Mount Rainier called a threat

“MSNBC story

Wonder what this means to somebody on the mountain 24/7, crikey, bloody hell.

Yes, it's an active volcano! They think it's gonna blow.”

“Dang it!

Miami - Hurricane Andrew blows our house away in '92.

NYC - Terrorists blow up my city '01.


What's next?

Seattle - Mt Rainier erupts and melts the city of Seattle? Of course, there will probably be some huge earthquake prior to that which will destroy thousands of homes and businesses.

Sheesh. Thanks Geo.”

“I saw a show recently about how Yellowstone is starting to bulge. If that caldera blew it would make a Rainier eruption look like a cap gun.”

“Hey, better you know this now. It's going to blow one say, and sooner rather than later.”

“Is it my imagination or did i see a man bungee jumping off the building next to it?”

“Yellowstone is a hot spot rather than a volcano as such. It would probably not be an explosive eruption on the order of Mt. St. Helens or Pinatubo. Rainier, on the other hand ... is exactly the same as St. Helens and Pinatubo. Pressure has been building and things are melting within. When the bulge starts getting bigger, that's the sign.”

“You might want to stay away from Memphis and St. Louis, too, since they're right on top of the New Madrid fault.

Seems like I read somewhere that Chicago is on top of extremely solid base rock, and unlikely to be affected by an earthquake. They do get the occaisional flood or rare tornado, but all in all, as disasters go, Chicago seems pretty immune.

Well, as long as you forget about Mrs. O'Leary's cow and all that.”

“um - are we talking the next 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, or what?

Would be cool to study volcanology (is that a real word?)”

“Close, it's vulcanology.”

“Dang, I'd forgotten about Mrs. O'Leary's cow!”

“And when it does blow, you'll here of all of buildings and houses that were lost, property damage avoidable by not living there. You and I will pay for they're stupidity through higher insurance rates.”

“They said Yellowstone it is what scientist call a super volcano and eruptions are rare but when they blow they are massive.”

“That was an ugly remark.

I suppose where you live there is no threat of natural disaster?

Stuff happens. Deal with it.”

“I hope it does blow. After the Iraq war ended, the evening news blows. An eruption would liven things up a bit.”

“Hard to say on a timetable Twinks, but the signs they are talking about are an indication that something is close to happening. That probably does not mean next week or next month, but sometime in the next few years is very likely. The bulge is on the west side of the mountain, which is bad news for the coastal cities. ST. Helens' blast went toward the relatively uninhabited east.”

“Hey gramps, what major city(ies) are West of the volcano?”

“From the USGS

The Yellowstone region has produced three caldera-forming eruptions in the past 2 million years, two of those among the largest eruptions known to have occurred on Earth (each more than 1,000 cubic kilometers).”

“Twinks - "That was an ugly remark.

I suppose where you live there is no threat of natural disaster?

Stuff happens. Deal with it......."

That's to me?”

“I remember watching Mt St Helens erupt as a kid on tv. Man, that was horrible. But now parts of it are starting to get some regrowth. Get to view the creation and shifting of the earth in human time - pretty cool.”

“Yellowstone is a hot spot, similar to the one that built Hawaii. Hawaiian volcanoes do not ordinarily blow, but ooze lava.

There have been lava flows around Yellowstone. Virtually all the rock around it is of volcanic origin. But I'm not aware that it has even blown.

The question is whether it could blow, and I guess the answer is it could blow, but I'm also not aware of any pressure building there. There's no bulge, no dome of any consequence, no signs that anything's about to happen. I would think any pressure that might build up at Yellowstone is relieved by geysers and such.

In essence, hot spots like Hawaii and Yellowstone are fundamentally different than cinder-cone volcanoes like St. Helens, Rainier, and Pinatubo.”

“Hey I was up at Rainier last week- didnt see anything blow up though :(”

“MH: lava eruptions or explosive eruptions? I think lava eruptions spew lava for many miles around, but that's not the same as an explosive eruption.”

“Rainier go boom. Better check it out while you can. Maybe Seattle would gain a view of the ocean? Just kidding.”

“Seattle to the NW and other towns directly west along the coast and between the coast and the mountain.”

“Geobeet take a look at this.
Supervolcanoes could trigger global freeze”

“Geo - thanks for posting this. USGS has great info on all of this.

Like Rainier is a Stratovolcano...”

“The difference is between the two kinds of volcanic formations. The Cascades and Pinatubo are above subduction zones, where ocean plates are diving under continental plates, back into the mantle. These are the regions where highly explosive eruptions occur.

Hot spots, Hawaii and Yellowstone, are volcanic without doubt. Generally though, they are regions where lava comes to the surface and forms new land (Hawaii) or creates new landforms (Yellowstone).

The valley of the Snake River was formed by the same hot spot that forms Yellowstone. It was widened and deepened when an ice dam fractured long ago, with a resulting flood flowing down valley.

There may be signs that Yellowstone will erupt again, perhaps soon. But if I were betting on it, I'd bet on Rainier not only erupting a lot sooner, but with a lot more explosive force.

Volcanoes erupt all the time in Hawaii. These are lava eruptions, and many have been spectacular. But they are fundamentally different eruptions than the others, where part of a mountain is just blown away.

Caldera can be the crater on a cinder dome or any place where lava erupts. The Yellowstone Calder has formed the valley of the Snake over time, while Hawaii has manifested itself by a chain of volcanic islands and sea mounts that once were islands.”

“Did anyone see Joe Versus the Volcano?

