[HN Gopher] Washington's 'forgotten giant' volcano stirs
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Washington's 'forgotten giant' volcano stirs
Author : rbanffy
Score : 67 points
Date : 2024-10-09 18:40 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (gizmodo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gizmodo.com)
| 50208 wrote:
| I live within 20 miles of this volcano. I've been reading the
| reporting. The further we've gotten from the original report the
| more FUD gets sprinkled in. This "article" takes the cake. Each
| time it notes that these events are really no big deal, the
| author precedes and / or follows with some form of "It's gonna
| blow ! / Be scared!". In fact, it's like they copy / pasted the
| original reporting and added BS drama for effect. Terrible
| article.
| pyinstallwoes wrote:
| Are the volcanoes in Washington worry worthy in any way? What's
| your risk assessment personally?
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_eruption_of_Mount_St._Hel.
| ..
| RobRivera wrote:
| I did the lahar hike to the 'now closed off' johnson
| observatory. The amount of terrain devastation that is
| still clearly evident over 40 years later is terrifying
| pfdietz wrote:
| Why was Johnson even there? There was a breakdown in risk
| assessment, particularly as the side of the volcano began
| to bulge.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Volcanoes give you a lot of warning and most in Washington
| are not located close to major population centers. The one
| exception is Mount Rainier, which is on the Decade Volcano
| list. Technically Glacier Peak is a similar distance from
| Seattle but it is a much smaller volcano and risk of damage
| is much lower. Historically the Cascade volcanoes only erupt
| something like 2-3 times per century and most are minor. It
| isn't something anyone really worries about. Much higher risk
| from earthquakes.
|
| I lived down range of Mount St. Helens when it had its major
| eruption in 1980. It was a regional disaster but the recovery
| was relatively quick and few people died despite the epic
| scale of it.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decade_Volcanoes
| loeg wrote:
| The suburbs southeast of Seattle are maybe at risk of lahar
| flows. The city itself and suburbs to the north are mostly
| not at risk.
| ruined wrote:
| Tahoma is the most potentially destructive one. some
| projections suggest lahar flows reaching downtown Seattle in
| a worst-case.
|
| https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/ofr98428
|
| https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/mount-rainier-volcano-
| haza...
| loeg wrote:
| (Conventionally known as Mt Rainier.)
| RickS wrote:
| Here in seattle, volcanoes feel like an afterthought attached
| to the thing that's actually scary, which is the Cascadia
| Subduction Zone[1]. There's an hour long presentation from
| CWU [2] that's dry but fascinating, and pretty free of popsci
| FUD. When the CSZ eventually goes, it's gonna be truly
| catastrophic.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_subduction_zone
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ7Qc3bsxjI
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| The guy giving the talk in that video is Nick Zentner. He's
| great and manages to make what could otherwise be fairly
| dry content very interesting.... and he's got his own
| YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@GeologyNick
|
| His "Ice Age Floods A to Z" series was must watch TV for me
| last winter.
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| Yeah, it was great ...and he's already prepping for a
| 'Cascade Volcanos A-Z' series starting this November 6 to
| Feb 15 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SVMH4ZA7cU
| christophilus wrote:
| > it's like they copy / pasted the original reporting and added
| BS drama for effect
|
| You just described most modern news media.
| lazide wrote:
| Not just modern -
| [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism]
| HocusLocus wrote:
| Well for a look at how the pros do it, check out the FUDdy-
| duddys at https://www.express.co.uk/latest/yellowstone-volcano
| to see the UK-Express Yellowstone Article Roll of Doom. It goes
| on forever, and is now hilariously sprinkled with soap opera
| gossip from the Yellowstone TV series which is a shame, it used
| to be all volcano all the time.
| klocksib wrote:
| Mt. Adams is hardly forgotten @_@
| zardo wrote:
| Reading the headline: I didn't know Mt. Forgotten is a volcano.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| In case anyone is interested, you can sign up for detailed email
| alerts from various USGS volcano observatories when there is a
| change in activity. I received one for Mount Adams a week and a
| half ago. This article is essentially re-publishing those alerts.
