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."

Comments

Gov. Jindal isn't worried

[PotatoFiend]

But Democratic leaders in Congress -- they rejected this approach. Instead of trusting us to make wise decisions with our own money, they passed the largest government spending bill in history, with a price tag of more than $1 trillion with interest. While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes ... $140 million for something called "volcano monitoring." Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.

-- Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal

Re:Gov. Jindal isn't worried

[Anonymous Coward]

Left winger: States a position.
Right winger: States a differing opinion.
Left winger: repeats some unverifiable "facts" he read in some pamphlet.
Right winger: criticize the methodology of the facts. states that they are well known as urban legends even though he didn't even listen to the facts. Then proceed to make up some other facts that make the left winger visibly upset.
Left winger: Accuses the right winger of making it up, or quoting "Right wing conspiracy talking points".
Right winger: Provides numerous sources that cite each each pretending the other has collected the hard data.
Left winger: Calls right winger a racist, hate monger, bigot, homophobe.
Right winger: Call left winger an appeaser, a traitor and a spawn of Satan.
Left winger: proceed to form an argument ad consequentium
Right winger: proceed to form a straw man.
Left winger: proceed to cite every logical fallacy then states that all right winger arguments are among those fallacies. Fails to understand he also committed those fallacies.
Right winger and left winger: start insulting each other. Get their adrenaline hate fix for the day.

fixed

If the west coast blows up

[kbrasee]

can I have your stuff?

Re:Volcano!

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest you actually read the summary. It doesn't say that Mount St. Helens is going erupt and destroy life as we know it, or anything like that. It says "Hey guys, what if that large area under the ground isn't actually water like we thought and is actually semi molten rock?". To which the answer is, "Well that might mean we need to classify it differently." That's it. No grand and dire warnings, suggest an idea that would further our understanding of at least a piece of the earth.

But don't let me interrupt your off topic rant.

Re:pffft! It's not "Supervolcano"

[syousef]

"...supervolcano was not a technical term used in volcanology. The term megacaldera is sometimes used.."

It's a supervolcano if it wears it's underwear on the outside.

So, to summarize recent science news on Slashdot:

[John Hasler]

If the supernova don't get us the supervolcano will!

Re:Lava life?

[BPPG]

Not to be a nit-picker, but lava and magma aren't actually the same thing; lava is magma flowing on the Earth's surface. The properties of the two are the same, aside from lava being surrounded by relatively cool air, and magma being surrounded by insulating earth.

I know that doesn't really answer your question, but consider this; It's not lava yet.