenon, cold Pacific surface water pools up at the equator off the coast of Ecuador and shifts the mid latitude jet stream northward toward Canada causing more persistent dry periods over the southwest and western USA often resulting in a series of drought years.   

MEGADROUGHTS

However,  western USA has along history of more persistent droughts which may last decades. climatologists refer to these as “megadroughts”.Long before the commencement of the Industrial Age, megadroughts or decades long dry spells were documented by archeologists. We now know, based on dendrochronology studies (i.e. analysis of tree rings data) that megadroughts occurred in western USA as far back as 800AD.  Megadroughts are also associated with the abandonment of Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon by Anasazi in the 12th and 13th centuries AD. The Great Dust Bowl of the 1930s was a megadrought. The most recent megadrought beginning in 2000 and lasting to the present (2025)  is claimed to be the driest in the last 1200 years.  Megadroughts of the past may have been intensified and prolonged by the La Niña equatorial oscillation. 

Though the La Niña phenomena and the occurrence of cyclical megadroughts are apparently  independent of human activities, there is no question that human use of fossil fuels, particularly the use of fossil fuels which increase levels of atmospheric CO2 —a heat absorbing gas—in the atmosphere have probably increased the intensity and perhaps the duration of the present megadrought.  

Droughts force cattle producers to provide water to their stock in outlying fields by expensive trucking water to herds, or by installing  irrigation to crop fields and to pastures where cows are grazing.  During droughts calves have to be weaned earlier than usual and this puts them at greater risk of dying. Costs to ranchers increase when grazing is inadequate and there is a need to provide supplemental (usually expensive grain) feeds to cows experiencing food and water stress.  

The result of continued droughts is that ranchers must  cut down on their herd size or the number of  “mouths to feed” during a prolonged drought season— resulting in smaller herds, fewer cattle sent to market, scarce product available and high beef prices. 

From 2015 to 2023 the amount of June pasture land in Nebraska suffering from droughty conditions and unusable pasture acreage has increased over those years from 6% to 34%.  At present (2023 data) usable Nebraska pasture land is at about one-third of wa hat is was in 2015.  And as a partial result of that the US herd now at a 63 year low. Size of US herd has decreased sine 1975  Texas Missouri and Nebraska which together produce almost a 1/3 of all US beef have all experienced drought and have reported the largest decline in the quality of June pasture  since 2020. Today the USA cattle herd is the smallest it has ever been. A declining herd means a rise in consumer prices for beef,

When drought conditions intensify costs to provide water, and supplemental feeds increase.  It is these increases which drive  producers to cull their herd to reduce heavy profit loss.  In 2022 and 2023 the rate of beef cattle being culled was second and third highest since 2011. In some states when June pastures dry up and ranchers need hay as a supplement feed, since their fields are dry their immediate neighbors fields are also dry. as a result  there is little hay available locally and ranchers must transport hay from distant states raise which  add heavy transportation costs to the cost of the supplements . 

Because prices are so high now, market analysts would normally advise ranchers to to increase herds to take advantage of high prices—-but long term drought conditions have become the new “normal” in the minds of investors and ranchers and this is what makes them resist that urge to expand production. 

Thus beef prices are high because our beef herd is at the lowest level in almost sixty five years. Right now our beef herd is about what it was in1960, about 27 or 28 million head.  In1960 the US population was about 180 million, so at a time when our population has almost doubled to 350 million we presently have about half the beef cattle herd we would need to slake demand for beef. 

Why high breed prices? No price manipulation, no massive profits to ranchers. It’s a tough business with high risks for investors and ranchers too. Assuming an increased demand commensurate with the population, US supply of beef has remained at about the same level as 65 years ago.  That is: supply is low and demand is high. A typical situation for high prices. Supply is low due to long term drought and uncertainty concerning when and how the megadrought will abate.

Expect prices to remain high!  

(See “Drought and the size of the USA cattle herd”: McCracken, John 3/13/24 Investigate Midwest.Org,  Droughts, Result In US Beef Herd At Historic Low. And “The great western drought”  Gleick, Peter, et.al 8/2/2021 Sierra Club)

HAYLI GUBBI AND THE AFAR TRIANGLE—A CHICAGO RAP BAND OR A LITTLE KNOWN VOLCANO? FIND OUT

HAYLI GUBBI ERUPTS

On November 23, 2025 a surprisingly violent eruption of the volcano Hayli Gubbi brought world attention to this volcano and the seminal earth processes that caused its eruption in the geologically active Afar Triangle in Ethiopia. 

