The Location of the old volcanic Lava is in ERCIS of Van,
Whereas, the Earthquake epicenter is in TABANLI of Van as seen in map below (Figure 1.).
In general the eruptions not appear from the middle of crater but only one side of the crater.
Topographically, there is not really a high rised appearence volcano here, but it is very possible that Lake Van itself is a crater Lake and underneath is a very very old flat, not high rised volcano part.
Figure 1.
Figure 2. Lava soil in Ercis/Van.
Compared to big Lavas of very active volcanos, the Lava seen in ERCIS of Van is not really much. (The Lava appears as red at above photo taken on October 2011.). The exact formula of the gas has not been investigated in detail, however it very possible that it is relatively non toxic flammable gas, such as C4H10 . A jeochemist-Volcanologist should investigate the deep soil composition if needed. A jeochemist-Volcanologist will find out what possible element will produce gases, for example Uranium under certain conditions gives radon gas etc. (Radon is not flammable).
Video 1. Lava gas burning.
Above video shows the volcanic Lava in detail. The villagers of ERCIS describes the Lava as 'The soil is burning itself, some gas is coming out from soil and burning spontaneously.
The district responsible people was just about to investigate issue by taking gas samples or asking for volcanologist, whether some people is burning it illegally; or, it is the nature itself, the Lava coming from old volcano. It is also possible that the gas itself is not that much flaming underneath the soil, but some air-present factors causes gas flaming*.
After 23/10/2011 Van earthquake, Experts agreed that it is indeed Lava coming from the soil.
Lava contains burnable gases leaking from the soil, thus even heavy rain or water can not stop from burning as shown in figure 2.
Undersea volcanos also leaks gases, but since they are in deep water no burning appears, or hardly brief flames occur, their ashes dirties the water; or, if strong, gives ashes towards sky.
After the 23-10-2011 7.2 mAGNİTUDE Van Earthquake, small earthquakes more than thousands continued at Van. Some them were only aftershocks of the same epicenter(Tabanlı), however, though smaller than 6 magnitude, new epicenter (Bitlis) originated Earthquakes caused some landslides under already wery weak, already very damaged big heavy buildings. Such a weakened building lost its base support and fall over the street, fall over its door to level on street. The photo on the left in Figure 3. is the photo of the heavy building prior to big, 7.2 magnitude Earthquake.
The videos below shows both the undamaged building and how the damaged building leveled. Not all the buildings on the same street damaged, however, this building was about 40 years old, older than the other building. Was its engineering different, (too long over few supports?), was it too old with Chloride rich wetness? soil liquefaction? we do not know. We know that this building endured to the big 7.2 magnitude Earthquake very well as compared to many badly engineered buildings.
But, I myself would not stay in such an already damaged building if thousands of aftershocks with new earthquake epicenters going around over such a soil.
It is also possible that some Earthquakes which are described as 'subduction zones' behave differently to cause more after Earthquake events, such as Landslides if at mountain area.
Some weak, slow developing subduction zone problems show themselves only as floods on Continents.
Subduction zone earthquake triggering chemical events occur at enormously greater depths than elsewhere on Earth, but seismicity measured damages/shakes is limited to the outermost 20 km of the solid Earth.
Figure 4. Some already established coordinates on Earth at where rather subduction one type Earthquakes are likely. Whether subduction zone Earthquakes correlates with relatively dropping-towards-to-low-temperature requires further investigation by myself.
Iran 2003, Indonesia 2004, Kamchatka 2006, Sichuan 2008, L'Aquila 2009, Haiti 2010, New Zealand 2011, Tohoku 2011, Van 23/10/2011 are all subduction zone earthquakes.
Earthquake size is proportional to the subduction zone length. such subduction zone earthquakes may occur every 100 to 200 years; the longer Earthquake interval may indicate unusually large stress buildup and subsequent unusually large earthquake slip. tHE WORD 'mountain stress' is used to describe many chemical reactions towards new chemical products which occur in mountain eventually leading an earthquake, landslides or mountain liquefaction.
If the mountains around subduction zone area are very strong because of enormous mass/weight against chemical change stress, they resist to possible shakes many hundred years.
However, Van subduction zone is short and total very close mountain mass around Van is not very big, there is a Lake pit, thus though not too big, frequent earthquakes occur in Van.
Figure 5. BITLIS-ZAGROS subduction zone fold(shown as blue barbed line under Van Lake ). Established Earthquake related fault lines around Van Lake at which 23/10/2011 7.2 magnitude Earthquake occurred.
Figure 6. Subduction zone is showed as barbed lines
on brown colored areas. Mountain chemistry representing areas are colored brown. In this map it has not been shown whether Lake Van is, recent section of the geological time scale (Neogene Oceanic Crust).
