Why Washington's Mount Rainier Still Makes Volcanologists Worry (cnn.com) 71
It's been a 1,000 years since there was a significant volcanic eruption from Mount Rainier, CNN reminds readers. It's a full 60 miles from Tacoma, Washington — and 90 miles from Seattle. Yet "more than Hawaii's bubbling lava fields or Yellowstone's sprawling supervolcano, it's Mount Rainier that has many U.S. volcanologists worried."
"Mount Rainier keeps me up at night because it poses such a great threat to the surrounding communities, said Jess Phoenix, a volcanologist and ambassador for the Union of Concerned Scientists, on an episode of CNN's series "Violent Earth With Liv Schreiber." The sleeping giant's destructive potential lies not with fiery flows of lava, which, in the event of an eruption, would be unlikely to extend more than a few miles beyond the boundary of Mount Rainier National Park in the Pacific Northwest. And the majority of volcanic ash would likely dissipate downwind to the east away from population centers, according to the US Geological Survey. Instead, many scientists fear the prospect of a lahar — a swiftly moving slurry of water and volcanic rock originating from ice or snow rapidly melted by an eruption that picks up debris as it flows through valleys and drainage channels.
"The thing that makes Mount Rainier tough is that it is so tall, and it's covered with ice and snow, and so if there is any kind of eruptive activity, hot stuff ... will melt the cold stuff and a lot of water will start coming down," said Seth Moran, a research seismologist at USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington. "And there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people who live in areas that potentially could be impacted by a large lahar, and it could happen quite quickly." The deadliest lahar in recent memory was in November 1985 when Colombia's Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupted. Just a couple hours after the eruption started, a river of mud, rocks, lava and icy water swept over the town of Armero, killing over 23,000 people in a matter of minutes... Bradley Pitcher, a volcanologist and lecturer in Earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University, said in an episode of CNN's "Violent Earth"... said that Mount Rainier has about eight times the amount of glaciers and snow as Nevado del Ruiz had when it erupted. "There's the potential to have a much more catastrophic mudflow...."
Lahars typically occur during volcanic eruptions but also can be caused by landslides and earthquakes. Geologists have found evidence that at least 11 large lahars from Mount Rainier have reached into the surrounding area, known as the Puget Lowlands, in the past 6,000 years, Moran said.
Two major U.S. cities — Tacoma and South Seattle — "are built on 100-foot-thick (30.5-meter) ancient mudflows from eruptions of Mount Rainier," the volcanologist said on CNN's "Violent Earth" series.
CNN's article adds that the US Geological Survey already set up a lahar detection system at Mount Rainier in 1998, "which since 2017 has been upgraded and expanded. About 20 sites on the volcano's slopes and the two paths identified as most at risk of a lahar now feature broadband seismometers that transmit real-time data and other sensors including trip wires, infrasound sensors, web cameras and GPS receivers."
"Mount Rainier keeps me up at night because it poses such a great threat to the surrounding communities, said Jess Phoenix, a volcanologist and ambassador for the Union of Concerned Scientists, on an episode of CNN's series "Violent Earth With Liv Schreiber." The sleeping giant's destructive potential lies not with fiery flows of lava, which, in the event of an eruption, would be unlikely to extend more than a few miles beyond the boundary of Mount Rainier National Park in the Pacific Northwest. And the majority of volcanic ash would likely dissipate downwind to the east away from population centers, according to the US Geological Survey. Instead, many scientists fear the prospect of a lahar — a swiftly moving slurry of water and volcanic rock originating from ice or snow rapidly melted by an eruption that picks up debris as it flows through valleys and drainage channels.
"The thing that makes Mount Rainier tough is that it is so tall, and it's covered with ice and snow, and so if there is any kind of eruptive activity, hot stuff ... will melt the cold stuff and a lot of water will start coming down," said Seth Moran, a research seismologist at USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington. "And there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people who live in areas that potentially could be impacted by a large lahar, and it could happen quite quickly." The deadliest lahar in recent memory was in November 1985 when Colombia's Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupted. Just a couple hours after the eruption started, a river of mud, rocks, lava and icy water swept over the town of Armero, killing over 23,000 people in a matter of minutes... Bradley Pitcher, a volcanologist and lecturer in Earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University, said in an episode of CNN's "Violent Earth"... said that Mount Rainier has about eight times the amount of glaciers and snow as Nevado del Ruiz had when it erupted. "There's the potential to have a much more catastrophic mudflow...."