Ethiopia is a modest sized landlocked nation in Eastern Africa with an exceptionally diverse terrane and of enormous geologic interest and importance. The Afar Triangle region of Africa is the site of a “hot spot” where the Earth’s crust is splitting apart to form new isolated continental masses as well as new ocean basins!  This process, known as—Plate Tectonics—describes the active rupturing of continents, their movement or “drift” over the Earth’s surface, their convergence to form mountains and their submergence and subduction into the mantle at points of convergence. Plate Tectonics is a theory of extraordinary significance in the understanding of our dynamic Earth, its history and its life forms.  Plate Tectonics explains why the Himalayas are so high, the Marianna Ocean Trench so deep, why Japan has so many earthquakes, why world-wide glaciers formed in the Pleistocene Ice Age more than a million years ago, why Elephants are found both in Africa and India and why marsupials are the dominant mammals in Australia. 

Ethiopia’s Afar Triangle and Hayli Gubbi are part of an outdoor Plate Tectonics laboratory where scientists can study how and why continents fracture and move over the Earth’s surface. 

The geological process at the Afar Triangle is initiated by  rising hot (1000C -1200C) plumes of molten magma toward the surface. As it reaches the base of the crust the dense, hot, rising plume “domes up” (pushes up) and thins the Earth’s crust above it. Τhis now thin, domed -up crust is subject to fracture and separation. Highlands such as the Ethiopian plateau may form on either side of the fracture zone as a result of uplift. At the fracture zone, lateral movements (perhaps by convective flow in the mantle or gravitational drag of the uplifted crust plate itself). However it occurs, widening the fracture takes place and initiates  the ultimate splitting off of masses of continental bodies and the formation of ocean basins in the new depressed zone between continental masses. 

Thus it is in Ethiopia’s Afar Triangle that we can observe and study this process of Plate Tectonics which occurs  worldwide.  See note on Pangaea below.*

The volcano Hayli Gubbi, is a modest, shield-type volcano of low slope and modest elevation (@ 1,400feet) and was considered “extinct” until it made headline news on November 23, 2025.  (Note: “Shield” volcanoes (the name is derived from the shape of  a Hoplite battle shield) are generally gently sloped, non-explosive forms, since their magma source is hot, low-silica low, low viscosity, low gas, low water content magma. So Hayli’s violent eruption was unusual on that score.)

Hayli Gubbi is located in an isolated, difficult to , area of north-eastern Ethiopia.  Most reports emphasize the fact that Hayli has been dormant for more than 12,000 years.What was unusual was the explosive and violent eruption of this seemingly inconsequential, shield cone volcano located in a poorly known part of the world. 

ASH CLOUDS

The violence of the Hayli Gubbi eruption was remarkable and the height of the gas and ash cloud generated towered up to 45,000 feet, an elevation well into the stratosphere and at heights where commercial passenger aircraft regularly cruise. This incursion into areas which affect safety of international travel caused consternation in transportation management and air travelers around the world. Planetary winds caused ash clouds generated by Gubbi to drift across the Arabian peninsula and over Pakistan and India, causing flight cancellations and disruptions in those nations. 

ETHIOPIA—AN OUT DOOR GOLOGY LABORATORY 

Let’s start with Ethiopia. This ancient nation known as “the Land of Cush” in the Old Testament, is a modern landlocked country in east Africa and about twice the size of France.  If one begins in Egypt’s Nile River and continued upstream (south) passing through the nation of Sudan would  reach Ethiopia.  The high plateaus of Ethiopia are the source of a major branch (the Blue Nile) of headwaters of the Nile River.  Geographically Ethiopia lies across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia and occupies a major part of the inland area of what is known as the Horn of Africa, a promontory which thrusts` out into the Indian Ocean. To the south of Ethiopia and occupying the Indian Ocean shoreline is the nation of Somalia (and it neighbor further southwest is Kenya); while to the northeast, the nation of Eritrea, hugs the shore of the Red Sea. To the east, blocking Ethiopia from access to the Red Sea is the tiny state of Djibouti (about the size of the Italian island of Sardinia).  

