Bandelier National Monument

One of the neat things about Los Alamos is that Bandelier National Monument is only a few minutes away. The volcanic tuff at Bandelier erupted from the Valles caldera about 1.25 million years ago, but it's not just a site of geologic interest; it's also an archaeological site. Bandelier refers to Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier, a Swiss-American archaeologist who conducted research into the history of the Pueblo people in the American southwest.

On the drive to the park visitor center, there's some fantastic columnar jointing in the tuff. (Columnar jointing occurs when hot volcanic material, either a lava flow or pyroclastic deposit, cools from the outside in and shrinks, forming cracks. These cracks often create geometric shapes that extend down into a deposit, creating columns.)

In the Frijoles Canyon, there are scads of cliff dwellings and the ruins of villages of the Ancestral Pueblo people, who moved into the region around 10,000 years ago. (They were formerly called "Anasazi" by archaeologists, but today's Pueblo people consider the Navajo term disrespectful). The village below was most highly developed in the late 1400s, and contained multistory dwellings and storage buildings. 

The cliff dwellings at Bandelier are located mostly on the south side of the canyon, which means that they stay cool in the summer and warmer in the winter. It was a very hot day when I visited, and there was a significant temperature drop once you were sheltered by the cliffs. 

Many of the cliff dwellings used to have structures built in front of them, leaving the caves as back rooms. Holes for the ceiling poles are still visible in the tuff, which is relatively soft and quite easy to hollow out.

One of the most interesting sites in this area of the park is known as the Alcove House, a huge shallow cave in the canyon wall. It holds a reconstructed kiva and the remnants of dwellings, but it's quite a challenge to reach  - and not at all fun for anyone who's afraid of heights! Like many of the other cliff dwellings in the park, the Alcove House is only accessibly by ladder; unlike the dwellings in the earlier photos, the ladders are very long (140 feet altogether). The photo below shows one of three that you have to climb to get up there!

It's a little hard to take photos of the whole alcove when you're in it, but the view down Frijoles Canyon is excellent. It also highlights how the natural propensity of the Bandelier tuff to erode into caves - something that the first visitors to the canyon certainly noticed and took advantage of!

I only had one day to explore Bandelier, which is unfortunate (it has more than 70 miles of trails), but I'm glad I had the chance to visit on this trip. This area offers a fascinating blend of volcanology and archaeology, something that I (with my sadly unused archaeology minor) really appreciate. 

Los Alamos & environs

While I was visiting Los Alamos recently, I made sure I got out of the lab to do a little hiking. Here are the photographic results:

This hike was on the Quemazon trail, which starts in the western part of the town of Los Alamos. (There are a number of trails that can be accessed from the neighborhoods around the lab - even a few you can hike to get to work in the morning!) The trail makes several loops up a mesa, depending on how far you go, and gives you some great views of the area.

The trail itself is, in many places, worn down into the relatively soft Tshirege member of the Bandelier tuff. The volcanic tuff was erupted about 1.25 million years ago in the collapse of the Valles Caldera, and underlies much of the town. (The path on the left is used for foot and bike traffic, although it looks like something mechanical came in and roughed up the tuff on the right side.)

A vesicular example of the tuff:

And a close-up of a hand sample. This stuff is chock-full of feldspar, and the sandy parts of the path sparkled pretty dramatically in the sun.

A "hand sample" of sand from the path. There's almost more feldspar than matrix in this, though it could be because the feldspars were just collecting in the area that I happened to scoop it up from. (Some of these feldspars were iridescent, which sometimes happens with sanidine feldspar; it's probably a safe bet that they are sanidine, which is a very common mineral in explosive volcanic rock.)

The hills above Los Alamos are unusually bare for this type of high desert, and that's because they're still recovering from the May 2000 Cerro Grande fire. The fire, which was started as a controlled burn, destroyed  48,000 acres of forest, more than 400 homes and part of the Laboratory in Los Alamos. (The houses that were burned in the fire were scattered all throughout the neighborhoods in town, and there were quite a few instances where one house was destroyed but another just across the street was untouched. Even now, there's quite a bit of rebuilding still going on.)

One (minor) advantage of the fire is that it made the views of the Lab a little clearer; I can imagine that ten years ago, this shot would have been mainly taken up by pine trees, like the dark green ones further downslope. This is only a small part of the Laboratory - there are more sites elsewhere in town - but it's the main area of office buildings and includes a research library.