Lahars typically occur during volcanic eruptions but also can be caused by landslides and earthquakes. Geologists have found evidence that at least 11 large lahars from Mount Rainier have reached into the surrounding area, known as the Puget Lowlands, in the past 6,000 years, Moran said.
Two major U.S. cities — Tacoma and South Seattle — "are built on 100-foot-thick (30.5-meter) ancient mudflows from eruptions of Mount Rainier," the volcanologist said on CNN's "Violent Earth" series.
CNN's article adds that the US Geological Survey already set up a lahar detection system at Mount Rainier in 1998, "which since 2017 has been upgraded and expanded. About 20 sites on the volcano's slopes and the two paths identified as most at risk of a lahar now feature broadband seismometers that transmit real-time data and other sensors including trip wires, infrasound sensors, web cameras and GPS receivers."
Lahars move lots of material very quickly (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a good discussion with animations of Lahars on Rainier: https://www.usgs.gov/programs/... [usgs.gov]
I don't think they're quite as fast as pyroclastic flows, but it's not clear to me that you'd be able to outrun one, particularly not in a congested urban area with everyone else trying to escape.
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It isn't Seattle and Tacoma that would be wiped. This is a constant point of study locally. As mentioned, it is smaller local cities such as Orting and Puyallup which would essentially be entirely wiped out. And also as mentioned, a portion of South Seattle in the low lands is also at risk along the Green River area.
Re:Lahars move lots of material very quickly (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason why Renton is so flat is because it's built on the last lahar from Rainier, and it's a major population/industrial center.
Re:Lahars move lots of material very quickly (Score:5, Informative)
Most likely? Really? Talking out of your ass? Here is what happened in Colombia in 1985 [wikipedia.org]. Over 23,000 killed. The Electron mudflow 500 years ago was 30 m deep when it reached Puget Sound [usgs.gov]. Yeah, a few hundred buildings on the ourskirts will stop it. Sure.
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No, you wouldn't be able to outrun it.
I lahar is basically liquid concrete ( like you see pour out of trucks ) moving at high speed, depending on the slope origin. Rainier would have flows probably in the 40-60MPH range.
That's ignoring all the crap it picks up. Like truck sized boulders, whole trees, and entire bridges. Pretty much anything in its way will get swept up and smashed into everything else in its way.
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What did the Native Americans who've lived here for thousands of years and must have experienced multiple lahars do?
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They died.
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Do you know where Rome is?
The North American natives had a largely nomadic culture- not because they had to, simply because they did. And that rule had exceptions.
The Mississippian Culture had permanent dwellings.
Central and South America had massive non-nomadic civilizations.
Back to school with you, son.
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The ones who stayed in villages on nice flat valley-bottom ground? They died in the lahar.
The people who were in transit to some other place, and on a ridge or piece of land a couple of metres higher, or who lived on the slightly less attractive ground in the neighbouring valley, on a slope of several degrees and with much larger trees (there's a hint !) ... they survived, went over to the ne
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Is it wrong to take away from this comment that we should just adapt to lahars, look for signals, try to stay out of their way, and not worry so much that we lose sleep at night when we could be just enjoying life while we can?
Would I have fit in with the prehistoric native americans of this area much more than I fit in with today's inhabitants?
Why do I feel more in common with this guy in the following snippet of a Umatilla tribe story that I can no longer find the full text online to, then with commenters
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As for what to do about lahars ... well you could ignore the prospect. That's an option you, ass an individual have. If you're in a position of responsibility (parent, emergency planning/ response), you've traded that freedom for a pay check, or whatever. Options are : be elsewhere (which practically
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How about the Fed insures everybody and we return to at least allowing nomads to roam without emplacing numerous regulatory obstacles, fences, border patrol, no trespassing signs, war on camping policies, etc.?
How free am I to be like Harry Truman of Mt St Helens fame?
For me, can the main point of the Indian story be that no one stopped him even if they thought he was mad? How can we be hermits, today? Where is the commons we can retreat to without the aforementioned public policies making us feel guilty fo
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Didn't you notice the phrase I included about "low tax politicians"? Suggest that in public, and you'll have people calling for the return of Ol'Man Rope and the lynching tree, with you as the star attraction. For so many people, the attraction of "jam tomorrow and lower taxes too" attracts them more than what you consider important.