THE AFAR HOTSPOT 

Hotspots at the Earth surface form when exceptionally hot plumes of hot magma rise up from the mantle and melt their way into the crust. Ethiopia is the site of one of the three largest hot spot plumes in the Northern Hemisphere: the Hawaii Hot spot, Yellowstone Hotspot, the Canary Islands Hot Spot, Iceland and the Afar Hotspot in Ethiopia.   The Afar Hotspot is perhaps the largest.

Three crustal plates, the African Plate, Somali Plate and the Arabian Plate are pulling apart to form the “triple point” which is centered at the Afar hot spot.  Ethiopia is the site of one of the planet’s largest and most active hot spots (Afar Hotspot) where hot plumes of magma rise up toward the surface forcing the Ethiopian crust upward  as much as 5,000 feet to produce a highlands called the Ethiopian Plateau.  This central highland of diverse flora and fauna in Ethiopia is cut across by a long, wide depression (the Great Rift Valley (GRV) and the o. These rifts or splits in the Earth crust are moving apart as a result of the upwelling of hot maga and its movement. 

The GRV and Danakil Depression form one leg of a triple point where three crustal rifts intersect. The intersection point occurs just off the coast of  the tiny nation of Djibouti, at the Bab el Mandeb Strait -the narrowest point in the Red Sea.  

The Red Sea rift and the Gulf of Aden rift form  two legs of the triple point, while the less apparent, younger, but just as active leg is formed by the Great Rift Valley and Dankil Depression in Ethiopia (and its neighbors). (See Google Maps or Google Earth to visualize this more clearly.)

The GRV is a more recent crustal fracture, or split in the  Earth crust or rift which is moving to separate the Somali Plate from Africa (we assume Africa is stable).  Nearby,  the Arabian Plate is separating from the latter two plates as the Red Sea rift grows wider. (Take a look at Google Maps or Google Earth in this region to actually see the rift in the Red Sea sea-bed itself.)   

The entire rift system in Ethiopia is affected by “geothermal features” such as large shield cone volcanos like Erta Ali, thermal or hot-springs, hot mud lakes, and rift zones with depressed regions such as the Dankeli Depression and the Great Rift Valley, as well as the Ethiopian Highlands which are the result of doming of sub crustal upwelling which have pushed up the Earth crust and caused thinning as well.  The highlands are the source area for the waters of the Blue Nile River—a tributary to the Nile of Egypt. As well as its geological exceptionalism, Ethiopia has a long and ancient cultural and religious history. 

DANAKIL DEPRESSION AND EAST AFRICAN RIFT

Of great interest to geologists is the Danakil Depression a vast, elongate, north-south oriented depression located in the extreme northeast corner of Ethiopia, bordering Djibouti and Eritrea. The base of the depression drops to about 375 feet below sea level.  Here, at about 8 degrees north of the equator, solar radiation is intense and cooling winds are blocked in by the steep surrounding cliffs of the depression. But besides those sources of heat, hot Earth Mantle materials i.e. magma, wells up below the rocks at the base of the depression. These geothermal sources of heat are a source of heat as well as magma..and when it exits onto the surface—of lava of volcanoes, lava of flood basalts and the heat of hydrothermal fields which produce steaming gysers, hot springs, hot mud pools, and colorful salt deposits dissolved by the hot water from surrounding bedrock.  The Danakil Depression  is often claimed to be the hottest place on Earth, where temperatures often average about  35C (95 F) and may often reach 48C (118F).   

The Earth’s rigid rocky continental crust is composed of low density, lighter colored silica-aluminum rich (felsic) rocks which form the crust which is between 9-12 miles thick. The ocean crust is thinner and composed of mafic or dark colored, dense, iron-magnesium rich rocks.  Below the solid crust lies the hot mantle which is comprised of mafic  “magma”, which is so hot that at the surface (where pressure is low) it can flow like hot asphalt—though its temperatures are much higher. Mantle material is cooler near the base of crust at about 500 C-1000C but heats up to about 4,000 C at depth.. 