Thinking about the Cerro Grande fire made me a little nervous while I was out there, because there were a number of smaller fires burning in the Jemez Mountains to the north; fortunately, they were about 15 miles away, and not likely to threaten the town. Still, it was a bit unnerving to walk home every afternoon and see this:

I am also, it seems, allergic to the combination of burning pine trees and pine tree pollen, so it was a bad week for my sinuses.

Reflecting on risk

USGS photo of the May 18, 1980 eruption.

I don't have any stories to share with you about the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, since I wasn't around then - and the other geobloggers are doing a fine job of collecting reminiscences already.

Volcanologists, like everyone else, sometimes joke about their jobs, but it's anniversaries like today that have prompted me to reflect on it instead. I love the work that I'm doing, and what I'm training to do. It's exciting, and takes me to exotic places, and I get to learn all sorts of fascinating things about how volcanoes work. But whenever I'm near or on an active volcano, there is always an element of danger as well. Because volcanoes are natural systems, they always have some element of unpredictability. It is possible for scientists to forecast what a volcano may or may not do, but it's impossible to predict anything with absolute certainty, so we can't be absolutely sure that any part of a volcano is safe, no longer how long it's been dormant or how mild its activity seems. Not to mention that volcanic settings in general are not safe or nice - there are any number of dangers from unstable or rough terrain, toxic gases, and just the remoteness and inaccessibility of many volcanic areas.

Those are all things I have to consider when I'm doing fieldwork at active volcanoes. In the past year, I've visited Stromboli and Etna and Santiaguito; this summer I'll be traveling to Montserrat, where Soufriere Hills is still erupting. Each time I set foot on a volcano, I acknowledge - consciously or not - that the chance to learn about it overrides the potential hazards of the setting. I don't take unnecessary risks, or make careless or foolhardy decisions if I can avoid it; I'm not going to wander into an exclusion zone or into an active crater just for the sake of samples and photos. But the recent significant eruption at Santiaguito reminded me that even the settings that seem safe at one moment can become deadly in the next, and the lateral blast that occurred at Mount St. Helens thirty years ago today is an excellent example of the same.

USGS photo of David Johnston from April 4, 1980.

Dr. David Johnston was one of the 57 people who lost their lives in the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. He knew the dangers of working on an active volcano, and no one could possibly fault him for being at the Coldwater II observation station when St. Helens erupted; if it hadn't been him there, it would have been someone else. The volcanologists working there at the time hadn't even considered that the volcano might produce a lateral blast, though they - including Dr. Johnston - were certainly uneasy about the setting.  In interviews, his friends, family and colleagues invariably say that Dr. Johnston died doing something that he loved.  As a volcanologist, I am doing something that I love whenever I go to study an active volcano; I can't imagine myself as happy in any other job. But it isn't a safe job. I know it's difficult for my family to think about, and I don't like to bring it up, but there is always a chance that I could be hurt - or worse - working at an active volcano. It's the same risk that many of my friends and professors take. True, all of us take risks every day - driving, flying, playing sports - but volcanology involves unique risks that most people don't have to deal with on a regular basis.

I hate to write such a depressing post about what would otherwise have been an exciting event, but it's what's been on my mind today. Volcanology is an exciting, unique science; volcanic eruptions are fascinating events. But it's always good to remember that this is one of the sciences where the researchers take risks for the sake of their work.

Accretionary Wedge #24: My geologic hero

In considering who I would write about as my geologic hero, I of course had to consider my undergraduate advisor, who I've written about before. (You all know him from this blog, if you've been keeping up with the adventures of William & Mary's Geology Department.) But that would essentially be a rehash of something I've already talked about. Although Chuck was (and still is) an immense influence on my growth as a geologist and a writer, I think that having almost two years of grad school under my belt means I can examine influences a little farther afield.

But who do I look up to as a volcanologist? I'm relatively new to the volcanological scene, and I haven't had the chance to interact with many of the leading lights yet (although quite a few of them are right here at UB). If I were to consider someone who's had an incredible influence on my entire field of study, however, I would tend to look further into the past...and I've come up with one volcanologist who fits the bill. 