That's bulk humaniity. Enjoy.
Was "Harry Truman" the nutter who insisted on staying in the MSH evacuation zone? Well, since "suicide by cop"
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they just walked away when it erupted i imagine
if it does (Score:5, Funny)
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No such luck, the Microsoft campus is on a plateau northeast of Lake Washington. The lahars going in that direction will rampage through Renton and smash into Lake Washington. The last time that happened it set up a tsunami (IIRC) 50 feet tall that scored the lakeshore, slammed into the north end of the lake and ran (again, IIRC) most of a mile inland. That would probably take out Gate's home in Clyde Hill and absolutely his office in Kirkland, though.
The damage wouldn't only be to the local area though,
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mostly devoted to the 747 and sales of those are dropping.
That's rather an understatement. The last 747 was delivered in 2023, although there are a couple of Air Force One planes on the way. It looks like Everett is used for 767 (freighter only), 777, and 737 MAX.
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Ah, haven't worked out in that neck of the woods for a decade, and haven't been keeping track. Thanks.
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maybe the San Andreas fault will open and swallow Cupertino... jackpot.
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All it will do is cement Seattle's reputation as home of an evil lair complete in this case with lava. Heck I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft causes the eruption.
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But several million other people stand in their way, you fucking twat.
Re:Volcanologist Needs a Vacation (Score:5, Interesting)
Problem is, we (western Washington residents) also had lots of warning about Mount St. Helens back in 1980. There were sensors placed all over that mountain. No internet obviously, but there were updates pretty much every day on the local news. And, when the PhDs decided something was imminent, they gave people plenty of warning. Yet some chose to ignore those warnings, and some of those died unnecessarily.
Fortunately the area threatened by St. Helens was mostly rural and only sparsely populated. Mt. Rainier has many, many more people living in the paths of its historic lahar flows - thousands and thousands of homes around South Prairie, Orting, etc. - not to mention Sumner, Puyallup, and maybe even Tacoma being within reach of a lahar. If a non-trivial percentage of those people ignore the "hey you should probably stay elsewhere for a few weeks, just in case", all those sensors and the internet aren't going to save them. If they think they can get out with an hours lead time, they should recall what typical morning traffic is like on the Orting Highway.
Re:Volcanologist Needs a Vacation (Score:4, Interesting)
The glacier on St. Helens was relatively small, too. The ones on Rainer are **not** small, since it competes with Mount Baker for the annual world snowfall record.
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If a non-trivial percentage of those people ignore the "hey you should probably stay elsewhere for a few weeks, just in case"
For the record, I read that and got a sudden and overwhelming urge to procrastinate.
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Yeah me too - we better hurry up and procrastinate.
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It was absolutely clear that an an eruption was imminent at Mt. St. Helens.
It is absolutely clear that an eruption is NOT imminent at Mt. Rainier.
Scientists need to stay out of the game of hyperbole and leave it to the clickbaiters in the media outlets.
The Magma chamber within Rainier is nowhere near the stage where anyone has to think about it in their lifetime unless they're building a lahar shelter.
--
Hyperbole is not easily dealt with. Usually, it collapses under its own weight. - Gwen Ifill
Re:Volcanologist Needs a Vacation (Score:5, Interesting)
It was absolutely clear that an an eruption was imminent at Mt. St. Helens.
It is absolutely clear that an eruption is NOT imminent at Mt. Rainier.
It was absolutely clear that Mt. St. Helens was NOT imminently erupting in March, 1980. And then on March 15 the first signs of waking up were detected, and it exploded 64 days later. So you are assuring us that Mt. Rainier is absolutely NOT going to erupt, for at least the next 64 days?
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Earthquakes were common on St Helens. It was an active volcano, after all.
What started to raise hairs are swarms of earthquakes.
I've been up on the mountain a dozen times or so, and felt a 3 earthquakes on it.
The earthquake rate went from ~20 or so a month up to several hundred a month when it "woke up".
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"hey you should probably stay elsewhere for a few weeks, just in case"
Where would these people go? Who's going to pay for it? How will they take time off of work? Without getting fired for not showing up, that is.
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For most of the at-risk region and population, the test is "up", not "away".
"move a safe distance UP".
