A Supervolcano Beneath Mt. St. Helens? 180
We've discussed the supervolcano beneath Yellowstone a few times here (not going to blow, 2004; going to blow, 2008). Now scientists are pondering whether a large area of conductive material beneath Mt. St. Helens might contain enough magma that the area could be classed a supervolcano. The jury is still out on this one. Reader nhytefall sends us a New Scientist progress report. "Magma can be detected with a technique called magnetotellurics, which builds up a picture of what lies underground by measuring fluctuations in electric and magnetic fields at the surface. The fields fluctuate in response to electric currents traveling below the surface, induced by lightning storms and other phenomena. The currents are stronger when magma is present, since it is a better conductor than solid rock. ... [M]easurements revealed a column of conductive material that extends downward from the volcano. About 15 km below the surface, the relatively narrow column appears to connect to a much bigger zone of conductive material. This larger zone was first identified in the 1980s by another magnetotelluric survey, and was found to extend all the way to beneath Mount Rainier 70 km to the north-east, and Mount Adams 50 km to the east. It was thought to be a zone of wet sediment, water being a good electrical conductor. ... [Some researchers] now think the conductive material is more likely to be a semi-molten mixture. Its conductivity is not high enough for it to be pure magma.. so it is more likely to be a mixture of solid and molten rock."
Re:Volcano! (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, yes, I was woken up last time a Category 5 hurricane was about to hit. We don't panic because it's reported "This could be the worst hurricane season ever!" That's not news either, it's fear mongering. It's something to worry about when there's really a storm coming, and you may have a day or few days notice. It may be a Category 2 hurricane now, but when it arrives it could be just a tropical depression or a Category 5 hurricane. It may turn towards us. It may turn away from us. When it looks likely that it will hit, that's when we take precautions.
When Hurricane Andrew came our way, we stored some water, make sure we had food and cooking supplies, and locked down everything we needed to. We were within the storm, but not near the eye. Not that the eye matters that much, these storms are wicked most of the way across.
We watched Hurricane Isabel, but it turned away from us.
Hurricane Ivan wasn't much to see when we got it.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita danced around us, so we were lucky.
Hurricane Wilma wasn't terribly strong when it got here.
A few years ago, I believe 2005, we had 4 hurricanes back to back. I was living out of state, but I had to fly back for work. My first flight was delayed because of the hurricane. They reopened the airport, and I caught the second flight. About a day after I landed, the next storm came in, and low lying areas were evacuated. We were moving equipment between data centers, and had just gotten it all inside when the edge of the storm hit. I called a provider to have a circuit turned up, and they asked "you do realize you're in the middle of a hurricane, right?" I had a 4wd rental SUV (with insurance, of course), food and water were secured at home. Power and traffic lights were spotty throughout the area. I received one phone call for an evacuation. Someone I knew had a Porsche, and couldn't get down his street because of the flooding and trees down. Flood waters were starting to come up, and the wind was driving the rain through his window seals, so the whole West side of his house was soaked. I drove Tampa to Clearwater, got him out of his home and to another friends place on higher ground. It's interesting driving in a hurricane across a bridge. It's hard to see, the winds push you around, the waves are crashing over the side of the bridge, but there are no cars on the road. :) It was us and police looking for people in trouble to help out. If we had seen a stopped car and someone trying to get our attention, we would have picked them up and taken them to safety, just as the police would have.
Hurricanes are probably one of the best times, because most people turn to each other. The police aren't out trying to write traffic tickets. They're evacuating people from their homes (either mandatory or on calls for help), and looking for people stuck on the side of the road, or in other trouble. No questions are asked, they are just helped. Friends help out friends. People on higher ground give those on lower ground a place to stay until it's over. When its over, neighbors help neighbors with anything they can.
During Hurricane Elena (1985), because it lingered off shore from us, the lowland houses flooded. We lived inland, and had 8 or so people staying with us for several days. After we lost power, food was cooked on the BBQ. Everyone was happy and fairly comfortable. 3 tornadoes hit our property, one on the house directly, and two uprooted trees and tossed them. When it was safe to go home (i.e., the flood waters had gone down enough to drive home), they went home and started cleaning up. Our only damage was a destroyed 50' TV antenna. The low lying houses weren't all so lucky.
