supervolcano
eklemetti | December 31, 2009Here it is, my attempt to recap a year's worth of volcanic events. By no means is this supposed to capture every event, but rather the highlight/lowlights and what most captivated me during 2009. I'll be announcing the winner of the 2009 Pliny for Volcanic Event of the Year tomorrow.
Waimangu Geothermal Valley in New Zealand, taken in January 2009 by Erik Klemetti.
January
The year started out with a trip to New Zealand (well, for me at least) and vistas of the Waimangu Valley, formed in the 1886 eruption of Tarawera on the North Island. We were also still thinking about the late 2008…
eklemetti | September 23, 2009Some brief tidbits for your Wednesday:
The view of Mt. Saint Helens from the Johnston Ridge Observatory.
There is a decent article about research being done at a dissected caldera system in the Italian Alps' Sesia Valley. The caldera in question is the Permian in age (248-298 million years old) so don't expect to find it in the GVP database, but the outcrops of this ancient caldera are especially well exposed, allowing for a cross section of volcano and plutonic rocks across 25 km of crustal depth (all of which is now at the surface thanks to hundreds of millions years of tectonics). It…
eklemetti | June 14, 2009
Mt. Saint Helens in Washington state, USA
I'm back from my sojourn to New England and its time to play catch up. First things first!
There has been a lot of chatter in my inbox and on the comments here at Eruptions about the study/press release from Graham Hill's research group talking about the potential for a supervolcano forming at Mt. Saint Helens. This study (presented at the AGU Spring Meeting) was based on a magnetotelluric study of the area around (and below) Saint Helens. For those of you unfamiliar with magnetotellurics, it uses instruments that measure the magnetism and electrical…
amillikan | January 4, 2009Since December 26, seismologists have observed over 400 seismic events at Yellowstone National Park—a record number of earthquakes for the hot spot which houses the largest supervolcano in North America. Data is still being analyzed to determine what this "swarm"—a sequence of earthquakes similar in magnitude—could mean. ScienceBlogger Greg Laden will be following the events closely on his blog.