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Mount St. Helens Eruption Baffles Scientists
jurt1235 writes "Mount St. Helens, which started erupting 15 months ago, is still erupting. The weird part is, by now every 3 seconds 10 cubic yards of lava is coming out of the volcano but scientists cannot determine from where it is coming anymore. From the article: 'The volume is greater than anything that could be standing in a narrow 3-mile pipe. That suggests resupply from greater depths, which normally would generate certain gases and deep earthquakes. Neither is being detected.'"
Uhhh... the earth?
I'd say it's probably coming from underground.
"I like you, but I wouldn't want to see you working with subatomic particles."
Uncle Cletus' eruptions. Every five minutes. Like clockwork. Cannot be explained entirely -- even after considering his diet of beer and refried beans. By my calculations, the emissions should result in his losing five pounds every year. Yet, at every Christmas party, he shows up heavier than last year.
Perhaps these two scientific mysteries are related.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
It's obviously the work of an evil mastermind, setting up his new lair.
Since he needs the space, he's melting the rock in order to make space for his laboratory. The eruptions will stop once he's managed to carve his face into the side of the mountain.
My money is either on Hank Scorpio or Dr. Evil.
The lava is coming from HAAAYYYYLLLL.
We christen this theory "Infernal Leakage". Soon to be taught in every school south of Joliet, Illinois.
Mess with us, and we'll sue! WE know who's behind all this Geologyist perversion of the Truth, and we'll be soon beating them nearly to death on the sides of the road, not to mention getting them canned from their posts for uttering blsphemy against Go- -er- Infernal Leakage theory.
Are people taught to use "cubic yards" in US schools? I thought all science in the US used the metric system ?
CIA Factbook 2002 (US):"Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households
http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/
if they get the camera up again you can watch it...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
I study oil and gold extraction (I blog about gold mines, too) and I am amazed at how often scientists are proven wrong. I know that it is heretical to say that on slashdot (I was blasted about it earlier this morning on this very forum), but we as a society seem to have too much faith in scientific research finding facts that turn out to be just plain wrong.
Part of the scientific method is proving that other scientist are wrong.
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it) but 'That's funny...'" --Isaac Asimov
While I am not familiar with this particular AP reporter, I would prefer to see a news release by the USGS on the subject rather than one from a news service. I was a USGS geologist in 1980 and did field work measuring the bulge prior to the May 1980 eruption. Anytime we were interviewed regarding the science, the resulting published story was almost always incredibly skewed/magled/distorted crap.
Where in the hell is all that lava coming from?
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
When the observations don't fit the way things are understood, there are only two possibilities: either the measurements we made are wrong, or what we understood previously was wrong.
Which is exactly the train of thought the scientists studying Mt. St. Helens are using to try and figure out this mystery, I'm sure. Don't assume incompetance on their part because of some AP writer didn't get that point across.
"I study oil and gold extraction (I blog about gold mines, too) and I am amazed at how often scientists are proven wrong. I know that it is heretical to say that on slashdot (I was blasted about it earlier this morning on this very forum), but we as a society seem to have too much faith in scientific research finding facts that turn out to be just plain wrong."
/sarcasm
That's true. Faith based reasoning is far more likely to lead us to correct results.
The REASON we find out that scientific reasearch frequently turns out to be "wrong" is because the whole process of science is meant to test whether what we think to be true, is. Unless you are an omniscient being, you can never know for sure what is going on outside of your direct sensory range - so to be useful, to make predictions beyond that, science HAS to speculate and come up with theories. After a theory is put out there, then it is tested and probed. As our measurements become more precise, or we develop new tools to see in ways we could not before, we find that the theories may no longer match our expanded horizons. So we go back and attempt to improve the theory, which leads some amateurs to say the previous theories were "wrong" - a useless, emotional characterization, since no theory can be ever be "right" - the best one can be is consistent with all presently known data. Newton's theory of gravitation is "wrong", but for a "wrong" theory, it sure is accurate. And the whole "spherical earth" theory may be wrong, but it's good to 1 part in 1,000. Even the flat-earth theory was good for its time; when you live 99% of your life in a small patch of it, the difference between 8 inches of curvature per mile and 0 inches of curvature per mile is pretty small.
"It really bugs me, actually, that these "scientists" we so admire may be geniuses, or they might just be grant-hunters. I know I always look for the best income for the least amount of work."
In that case, it sounds like you should admire the grant-hunters. They are getting the best income for their minimal scientific amounts of work, right?
"What else have these same scientists theorized that may not be true? Is oil possibly a renewable resource (meaning there is near unlimited amounts deeper within the earth waiting to bubble up)? Is it possible to battle the build-up of CO2, or is much of it coming out of the earth and not manmade? How much of the global climate is an effect of heat expelled from inside our crust, and how much is from "eroding" atmosphere?"
All possible. But highly unlikely. At the temperatures and pressures found deeper in the earth, oil tends to break down and so we don't find large reserviors of it below a certain depth. But perhaps, through some mechanism (of which we have no clue nor any prima face evidence that it exists), there is oil being spontaneously generated deep in the earth. CO2? Possibly it is coming in significant quantites out of the crust. But atmospheric CO2 seems to correlate very closely with the industrial revolution and the first widespread use of heat-engines by humans. As for heat expelled from the crust, that's one of the more measurable variables, thanks to the infrared imaging capabilities of many geostationary wx satellites (funded publicly). The present amount of evidence indicates that it negligble, but it could be wrong. Of course, aliens could be deliberately screwing with our satellites and messing with the evidence....
Anything is possible. But when dollars for research, whether public or private, are limited, you have to make educated choices as for what is more likely and what is not, based on the best knowledge you presently have; and right now, those theories are pretty low down on the probability scale.
"I rarely thank AP writers for their research, but in this case I have to. I'm glad the spotlight is being shined on the fallacies that come out of the mouths of scientists looking for more research dollars (on the backs of the taxpayers). I believe we DO need
Part of the scientific method is proving that other scientist are wrong.
I think that the problem that the original poster was trying to point out, is that a lot of people, especially here on slashdot, take the current mainstream scientific theories as gospel, when most of the time these theories are eventually proven wrong.