Re:Lava life? (Score:5, Informative)
Not to be a nit-picker, but lava and magma aren't actually the same thing; lava is magma flowing on the Earth's surface. The properties of the two are the same, aside from lava being surrounded by relatively cool air, and magma being surrounded by insulating earth.
I know that doesn't really answer your question, but consider this; It's not lava yet.
Re:Gov. Jindal isn't worried (Score:4, Informative)
Why do you consider facts to be "right-wing"? You must then consider left-wingers to live in a fantasy world?
Interesting you mention this. I'm just reading Alan Sokal's Beyond the Hoax, where he criticises the liberal-left academic post-modernists for trying to undermine facts. Of course, he then goes on to criticise the fundamentalist right for the same thing, and notes the irony that the latter wouldn't have been able to succeed without the groundwork of the former.
So there was a period (pre-Bush, essentially) where the literary academic establishment did consider facts to be a right-wing anti-progressive and revisionist construct, or some other such spew of verbal diarrhea. Guess what goes around comes around after all.
Re:Volcano! (Score:4, Informative)
This isn't a generic news site, thought; it's "news for nerds". And the story is not about a miscategorization, it's about new findings about a major geological feature.
Re:He Was Exactly Right (Score:2, Informative)
Larry blurbed: /quote larry bagina (561269) Alter Relationship on Saturday June 13, @03:25PM (#28322177) Journal
Stimulus? bwahaha. Earlier this week, Caterpillar (bulldozers and stuff) announced 66 more employees would be laid off, on top of the 400 or so in the last 9 months. This is noteworthy because they (and Barack Obama) had previously stated that the stimulus would prevent this from happening /endquote
BXZZXT> WRONG.
Despite the rest of your post being full of goodness and all the above 'fact' is a lie and distortion. It is true that the high lord of the progressive party, Barak Obama, asserted what
you say. What is not true is that the head of Caterpillar thought the same way. After that speech where Barack sandbagged the CEO of Caterpillar, the CEO later said he was 'misled' by the Obama brown shirt pre team (brown shirts my interpretation) and said that is was HIGHLY LIKELY more layoffs were to be coming for Caterpillar. He said the stimulus would have LITTLE effect on what
Caterpillar would have to do to survive the upcoming year.
Don't believe me? Look it up. THis was widely reported in the media unless your main source
of news is CNN or ABC/NBC/CBS and the like.
No need to spread the lies of Obama progressives and stuff them into the mouths of people who never asserted such lies and no need to allow such lies to promulgate in public.
I'd add to your other good ideas it would have made more sense to give every American rich or poor a 70 percent tax break this year (or last year actually) and issue huge rebate checks.
And yes, GM and Chrysler should have been allowed to go Bankrupt along with BOA and the rest of the charlatans but 'they' do not listen to the likes of us.
Re:Gov. Jindal isn't worried (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Gov. Jindal isn't worried (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Volcano! (Score:4, Informative)
A miscategorized geological formation isn't newsworthy unless they're trying to imply something else.
Its the corrected categorization that is doing the new "implying" here. The implication that St. Helens may be just one vent from a much larger super-caldera structure is what is significant. Now, whether its true or not is something else, I'm a little skeptical because it doesn't sound to me like the caldera structure at Yellowstone, but whatever...
And no, a super-caldera eruption is not "just another volcano going off". Its a whole 'nuther kettle of fish. Super-caldera eruptions are automatically global, catastrophic events simply due to the amount of energy released by them, usually 3+ orders of magnitude greater than a single volcanic event, and the worst of them can be globally life-threatening [wikipedia.org].
The last time Mt. St. Helen's blew its top in 1980, it ejected ~1.2 km3 of material (cubic kilometers). The last time the Yellowstone caldera blew its top around 600,000 years ago, it ejected ~1,000.0 km3 of material. And the really bad one from the link above (Toba Lake, Sumatra, around 75,000 years ago)? That one ejected ~2,800.0 km3 of material. See the difference? :)
Fortunately, the only good thing about them is that they're rare. Unfortunately, they're very big firecrackers when they go off. How big? If the Yellowstone caldera decides to clear its throat real good in our lifetime, then you being in Florida won't automatically make you safe... That's how big. :)