Like a heated pot of maple syrup, hot syrup in the bottom of the pot is buoyant and rises toward the surface. In the Earth’s deep mantle magma is eight times hotter than that near the surface.  Hot plumes are buoyant and rise toward the crust- mantle boundary.  There, these hot plumes (some claim the existence of “super plumes”) can push up or “dome” the crust. These cause elevated surface features such as highlands and plateaus (See Ethiopian Plateau and the Ahmad Mts in Ethiopia) and bordering these domed up structures are regions of earth fracturing such as the Danakil Depression and the Great Rift Valley.  

Magma arising as it does from depth is hot @ 3,000-4,000 C.  At the crust-mantel boundary it comes in contact with felsic crustal rocks (Granite a felsic rock can melt at 1,220C-1,300C) which the hot plume may partially melt. This molten felsic rock material may drain away from the overlying crust (1) causing thinning of the crust and making it more subject to fracturing and (2) form pools of molten magma which can undergo physical and chemical alteration.

HAYLI GUBBI

How did Hayli Gubbi become an explosive volcano?  The magma chambers of explosive volcanoes are composed of felsic magma rich in silica and water. But most of the base rocks in this region are mafic. Some theorize that as plumes of maga rise toward the crust they may melt some of the overlying rock (‘plume head melting process”)  to form a magma pool (or magma chamber) below the surface where chemical changes and other processes can alter the mineral composition over time.  Mafic magmas can undergo physical and chemical reactions (called fractional crystallization) to form more silica, water and gas rich felsic magmas. Were that to happen below Hayli Gubbi that might result in more viscous, gaseous and violent eruption prone magma to form in its magma chamber. Perhaps this is the source of the violent eruption of Hayli Gubbi.  

FLOOD BASALTS

Crustal fractures resulting from the doming and thinning caused by magma plumes may produce elongate crust fractures which may release the hot magma through long fissures in the crust to the surface. The lava  may spread out to cool and solidify forming a low-slope lava terrane covering vast areas of the Earth’s surface. These areas covered in volcanic lava flows are called “flood basalts” (Note that fine grained mafic rocks are classed as basalt). In the USA state of Washington, ancient Columbia River flood basalts cover vast areas estimated to have spread over more than half of that state. Similar features are found in Siberia (Siberian Traps) and India (Deccan Traps)

If the rising magma finds a narrow fissure through the fractured crust which reaches the surface it may generate a shield cone  type volcano such as Mona Loa and Kilauea in Hawaii and Erta Ali in Ethiopia. These volcanoes erupt from a magma source of mafic, hot, highly fluid low-gas-low silica magma. They form low slope “scab like” or shield like eruptions on the surface.   

Note: Lower Mantle= 4,000C, compare to Sun surface which is @ 5,500 C

*PANGAEA

A supercontinent which formed in Paleozoic and began to break apart—in similar fashion to that what we are observing in the Afar Triangle A hotspot formed somewhere along the boundary between what is now Africa and South America pushing up and thinning the crust and subcrustal magma currents generated by the upwelling plume slowly caused the break up of the supercontinent. 

Today continents comprise about 29% of Earth surface and ocean covers about 71% with most (2/3) of the continents spread across the Northern Hemisphere.  Between about 300mya  to 200 mya years ago…all of Earth’s continents were cobbled together into one giant “C” shaped continent called Pangaea.  Pangaea covered an area of about one-third of the Earth surface in a more or less north-south orientation with the remaining two-thirds, an ocean called Panthalassa. There was no Atlantic, Indian or Arctic Ocean—only Panthalassa. At its widest part Pangaea, may have been @ 6,300 miles from west to east coast, creating a Panthalassa of  as an uninterrupted @18,600 miles of open ocean.  Compare that to today’s 12,300 miles wide ocean  of the present Pacific Ocean.                                                                    .

Pangaea’s core area was located close to the equator, while other parts stretched toward the higher latitudes in a “C” shape with no polar ice caps. As a result of its orientation, a great central desert formed near the equator. Land dwelling animal and plant species of that era were spread widely across the continents, and ocean currents and winds were altered as well.  

But the Earth did not remain with only a single supercontinent.  About 200 million years ago fissures developed in the central part of Pangaea and the “supercontinent” began to split apart. 

