South Sister
eklemetti | October 23, 2009I finally remembered to bring my GSA notes with me to the office, so I can finally post a wrap up of what I saw/heard at the big 2009 meeting in Portland. I'll have a specific post on Kasatochi - too much to say here. However, a great time was had by all!
The crater of Collier Cone in Oregon. The scoria cone likely experienced years of explosive strombolian eruptions when it formed.
Some interesting volcano-related notes:
Clive Oppenheimer pointed out that the Toba eruption 74,000 years ago covered >1% of the Earth's surface with >10 cm (~4 in) ash. To put that in perspective, the Earth…
eklemetti | August 20, 2009I've gotten a number of questions about volcano books as of late, so I thought I'd write a little post detailing my favorite volcano-related tomes, mostly pitched towards people without a geology-background, but some technical books for those of you who want the gory details (and be sure, they can be very, very gory).
Pumice from the Newberry Flow of the Devil's Hills scattered on the soil near South Sister, Oregon. Image by Erik Klemetti, September 2008.
Anyway, here we go!
General volcanology:
- Teach Yourself Volcanoes, Earthquakes and Tsunamis by David Rothery (Teach Yourself Series,…
eklemetti | October 17, 2008
The only volcanic arc in the lower 48 states continues to be pretty darn quiet according to the USGS. The Cascade range that spans from Lassen Peak in the south to Mt. Baker in the north (and maybe Mt. Garibaldi in Canada) has been remarkably quiet in terms of eruptions for the last century. In fact, only Mt. Saint Helens and Lassen Peak have erupted since 1900 - and most of the volcano have shown very few signs of even coming close to eruption beyond minor seismic swarms, steaming or land deformation. This is in contrast to the reports from the 1800s that suggest that Hood, Shasta, St.…
eklemetti | August 30, 2008
I am back from my trek through the Oregon and California Cascades - including stops at Lassen Peak/Chaos Crags, Hood, Three Sisters and Crater Lake (an added bonus). I'll try to catch up on the volcano news I've missed and post on anything exciting that happened soon, but otherwise I'll be posting new news as it occurs.
In the meantime, here's a picture I took of Rock Mesa (foreground) and South Sister (background) taken from the Pacific Crest Trail. Rock Mesa is a ~2,700 year old rhyolite flow that appears to have erupted multiple pumices and has some impressive flow banding of the rhyolite…
eklemetti | August 19, 2008
I will be away from Eruptions for the next 2 weeks or so. I won't be on vacation, I will actually be out on volcanoes themselves doing some much-needed fieldwork. It is a three volcano tour, starting with a trip to Lassen Peak to get a guided view with Michael Clynne of the USGS (the world expert on the volcano, the last Cascade volcano to erupt other than Saint Helens).
Then follows a trip to Mt. Hood with Adam Kent from Oregon State (my doctoral alma mater) in Oregon to sample some of the youngest flows that are only a few hundred years old. Geologists from Oregon DOGAMI (Department of…