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A Supervolcano Beneath Mt. St. Helens?
We've discussed the supervolcano beneath Yellowstone a few times here (not going to blow, 2004; going to blow, 2008). Now scientists are pondering whether a large area of conductive material beneath Mt. St. Helens might contain enough magma that the area could be classed a supervolcano. The jury is still out on this one. Reader nhytefall sends us a New Scientist progress report. "Magma can be detected with a technique called magnetotellurics, which builds up a picture of what lies underground by measuring fluctuations in electric and magnetic fields at the surface. The fields fluctuate in response to electric currents traveling below the surface, induced by lightning storms and other phenomena. The currents are stronger when magma is present, since it is a better conductor than solid rock. ... [M]easurements revealed a column of conductive material that extends downward from the volcano. About 15 km below the surface, the relatively narrow column appears to connect to a much bigger zone of conductive material. This larger zone was first identified in the 1980s by another magnetotelluric survey, and was found to extend all the way to beneath Mount Rainier 70 km to the north-east, and Mount Adams 50 km to the east. It was thought to be a zone of wet sediment, water being a good electrical conductor. ... [Some researchers] now think the conductive material is more likely to be a semi-molten mixture. Its conductivity is not high enough for it to be pure magma.. so it is more likely to be a mixture of solid and molten rock."
Yeah, most slashdotters would mount anyone with that name.
Yay, they found more Lava.
... umm. Now what?
"Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power." -- James Madison
It connects to Yellowstone, and will soon be a second moon.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Might there be a volcano under Mt. St. Helens?
can I have your stuff?
The force could be enough to take out all the chairs in the Microsoft campus, regardless of what news was being digested by the CEO at the time.
I did a little reading under Supervolcano on Wikipedia and it says "...supervolcano was not a technical term used in volcanology. The term megacaldera is sometimes used.."
....hehe...supervolcano.
You got that? It's a Megacaldera guys. Only total n00bz call it a supervolcano! I bet you guys called Yoda a Jedi Knight too....everybody knows he was a Jedi MASTER.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
"These enormous eruptions can spew enough sunlight-blocking ash into the atmosphere to cool the climate by several degrees Celsius."
.
This is yet another Yankee trick to deny global warming. Go home, and turn off your volcano.
This volcano monitoring spending was part of an economic stimulus bill.
What in the hell does spending on volcano monitoring have to do with stimulating the economy, I have no idea. Maybe we should be funding this, but it has nothing to do with the issue that he was addressing.
It was a bit clumsy, but Jindal was dead on correct in criticizing the pork that goes on in Congress.
There's always a volcano about to erupt, or a fault going to shatter in an earthquake, or a comet that's going to smash into the earth, or a polar ice cap that's going to melt. It's always something.
Wake me up when Vesuvius erupts; California becomes "the Island previously known as California"; New York is under water; or an planet splitting meteor strikes. Otherwise, it's not news, it's fear mongering. Wolf has been cried too many times for people to be concerned any more.
I've lived in Florida for years. Hurricanes are far more likely to blow through than a volcano destroying a vast swath of the US, yet seasoned residents (those of us who have lived through more hurricanes than we can count) just make sure we have some food and water at home, and a way to cook. Live on high ground, and cross your fingers a tornado doesn't take your house away. Tornadoes during hurricanes are very likely, but the square footage of land destroyed (houses, upturned cars, etc) are so small compared to the square miles of potential damage area that you may as well play the lottery and expect to win.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Wake me when Rainer and Adams all start smoking at the same time.
Otherwise, in people as well as volcanoes, an occasional good healthy belch relieves a lot of pressure.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Great, first we lose the Sonics and now our city is gonna be the next Pompeii. Great era to be a Seattleite
Scientists remember that Earth's core is made up of magma, so it only makes sense that alot of it exists...
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
If the supernova don't get us the supervolcano will!
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Fixed the subject line for you. The only reason these things are in the news is the sensationalism, not the science.
If anyone was honest about reporting threats to human well-being they would be saying, "Sensationalist News Reporting Proven To Be A Threat To Human Life."
At least we know that sensationalist news reporting, unlike supernovae and supervolcanoes and super-anythingelse, has actually already killed people, and will certainly do so again in future.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Judging by the comments posted so far, if it is a super volcano, and it does blow, nothing of value will be lost.