NB note; End of Paleozoic @ 250 mya,  250=66 mya Mesozoic, 66 mya to present Cenozoic…Pleistocene 2.6-mya to 12,000 ya

MODERN CLIMATE CATASTROPHISM

Musing of an observer of the political and scientific scene by one who would see us reforest the Earth, end our wars, control our population and right the“ship of Earth” —today so far off course and listing dangerously at 45deg first to port then to starboard. 

In 1992 Al Gore wrote “The Earth In Balance” and set off a tidal wave of literary and media responses which shortly led to a well funded cottage industry populated by political and scientific climate influencers devoted to supporting only one concept—that the Earth is on course for a cataclysmic overheating that will end our economy and the human presence on Earth. They emphasized the worst case scenario, a common human failure.  If there is only  “doom ahead” we create unwonted panic —they are climate catastrophists.  The catastrophists have created a “climate doom” future. For some it may serve their purposes as a way to enlist and engage the population to action.  For others it is a valuable means of supporting their often underfunded pet science projects. Left leaning politicians found climate panic as a valuable bludgeon for attacking political enemies on the right who often questioned “the science”. 

These events and questions have an interesting past. About 175 years ago humans discovered the usefulness and value of certain sedimentary layers of “black rock” cropping out on the face of steep cliffs and hillsides in Pennsylvania. Native Americans of the Iroquois Confederacy used “stone coal”: as a source of pigment to make a black face paint. From prehistoric times California native Americans knew of petroleum, the viscous black liquid or “rock oil” often found weeping out of earth depressions. They used it to seal hulls of their planked wooden vessels and also make useful waterproof baskets. 

By the beginning of the 19th century both these substances were found to be excellent sources of cheap heat. By the 1850s many Americans had come to realize that these common fossil carbon rich substances could be used as fuel and could  generate more heat when burned than wood, and with much less effort. 

Petroleum and coal can burn at temperatures much hotter than wood— and had the advantage of being easily obtained in comparison to wood, which (in 1850 had become scarce) had to be laboriously cut, split and then aged for a few years to dry before use.  

The primary source of these ancient, buried and altered, black, carbon rich fuels were prehistoric 300 million year-old forests and swamps.  There, early chlorophyll bearing trees and ferns used photosynthesis to combine CO2 with H2O to make carbohydrates such as sugars, starches, cellulose and other plant tissues. Each one of these CHO carbohydrate molecules stores carbon as a component . When taken from the air, converted into a carbohydrate, buried and metamorphosed  into coal, carbon, is stored (almost) permanently. 

During the Carboniferous Period (360-300 mya) of the Paleozoic Era the spread of forests across the Earth’s surface, and their luxuriant growth, drew vast amounts of CO2 out of the ancient (carbon dioxide rich and much warmer— 68F!) atmosphere. The carbon was  stored as a compound known as a carbohydrate (such as sugar, starch, cellulose) in organic solid plant matter.  At the end of the Carboniferous atmospheric temperatures had dropped to about  54degF, cooler than our modern temperature of 59F.  Forests remove carbon as a gas from the atmosphere and converts it to a solid..which separates it (sequesters it) from the atmosphere.  Over vast stretches of time, with episodes of mountain range uplift, mountains eroded away, surges of sediments covering lowland and marshy swamps those luxuriant forests were buried deep underground to become sedimentary layers of “black rock”. After the Carboniferous  the Earth continued on a with a lower concentration of CO2 in its atmosphere and a cooler atmosphere as noted above 54F!.

During the 1850s most of North American forests had been cut over for fuel and building material. Wood became more expensive. Demand for more fuel increased to serve the growing population and the needs of industries and businesses. This demand  led to the exploitation of underused fuel resources such as coal (and eventually petroleum) as cheap fuels (yes they were cheap then). 

These fossil fuels sought to feed the steam engines, factories and businesses of the Industrial Revolution extracted needed energy by “burning it’ in the air (combining it with oxygen) and venting waste CO2 into the atmosphere. The need for more annd more energy to heat water, a house or a steam engine, or later to move a sleek gasoline powered vehicle along a superhighway grew exponentially.  The result of burning carbon (C) based fuels is (CO2) or carbon dioxide which when released into the atmosphere acts as a heat trapping gas which warms the air.  