My pick? Thomas A. Jaggar (1871–1953), an MIT professor who was the founder and first director of the Hawaii Volcano Observatory (HVO). While not the first of its kind in the world (that distinction goes to the one at Vesuvius, which has been around since 1847), the HVO certainly kick-started volcano monitoring in the US. Here's a bit from the HVO History page about his motivation:

"Jaggar saw the need for full-time, on-site study of volcanoes. He had long deplored that to date, especially in America, it was only after news of an eruption was received that geologists rushed from academic centers to study volcanism. There was generally no trained observer there beforehand, and scientists from afar often arrived after the eruption was over. There was then only one volcano observatory in the world, that at Vesuvius established in 1847. Jaggar thought America needed one."

On-site observation of volcanic processes is the key to deciphering the history of a volcano, and gives us the tools to make inferences about the past of volcanoes that have never been observed in eruption. Dr. Jaggar, as he made visits to Martinique following the 1902 of Mount Pelee, and followed them with expeditions to the sites of earthquakes and eruptions in Italy, the Aleutians, Central America, and Japan, became increasingly convinced that such trips were a too-short, inadequate way of observing Earth processes. In 1910, with the support with Lorrin Andrews Thurston, a Honolulu lawyer and businessman; this collaboration led to the formation of the Hawaii Volcano Research Association and, with the financial help of Jaggar's home institution of MIT, the establishment of the Hawaii Volcano Observatory in 1912. 

Dr. Jaggar (second from left) preparing to measure the temperature of the Halema`uma`u lava lake in 1917, with stylish hat. My field hats are not even close to that stylish, nor have I ever attempted to do field work in a tie. From the HVO website.

Jaggar went on to work at the Observatory for almost 30 years, during which HVO researchers released more than 1,200 press reports and bulletins about volcanic activity; published The Volcano Letter, a weekly and then monthly report that lasted from 1925-1955; and published copiously in other periodicals outside the Observatory. Jaggar designed and implemented the Whitney Laboratory of Seismology beneath the Observatory (the first site of continuous seismic monitoring in Hawaii), conducted experiments in the Kilauea caldera to monitor subsurface temperatures, and helped pioneer the use of tiltmeters to record the deformation on an active volcano (among other things). The research that's been conducted since at the HVO has been invaluable for the field of volcanology, of course, and the HVO has been a model for other observatories around the world. But why do I think Jagger is a good hero for me? Because he hit on one of the reasons that I wanted to study volcanology in the first place:

"The main object of the work should be humanitarian...prediction and methods of protecting life and property on the basis of sound scientific achievement."

That's the reason I want to study volcanoes - not just for the sake of gaining knowledge, although that's an admirable goal as well. I want my work to be useful to more than just other scientists. It's been fairly obvious recently that most of the world has no idea how to live with the reality of volcanoes in their midst, even when the science of volcanology is firmly in place to study them. There needs to be a working link between science and society, and volcanology - a science which deals with one of the most visible and devastating geologic phenomena out there - should be a major part of that. In my opinion, Dr. Jaggar hit that one spot-on.

Like many heroes, Thomas Jaggar isn't perfect; in order to stretch his limited funding during the building of the Observatory, he allowed convict labor on the site, something that no one would consider nowadays. (The prison camp that supplied the labor was located at the current site of the Kilauea Military Camp in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park). His supporter Lorrin Thurston helped lead the overthrew of Queen Liliuokalani the native monarchy of Hawaii in 1893. Both of them participated in somewhat unsafe experiments (although I will admit that if I had the opportunity to chuck logs into an active lava lake, I probably wouldn't pass it up either).

But it also seemed that he had a good sense of humor - a plus for anyone who works on volcanoes, considering all the hazards and difficulties - and a very tolerant wife (who also apparently had a good sense of humor). He dedicated one of his publications to her with the following lines, in fact: 

"To helpmeet and campmate, ISABEL JAGGAR,  Whose horse crushed her against a tree . . . /, Whose gloves fell into a red hot crack and burned up . . . /, Who slept in a lava tunnel beside the immortal remains of a desiccated billy goat . . . /, And loved it all."

A pioneer in his field, a snazzy dresser and a good sense of humor? Something any volcanologist would aspire to.

Essential reading for volcanologists

One of the things I've found out since starting serious research in volcanology is that a lot - and I mean a lot - of the best texts are either out of print, expensive, or both. Fortunately there are enough people in the department that we have a fairly good selection of them - better than the library, anyway - although we're going to be in big trouble when certain folks graduate. (Either that or we're going to have to kidnap their collections.)