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Figure 7. World major volcanoes
Not all volcanoes are similar. Some volcanoes are rich in for example Magnesium, thus they are more flammable from others. Ararat mountain is not known for its prominent burning Lavas, maybe there are Chloride chemical reactions around to decrease flammability of Magnesium. Any old volcanoes are rich in dry ice (The well known gas CO2 becomes dry-ice under high pressure, dry-ice looks similar but is not regular ice form of liquid water ).When the pressure lessens, the ice CO2 form turns into gas form and at first swells the mountain land, then at a point, CO2 escapes from mountain, causing gas-free cavities in mountain; eventually, collapse of cavities around/under mountain followed by Earthquakes. That the Earthquake is smaller than 8.0 magnitude means that the gas-escape-resulted-cavities in mountain were not big. The change from liquid/ice to gas occur when different-wavelenght-sunlight absorbed by mountain. (Sometimes just the opposite occur, rather than the gas, the liquid/ice form of CO2 increases, may displace another liquid/water over lands; how this chemistry correlates with legendary unusual flood story/Naoh Arc of Ararat...).
In other planets such as Mars, magnesium-like flammable chemicals are absent, thus no burning Lava forms, in Earth there are more chemicals to create Lava all around the earth.
Such Earthquake events might be deadly, but in long term such chemical events mean that mountain is keeping ongoing chemical reactions to renew its structure; too dormant volcano might mean that the mountain will lose its mountain structure eventually by landslides/liquefication.
Between Europe volcanoe related Earthquakes, I speculate that
Mount Ararat related 23/10/2011 magnitude 7.2 Earthquake, and Extinct Volcano
(Colli Albani) related L'Aquila 6.3 magnitude 2009
earthquakes are comparable.
Between Europe volcanoes, Santorini is rather with hot desert climate chemistry, whereas Ararat is with a colder climate.
Both Mount Ararat and Extinct Volcano Colli-Albani have some volcanic lakes around. Colli Albani is smaller than Mount Ararat as a mass, but that Colli Albani did not cause many Earthquakes is good to say that mount activity is not unusual to remind 5000 years ago events.
When composition of mountains will be known by chemical analysis, the likely reaction will be more predictable in future.
Video 2. shows a building in Van before 23/10/2011 Earthquake, this building at first damaged with 23/10/2011 7.2 Magnitude earthquake, and after 17 days, leveled to street with a small tremblor of 5.7 magnitude (before and after compared at Figure 3.).
Video 2. A building before Earthquake.
Below video shows how a small tremblor of 5.7 magnitude (either from a new epicenter within 100 kms or an aftershock of 23/10/2011 Van 7.2 magnitude earthquake) further damaged or leveled some evacuated; or with people buildings in Van. In general people never stay in even slightly damaged buildings after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake, with maybe small but too frequent pounding aftershocks; but, in the middle of winter, people on duty risked their lives, some unfortunately were not lucky. Below falling buildings on video were mostly evacuated except two buildings.
Video 3. Small Aftershocks smaller than 7 further damages, levels buildings.
*Many months EARLİER 23/10/2011 EARTHQUAKE somewhere in this district, house fabrics, dresses of some people spontaneously started to burn, meaning that their dresses, their house fabrics were with contaminated with heavier gas, and since some cleaning detergants have high inorganic phosphate, flaming triggered easily by some factors easily. This event was weird, I encountered it only this time in my life. There was not photo for this newspaper news. I may do a google search to find comparable weird events.
**What to do after an Earthquake, stay or live the location?
If possible travel to a less risky place. This question struck my mind when unfortunately two Earthquake journalists lost their lives in an Earthquake-damaged-building on duty to report Van Earthquake. ıF earthquake İS DURİNG SUMMER İN A warm place, it will not be problem to stay in tent, but in winter at a cold area people on duty sometimes risk their life by staying in damaged buildings.
5.8 Magnitude is not a big magnitude, but already damaged buildings will collapse even by themselves.
I myself experienced 7.4 magnitude deadly earthquake in my summer house city in 1999, my house several times shakened from side to side with no damage on walls. Some nearby badly engineered buildings shaked to a side but couldn't straightened .
A second earthquake aftershock with 5.8 magnitude in 1999 did not cause any further damage in my summerhouse city, or did not bring down this house here further. I was swimming as usual in the sea when a 6.1 magnitude aftershock occurred in 1999. Earthquakes less than 7 are not considered damaging.
But 23/10/2011 Van Earthquake is not similar to an Earthquake that happened at a seaside.
Land/mountain close aftershock earthquakes are different that they might occur too much and they pound earthquake areas thousands times within two weeks further. Also new small earthquake epicenters definetely forms within 100 kms.
All thousands aftershocks were already reported on newspapers or at sites such as: http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/Map/gmap.php
There is not sea at Van to buffer the pounding quakes.
***Risking lives for a duty is not unusual including myself. Life is not easy for humanity.
Humanity learn where to live with lower risk over centuries.
But, sometimes to keep the integrity of a country requires more population at places such as Van.
Some island-like countries freely leave empty the risky places, but this is not appliable for most countries.