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, it was almost always a component of the Earth atmosphere with one unusual physical characteristic: it can absorb heat energy radiated from the Earth surface. Adding it to the atmosphere causes the atmosphere to trap more heat radiation and raises the average Earth temperature.

Thus there are two ways the Earth’s atmosphere is heated today (1) the Earth’s natural cycle of heating and cooling is not fully understood, but we know that factors such as :the Earth’s position relative to the Sun, the Sun’s energy output, the tilt of the Earth axis of rotation, Earth volcanic activity, the location and patterning of the continents on the Earth’s surface, and even the pattern of heated ocean currents all have an impact of Earth temperatures . The Eaarth went into a cooling phase of this cycle began more than 2.5 million years ago with the Pleistocene (Glacial Epoch) and ended about  20,000 years ago with the end of the Pleistocene and beginning of a (perhaps temporary) heating phase of the cycle. We live on in that natural heating cycle today!  

(2) The other form of Earth heating is a result of humans unearthing fossil fuels, burning them in the atmosphere and releasing the resultant CO2, a heat trapping gas, into the atmosphere.       

Sadly the frenzy of the catastrophists misconception is that the planet Earth is a static, unchanging, rocky sphere which if left in its natural state  (a state they propose) would remain at its “pre-industrial global temperatures” which in the 1850-1900 period averaged about 57 deg F.  The present day average, almost 125 years later after massive alterations to the Earth and its atmosphere, is about 59 deg F, or about 2 F degrees above the 1850-1900 value.  How much is human caused? The Earth so massive and complex it is a very conservative body..slow to change —even large changes in some areas make little change in it overall…it sis not likely to make catastrophic changes in short periods of time. 

Increases over the 1850-1900 “standard” are interpreted  by “doomers’ as strictly unnatural perturbations and are the result of past human actions—which presumably other modern day humans could alter so as to return the Earth temperatures to its 1850-1900 “standard”.  

There has been no effort to tease out of these data the difference between the average natural rise in post Pleistocene glacial temperatures vs what human pollution has caused. 

The Doomers (who claim to “cleave to the science”) have ignored the scientific supported evidence that we live on a planet which has been warming for the last twenty millenia.   For the last 20,000 years the Earth has been warming up—with no human intervention..and has experienced (melting of glaciers, alterations in flora and fauna, extinctions of species, etc.,etc.) in a natural cycle of warming. Only in the last two centuries have humans had an impact on these warming trends..But how much has that been? 

Some of that 2 deg F rise is no doubt caused by human alterations to the Earth. Today there are too many people (9 billion is a massive unsustainable burden), way too much of our carbon absorbing forests have been cleared, too much heat absorbing asphalt and concrete poured out to cover its surfaces, too many houses and autos spewing pollutants and heat trapping gases, too many manufactured products used for an instant in Earth time then abandoned to rot away.  

Heating up of the Earth has been going on a long time. Seventeen thousand years ago at this very place on a glacial morainal hilltop in New York, where I write this today, was covered  by more than 1,500 feet of glacial ice. Happily that ice is long gone.

Misconception of the Earth pressed on us by the climate fear mongers is that the Earth is or should remain as an unchanging and stable platform for human activities is not supported by past Earth history. 

The Climate Doomers who tout their adherence to “the science” have abandoned over 200 years of geological science. The Earth is a “living” evolving planet in which almost nothing is stable—even the very continents upon which we all live have been drifting around on is surface at the rate at which our fingernails grow. The continents go through a “clumping together” cycle too.  “Pangaea” a supercontinent formed  400 million years ago then some 200 mya began breaking apart completing a cyclic pattern which appeared to complete in a 200-300 million year period. 

The “doomers” assert  that climate warming is solely human generated, and that without radical alteration to human lifestyles—such as: abandonment of fossil fuels, achieving “zero carbon footprint”, limiting global temperature rise to some specific level (always patently impossible to achieve) catastrophic heating of the atmosphere is unavoidable and would lead to collapse of the economy and society in general.  