Anyway, being a bookish type, and having noticed the other book reviews that have come out on the geoblogosphere lately, I thought I would begin working my way through a list of the books that I've found most useful over the last year or so. Granted, I haven't used all of these extensively, but this will give me a good chance to refresh my memory on what I could be using. A lot of these texts combine general and specific subject matters, so it's a little hard to divide them up by specialty, but I'll try and go from really general to more specific.

• Volcanism, 2003, Hans-Ulrich Schmincke
• Fundamentals of Physical Volcanology, 2008, Parfitt and Wilson
• Volcanology, 2000, Bardintzeff and McBirney
• The Encyclopedia of Volcanoes, 1999, Houghton et al. 
• Volcanoes, 2003, Francis and Oppenheimer.
• Pyroclastic Rocks, 1985, Fisher and Schminke
• Volcanic Successions, 1987, Cas and Wright
• Volcanology and Geothermal Energy,1992, Wohletz and Heiken (the full text of the book is available at this link)
• Altered Volcanic Rocks, Gifkins et al.
• Igneous Petrogenesis, 2007, M. Wilson
• Atlas of Igneous Rocks and their Textures, 1982, MacKenzie et al.
• Volcanoes of the World , 1994, Tom Simkin and Lee Siebert (Global Volcanism Program)
• Monitoring Active Volcanoes, 1995, McGuire et al.
• Remote Sensing of Active Volcanism, 2000, Mouginis-Mark et al. (eds)
• Volcanoes, 1972, Gordon MacDonald
• Ash Flow Tuffs, 1979, Charles Chapin (ed)
• Volcano Deformation, 2006, Daniel Dsurizin (ed)
• Introduction to Volcanic Seismology, 2003, V. Zobin
• Volcanic Ash, 1985, Heiken and Wohletz
• Volcanic Textures, 1993, Doyle and McPhie
• Monitoring and Mitigation of Volcanic Hazards, 1996, Scarpa and Tilling
• Volcano Instability on the Earth and Other Planets, 1996, McGuire
• Fire and Mud, 1996, Newhall and Punongbayan
• The Physics of Explosive Volcanic Eruptions, 1998, Gilbert and Sparks
• From Magma to Tephra, 2001, Freundt and Rosi
• Environmental Effects on Volcanic Eruptions, 2000, Zimbelman and Gregg
• Volcanoes and the Environment, 2008, Marti and Ernst
• Volcanic Degassing, 2003, Oppenheimer et al.
• Kinematics and Dynamics of Lava Flows, 2005, Manga and Ventura
• Mechanisms of Activity and Unrest at Large Calderas, 2006, Troise et al. (eds)
• Caldera Volcanism, 2008, Gottsman and Marti
• Fluid Motions in Volcanic Conduits, 2008, Lane and Gilbert
• Earthquake and Volcano Deformation, 2010, Paul Segall

In most cases I've linked to Amazon, mostly because they do pretty decent summaries of content, but these books are often available straight from the publisher, or from independent booksellers (for a greatly reduced price). Bookfinder.com is where I start whenever I'm looking for an obscure book, although beware of inflated prices for out-of-print editions. 

GSA Update #3

I always head to GSA with good intentions (i.e., actually writing about things the day they happen), but I usually end up joining the ranks of those catching up with their writing instead. (There's nothing wrong with this, since I'm not getting paid to write on a schedule or anything, but it annoys me when I do it.)

Tuesday at GSA was another great chance to see talks; lots of discussion about volcano hydrothermal systems, degassing, hazards, and risk communication. In addition, I (and Jim Lehane from Dino Jim's Musings) were asked to be on a the eGSA ad hoc committee! We had a really interesting discussion about how GSA communicates with its members online, and ways that we can incorporate new technology to help GSA keep up with current online trends (such as geoblogging). Some exciting topics came up, including the possibility of a GSA blog, an improved GSA Connection newsletter and maybe even a meeting-oriented Iphone app.