I better buy some really good luggage before the move! LOL”

“Any or all types of volcanoes can produce a caldera. All you need is for the magma chamber to completely empty so that it no longer supports the weight of the volcano thus causing the volcano to collapse down upon itself forming a caldera. The longer magma sits in a magma chamber between eruptions, the more silica it picks up which makes it more likely to be explosive. Although the Yellowstone complexes are more known for producing the Columbia flood basalts, they have also had explosive eruptions producing huge amounts of ash a tephra.”

“Guess that clears it up Gear Slut. I'd still bet on Rainier before Yellowstone. The signs are more clear.”

“mmmmmmmmm

Mag ma

Mag ma

Ma g ma

sorry - couldn't resist being the idiot, as usual”

“Let's see, 5 minutes advance warning if you are in the Park.

At least the time you spend in sheer terror will be short.”

“I would bet on Rainier before Yellowstone as well but any time there is a growing resurgent dome in a caldera such as in Long Valley or Yellowstone, it is definiteley a concern. Of course the earthquake swarms and the bulge on the south eastern side of Mt. Hood is a concern as well as the growing bulge to the west of South Sister. Fascinating stuff!”

“Some Volcano Trivia:

Vesuvius erupted 10 times as powerfully as Mt. St. Helens.
Mt. Pinatubo erupted 3 times as powerfully as Mt. Vesuvius.

(supposedly, allegedly)


I wonder how Krakatau figures in these comparisons?

Ah... Volcanic Explosivity Index numbers.”

“An interesting sidelight to all of this is that mean annual temperatures went down following both St. Helens and Pinatubo because of ash plumes circling the globe.”

“Yes, Rainier is an active volcano, and it may blow again. And people are surprised by this?

In '97 I helped place some seismic equipment for advance Lahar (mudflow) warning. Geologists then, and from what I gathered on my las tvisit a year or two ago, are more concerned with the threat of Lahars than an actual eruption. Both are serious business. As the article points out, some towns already sit on 50 or more feet of debris from previous mudflows. Commencement bay, where the Puyallup River meets Puget sound used to be many miles inland from where it is now...Yep, a lahar filled in the puyallup basin.

Mutt, and eruption to the west, is not going to blast in a linear fashion. It is going to spread. The fact that it points west, towards the more populated portion of the state, and is so close to popluation centers, Tacoma, Olympia, SEattle (and the eastside) are definitley at risk.

I remember after St. Helens people were paranoid that Rainier and Baker would be next. I guess some still are. As long as they keep venting, it may release some pressure that would prevent a more serious explosive eruption.”

“I liked this part of the article:

Jill Hawk, chief ranger at the park, found out about the narrower window last fall. She said she immediately modified her mind-set. Near her office, there is a footpath that may allow her to scramble 60 feet up out of the valley in five minutes.
“I don’t have time to evacuate people,” she said. “I have time to run.”

I guess that means that if you see an NPS employee running it's likely a good idea to follow! :)”

“THe LP of Michigan, to quote my geology teacher there, is "geologically boring." It's a safe place to live. Until all those volcanoes blow, ushering in the next ice age, and them you're buried.”

“LMAO deeddawg, I'd have to agree! A case of "Feets don't fail me now!"”

“Geobeet I would also bet on Rainier or any other volcano in the cascades erupting before Yellowstone. The point of the show was that the whole view of the Yellowstone system has changed. One interesting thing was that for years they knew a caldera must exist somewhere in the park, but it couldn’t be found it was only after viewing NASA satellite images that it was realized that most of park is the caldera. They couldn’t find it because it was so big. They weren’t looking for something on that scale.It’s all very interesting stuff.”

“That must have been an old show. That discovery was made years ago. The caldera shows as a valley that traces the movement of the continental plate over the hot spot. It's basically just a long valley.”

“Why doesn't this news surprise me?”

“umm because youre a geologist?”

“When I went out to climb St. Helens, I also picked up some material on the 1980 eruption. MSH was well down the list but Matamora was numero uno, bigger than Thera, bigger than Krakatoa.

Something like 3000 cubic kilometers of material displaced and wiped out pretty much all life in an area covering three states. Todat we know Matamora as Crater Lake in Oregon, but before it was a strato-volcano, same as Rainier.

St. Helens opened a breach which pretty much pointed north and threw stuff up to 23 miles.

[link]http://host1.in-motion.net/~jefft/mountains/mshbreach.jpg[/link]”

“Long Valley Caldera in the California Sierra Nevada is the highest threat in North America...not the most imediate (yet), but the largest threat none the less.”

“(not my opinion BTW. this was the opinion of three different earth science professors I had a few years back)”

“Fascinating stuff, guys. I would like to see the show that Must Hike saw on Yellowstone, even if is was old. National Geographic magazine had an article several years ago on the Cascades and the possibility of huge lahars wiping out much of Seattle, etc. It was a very long, detailed article that was fascinating and scary at the same time. My sister in law and her husband and new baby live in Seattle.”

“My wife's family lives near Victoria, BC...only a stone's throw away from Seattle really.”

“When I was first told of this Washington Post story by a sister on the phone I was naturally fascinated and anxious. From the way she relayed it to me it sounded like some imminent threat story with up to the minute info.

Now that I've read this story myself it sounds like typical August "news". The story mentions a study done in the late 90's. When I was out there hiking the Wonderland trail last summer this same info was relayed to me by rangers and others. As I was told last summer, yes it is more active than previously thought and could blow any time, but this is not new info as of August '03. This story sounds like the shark attack stories of the summer of '01.

By the way......get on out there and hike that trail while you can. It's great!”

“This could be good for tourism: "hike the Wonderland before it blows!"”