As a consequence of the many hyperventilating “climate influencers” there was no natural event, or news item which did not elicit some dire connection to climate warming, whether it was an isolated severe winter storm, California wild fires, invasive insect species, unusual wild bird sightings, human immigration, Russian forest fires, volcanic eruptions, hurricane intensity, or most often, simply an unusually hot summer day—someone claimed it was all tied together in one all inclusive “causa causans” as one of the many evil effects of burning fossil fuels and adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.  

Climate Doomerism reminded me of other another  academic and public conflict—one of an historic conflict of science between the uniformitarinanism and catastrophism. In the late 18th century and into early 19th century evolving ideas concerning the age of the Earth and what processes were responsible for the Earth’s existing—rock structure topography  and its history——played out in academic conflict which was sharply complicated and intensified by religious beliefs.  

In the late 18th century Europe and Scotland (in the Age of Enlightenment) led to many discoveries in natural science. As the Age of Enlightenment progressed during the late 18th and early 19th century natural scientists, miners and civil engineers began to accumulate more detailed knowledge of the natural world. Reports of the occurrence of marine fossils in mountainous terrane far from existing coasts, as well as documention of sedimentary rock layers occurring in repeating successions. Others reported and mapped the occurrence of crystalline rock types which suggested an origin as a precipitate from a saturated solution. These latter observations as well as the existence in nature of rugged mountain ranges, abrupt changes in topography, deep river gorges and steep cliff-faces encouraged natural scientists (who also relied heavily on religious dogma and biblical Old Testament revelations) to promote an explanation of violent and rapid alterations of the Earth surface as a result of the “great flood” an occurrence of the recent past was responsible for the existing topographic features as well as the deposition of layered rocks and chemical precipitation from sea water of the crystalline rock types. This hypotheses known as Neptunism (or later catastrophism) was also supported by the religious establishment of the time which acted as a rational and scientific support for the story of the Biblical Flood of the Old Testament.  

One of the most effective and influential proponents of the Neptunists/Catastrophists was German mineralogist and geologist Abraham Werner (1750-1817) head of the Freiberg School of Mining in Freiburg, Germany who postulated that the Earth was once completely ocean covered and the various rock types (and their enclosed marine fossils) were either sediments which settled out of the water column, or were crystalline rocks (such as granite and basalt) which he considered chemical precipitates. Werner explained the variations in topography, existence of mountain ranges, steep cliff faces and river gorges as the result of flowing ocean water during as the cataclysmic flood receded and revealed a contorted and topographically altered dry land.

 In the view of the Werner catastrophists, the Earth was very young—perhaps only some six thousand years old, and all of its topography could be explained as occurring during this one-time earth-alterning event.

In the late 18th century a Scottish scientist James Hutton (1726-1797), whose life experiences in geologically diverse Scotland as a physician, farmer, mineralogist, chemist, and natural historian led him to conclude that it was the invisibly slow processes of rock weathering, soil formation, earth creep, erosion, sediment deposition and slow imperceptible, gradual mountain uplift that are responsible for sculpting and shaping the Earth over immense unimaginably long stretches of time—- not sudden catastrophic events.     

Hutton claimed that the Earth was shaped -not by a great flood—but (1) by the very same slow processes which alter the Earth today and which must have operated at a similar rate in the past.  But to do so Hutton understood they must have operated over very long stretches of time.  Thus he was the first to conclude (2)  the Earth must be very very old and  (3) to understand and interpret processes of modern day Earth we must refer back to present day processes for in geology “the present is key to the past”. Others who followed Hutton and popularized his concepts (Lyell, and  )  coined the term “uniformitarianist” to contrast his theory with the popular theory of the time, that of Abraham Werner and the Neptunists.    

Modern geologist—the modern day “Uniformitarianists”—understand that the Earth’s natural processes are in general characterized as imperceptibly slow uniform change punctuated irregularly by more robust and violent changes such as volcanic eruptions and meteorite impacts but these events are relatively common and naturally occurring over the long stretches of “Earth Time”. 

The slow changes in Earth will continue whatever we humans do…yes we have exacerbated the “problem” to our society based as we are on the present state of the planet…but we must understand that all change is slow imperceptible and modulated by the vast size and mass of the planet Earth…nothing is going to happen catastrophically…