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What if living life among a society where doctors have such arrogantly offensive personalities is just not worth it? If I die because I don't want to live in your society, is that a problem for you? Must I be forced to think that the life your society offers me is the best possible for me, so I should just shut up and live so that your model of society does not suffer from cognitive dissonance due to all the suicides and overdoses of people who just want out of the nightmare you have created?
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Oh, their deaths were entirely necessary. At least some of those who died did so before polluting the general gene pool with their genes. And that is how evolution progresses - one death-without-offspring at a time.
The problem is, as I recall from the TV of the time, that a lot of those who stubbornly stayed in the danger zone had already bred and their offspring were very vocal about "trying to persuade Dad to come and stay with
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Does it confuse your story if you note that Isaac Newton is an example of death-without-offspring, yet all of your offspring know about his memes?
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Precisely zero children of mine have ever heard of Isaac Newton, or even his cat flap. I'm one of those people who has never, for one second, considered having children. It's not actually illegal.
Regardless of which, what possible mechanism do you propose for the universe to know what someone is going to do in the future. The only thing
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Wasn't my point clear enough that you can spread ideas without having kids, and those ideas can persist through a species extinction due to signs that persist beyond a species, like fossils or language or, newly, AI?
Did you know that Jean-Paul Sartre refused his Nobel prize? What if I would be like him, or that Grigori Perelman math dude who refused the Fields medal? In other words, is Stockholm totally irrelevant here, saying much more about you than about me (despite that I too have no children)?
Perfect Consistency (Score:2)
1. In every disaster there is a warning.
2. In every disaster that warning is ignored.
3. After every disaster, the person who ignored the warning is never identified.
4. Therefore there is no accountability.
5. Start from one again.
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What about warnings that happen without a disaster? Like if you warn Hawaii about a North Korean missile attack, and it's a false positive, do you needlessly scare a lot of people, maybe some died of heart attacks?
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It is true. There were warnings in this very story at Armero! All ignored. 23,000 dead.
Titanic. Challenger. Katrina. Loma Pietra. Deepwater Horizon. Hell, the damn housing crisis in 2007 was forseeable. Warnings from every direction. Nobody did a thing. Trillions vaporized.
Disasters are predictable. Usually because some rectangle-head middle management pigfucker is either trying to stuff someone else's retirement in his pockets or play cream the sundae with some flirty little cupcake in the copier room.
Having lived just below it (Score:2)
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But the odd of Yellowstone going off, big style, before Earth cleans up humankind's atmospheric pollution are about 1 in 6. If we stop polluting the atmosphere tomorrow, or wi
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Maybe you should read the publication to see if it makes any sense before you write a check?
Really? (Score:4, Funny)
Worry? What kind of a vulcanologist won't love to see an actual mega volcano blowing up? Don't lie. Dude is up all night cause he doesn't want to miss it.
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But of course, he doesn't want to miss it. No geologist would. I was slightly annoyed that the wife was climbing on Mt Etna when it had a tiny eruption, while I was preparing to submerge with SCUBA gear on the coast. We saw the cloud, but there wasn't much we could do. So, gags in, deflate ABLJs.
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Mount Rainier is not a particularly large volcano
/me looks out his window.
It's a pretty big fucking volcano.
It's not the biggest by any means- but as far as stratovolcanos go, it's somewhere around the end of the top 10.
Sure, it's not a "supervolcano", but I don't think that's what most people are talking about when they're talking about volcanic eruptions.
That being said, Rainier has traditionally had a fairly low VEI- especially compared to other volcanoes around us that are visible from Rainier.
So if you wanted to watch a rock that big pop, it's
It WILL happen again (Score:1)
It's 100% just a matter of time before a devastating eruption. I wonder how the home owner insurance issuers have positioned themselves.
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If they've been investing premiums over the life of their company, should they have a portfolio robust enough to withstand a mere lahar's worth of payouts by now?
obligatory Twitter quote (Score:4, Funny)
TIME TRAVELLER: I like your volcano.
LOCAL: Our what?
TIME TRAVELLER: Your mountain, your normal mountain.
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We all know it's an angry god taking a nap. I just hope it doesn't get woken up by the 9+ Richter subduction zone megathrust that we're also due for, during an atmospheric omega block that traps 125-degree heat over the region for a month and it all catches on fire.
let's FUD for fundings (Score:1)
No problem (Score:2)
america likes uninhabitable habitats (Score:1)
living in deserts, on fault lines, in tornado alley... hey if theres cheap timber framed shacks, americans will live there