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| Is this the site?
|
| https://www.usgs.gov/tools/volcano-notification-service-vns
| lightedman wrote:
| I'm tied into many seismic sensors around the planet through
| Google Earth, almost all of them USGS-owned.
|
| Very little is happening around or under Mt. Adams. St. Helens is
| seeing actual noteworthy activity, and even that's still lower
| than magnitude 1 in almost every event, and those that get higher
| than 1 99.9999% of the time do not reach magnitude 2.
|
| There isn't a huge amount to worry about from the volcanoes,
| unless a body of water intrudes into a magma chamber. Worry more
| about the Cascadia subduction zone letting a good one rip.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Can an earthquake trigger a volcano?
| jajko wrote:
| Why shouldn't it? I imagine volcanoes as evolving pressure
| situation slowly tipping towards eruption. Anything that
| disturbs situation and tips it faster towards eruption, like
| an earthquake seems as a reasonable assumption. Not that all
| earthquakes tips it towards it, sometimes maybe it actually
| relieves the pressure, depends how things move and crack.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| It's possible, by several mechanisms.
|
| The Mt. Saint Helens eruption was precipitated by a
| landslide, which reduced pressure over the caldera, leading
| to a sideways-launched blowout of the volcano itself. That
| landslide might very well itself have been triggered by an
| earthquake.
|
| Other possible mechanisms would be either the widening of a
| magma tube or fissure (permitting higher pressures to the
| surface), or the introduction of water (crustal or near
| subsurface) to a magma tube, with the ensuing steam explosion
| precipitating an eruption.
|
| The role of water in vulcanism is something I'd not been
| aware of until relatively recently. The Ring of Fire
| volcanoes form largely around subduction faults, generally
| inland of where an oceanic plate subducts beneath a
| continental plate. The oceanic plate carries with it large
| volumes of seawater, and as that plate itself intersects with
| (and is absorbed into) the mantle, that incorporated water
| flashes to steam. The steam pressure itself then plays a
| major function in generating pressures and driving magma
| toward the surface. This is also why volcanic eruptions tend
| to have so much steam as part of the emergent material, so
| far as I understand.
|
| Another recent eruption in which water (in this case
| seawater) played a huge role was the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga
| Ha`apai event, occurring as seawater flooded into a large,
| shallow caldera, flashing to steam with explosive
| consequence. Whether or not that event was preciptated by an
| earthquake again isn't clear, but could be possible. Other
| mechanisms might have been a cascading failure of the
| overlying roof of the caldera, with smaller introductions of
| water expanding access and leading to the catastrophic
| failure and explosion.
|
| There's some scientific research into the question:
|
| "A review framework of how earthquakes trigger volcanic
| eruptions" (2021)
|
| <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21166-8>
|
| "Can earthquakes trigger volcano eruptions? Here's the
| science." (2019)
|
| <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/can-
| earth...>
| lazide wrote:
| Also, "water" (quotes due to the fact it's hard to actually
| call it water under these conditions) and sea floor
| minerals like carbonates change the actual viscosity and
| chemical composition of the magma in interesting ways that
| encourage all this too. It's not just bulk water flashing
| to steam.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Thanks. I should note that this is all well outside my
| scope of expertise.
|
| Though the raw amounts of water in subducted seafloor are
| apparently immense. Something which really hadn't
| occurred to me until recently.
| lazide wrote:
| Not widely known I think - here is a neat write up on it
| [https://repository.geologyscience.ru/bitstream/handle/12
| 3456...]
|
| And another [https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/
| full/10.1029/200...]
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Thanks!
| zw123456 wrote:
| This is a really nice resource for monitoring earthquake activity
| in the PNW. https://pnsn.org/earthquakes/recent/
| https://pnsn.org/volcanoes/mount-adams
| netman21 wrote:
| Man I would die of shame if I ever wrote something as bad as
| "it's not yet clear if the increase in seismic activity is
| anything more than just an unusually high number of tremors."
| lIl-IIIl wrote:
| Why is it bad? Seems clear enough.
| anonym29 wrote:
| Obviously the native american volcano spirits are angry with the
| state legislature for violating the state constitution's
| prohibition against state income taxes through the LTC tax. The
| message is clear: we must appease the angry spirits by scrapping
| the LTC tax, returning Washington to a natural state of balance,
| calming the spirits, and thus the volcano.
| blinded wrote:
| If you haven't been its a super fun area to hike, camp and visit.
| I found it more wild given it doesn't have a paved road to a
| lodge.
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(page generated 2024-10-13 22:02 UTC)