That is all.
The real question is whether this is just large enough to be a supervolcano, or merely a really large volcano (and the age of the scientist determining this).
If there is question mark in the title - answer is no!
Once the magnetosphere starts to reverse it will wipe out all communications and you won't have to hear any more about potential disasters. However you'll be mutating into a jellyfish from the cosmic rays, so it's a bit of a toss up.
Jesus, does this mean we're going to have to go through the whole SCO fiasco again on a grander scale?
Vote down Volcano monitoring here in the US? Stating that it was not necessary? I wonder what this news will do to the thought that its not needed?
no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
That is, the upper northern West Coast was LONNNNG overdue for a tsunami or Mt. St. Helens mega eruption, and that if it took out ms, that that would be fine by me. Unfortunately, ms would have enough backups around the world to rise from the ash, either as a new fearsome giant, or a bunch of smaller ones that some expected the anti-trust cases might produce.
BUT... maybe Mt. St. Helens might become the new force of open source? Or, the new source of open FORCE. If it smacks ms, it would be a New Caldera Era, SCO (Sporadic, Combustible Obliteration)....Yikes!
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Scenic Blue zone location... peek a boo view of the mountain... today... OK so I live between St Helens and Rainier... (the mountains, not the towns) I guess if the megacaldera DOES go.. I won't have to worry about the value of my home..... Back to mowing....
See this comment and the reply to it.
For more than ten years the New Sensationalist has been predicting catastrophes, world changing technologies, and the like. It's about time someone tried to call them on it.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
They are called guards.
#1. Predict catastrophe
#2. Build highway
#2. ???
#3. Profit!
No, they don't. Those are anarchists, not Libertarians. Please learn the difference, because the difference is very big.
As far as your other statements, I will just ignore them, because they simply do not apply to Libertarians. Tell you what: try looking up "anarchy" and finding out what it means. Then, go insult the Anarchy party, because there is one.
Mt. St. Helens is a big volcano!
Tune in at eleven.
This thing is going to explode tomorrow and kill millions!
We're all going to dieeeee!
Now, where can I best observe the carnage and mass panic?
I normally don't respond to ACs, but my gawd, Bush the first's wife Barbara was ugly as hell, even with an age adjustment.
I'm confused, aren't all volcanoes on the entire Earth connected to each other if you go down far enough?
This just sounds like improved sensing technology is allowing us to more specifically identify the size and shape of the magma chambers underneath volcanoes with greater depth and accuracy.
Fortunately, there's no real hierarchy for the front page. So, an imminent natural disaster is no more important than the latest gossip about the RIAA.
Obviously not written by anyone who's studied geology in the past fifty years. This "supervolcano" is a regular pull-apart basin that will be a bunch of copper mines in a few million years. The same structures can be seen, eroded and exposed, all over the world near porphyry deposits. 15km below surface is dead-on predictions for these types of structures.
Stylish asbestos footwear is available; though it is contraband and, therefore, hard to score sometimes.
Hebrews 11:8
Jeremiah 33:3
I herd, you like volcanoes...
(yes, I realize that now I am supposed to gb2/b/ ).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Given what we know about the geology of the area around Mt. Saint Helens, it's definitely not a candidate for a supercaldera. Otherwise, you would see something akin to the Long Valley Caldera in eastern California with its gigantic lava flows measuring many kilometers in every direction--something you see at the Toba and Yellowstone supercaldera sites.
I saw what you did there.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Hey man, so now who's being the hypocrite? We have someone who is basically saying that you should bother looking out for yourself. If you don't, "someone else looks out for you." Well, what do you know, that person is the government, and the government looks out for itself and not you. What is worse is that if the government actually did its job, it would still be rewarding incompetence by paying people to rebuild their homes in a place where they *will* be destroyed again--and this just continues the cycle.
So for a comment like this,
where some douche with modpoints and spiked hair and hip glasses listening to Sigur Ros modded you up, I have a pretty good solution.
Read up on this and think again before you use such unfounded profanities.
That's brilliant!
Nobody would ever think to look for the secret super-volcano under the well-known regular volcano.
roxton@gmail.com