Anyway, on to a few talk summaries:

• Conduit convection vs. deep degassing at open vent volcanoes: melt inclusion evidence from Popocatepetl Volcano, Mexico by Paul Wallace. In this study, melt inclusions were found to indicate variable degassing at different depths in a volcanic system; CO2/SO2 ratios of volatiles dissolved in the inclusions were used to determine the pressure and depth of exsolution. The CO2/SO2 relationship is something that I was taught about in a volcanology field course I took in Hawaii; CO2 degassing occurs at depth and SO2 degassing when the magma reaches a more shallow location, and increasing amounts of SO2 are often taken to indicate a likely eruption (or at least magma moving into a shallow part of a volcanic conduit).
  
• Back off: We're scientists! Myth vs. reality and how to communicate risk related to natural hazards by Jeff Rubin. Jeff was one of the teachers of the short course I took on Sunday, and this talk was a great summary of the important points that came up during the discussions he led. One of the biggest problems with mitigating natural hazards is the assumptions that people in charge make about how non-scientists and non-officials will behave - especially thinking that they will panic. In reality, panic is extremely rare and in many cases precious resources and personnel are wasted on trying to prevent it. What folks in charge should be concentrating on is communicating clearly and honestly about hazards, and maintaining credibility (by not withholding information unnecessarily, or refusing to admit a lack of certainty, for example).
  
• The preacher vs. the volcanologist: Origin of the word "pyroduct" by Jack Lockwood. This was one of the history of geology talks, and it was a great tale about Reverend Titus Coan, who went to Hawaii in the 1850s to help spread Christianity to the natives and in the process made some important observations about volcanoes, and the more famous James Dana (of Dana's Mineralogy), with whom he corresponded. Coan's letters to Dana about eruptions at Mauna Loa were the earliest field descriptions of activity at that volcano, and they caused a long-standing argument between the two about the existence of lava tubes. In short, Coan described them and Dana (who had not been to the field and actually looked at them) republished his work but denied that lava tubes (or "pyroducts", as Coan called them) existed. (Only after Coan's death did Dana even partially relent, in fact.) Dr. Lockwood left us with a moral to the story: Good field observations trump office speculations every time!
• Blogs as a resource and social support network for women geoscientists by Kim Hannula (of All of My Faults Are Stress Related). I was really looking forward to this talk, because it presented the results of one of the surveys that's been bouncing around the geoblogosphere in the past months. The point of the survey was to find out why women read (and write) geoblogs, and the results were pretty interesting: women geoscientists in academia read and write blogs to make their experiences feel more normal, and to get advice and connect with role models. This wasn't so much the case for geoscientists in industry, and Kim has promised some further research on why the responses were different. You can read her summary here - as one of the PIs of the study, she's better at summarizing it than I am!

In the course of the meeting, I also helped out at UB's recruitment table, and it was really nice to get to meet prospective grad students and try to get them excited about grad school. It wasn't just an opportunity to talk about how great UB's volcanology group is (although I definitely did), but also a chance to answer questions about grad school in general, which is really valuable for incoming students. There are a lot of things that I found out by trial and error, and if I can make it easier for someone else, I'm all for it. There was a great turnout (and not just for the swag), and I'm looking forward to see who comes to visit in the next few months.

And on Wednesday, I rested....just kidding. On Wednesday, noticing a lack of volcanology-related sessions, I decided to tromp around Portland for a bit. Sadly, it was a pretty soggy morning, and most stores didn't open until 10 (which probably kept me from spending money on things I'd have to stuff into my already-full bags), but I enjoyed the chance to see a bit of the city. I'll have to go back and visit some volcanoes, because I didn't see any in the whole time I was there. Darn!

All in all, a great meeting - it's not often that there are talks on volcanology every day, and I felt like I learned a lot and made some good connections. (And I couldn't beat the geobloggers meetup for a good time!)

GSA Update #2

The last few day shave been absolutely crammed for me. Sunday was taken up by the short course I attended, but yesterday was the first day I had time to attend talks, and I've forgotten how easy it is to go into talk overload. Still, I was thrilled by the wealth of volcanology-related sessions there are at this meeting; here are a few of the talks I managed to catch:

• Can static magma decompression trigger an eruption? Evidence from Kilauea Volcano, Hawai'i by Mike Poland. Many eruptions are associated with inflation of a volcanic edifice as magma moves into its "internal plumbing", but during the recent eruption at the Halema'uma'u crater at Kilauea's summit, decompression and deflation were observed. One hypothesis to explain this suggests that decompression in the magma chamber releases gases that can clear old channels for magma movement.
• Characteristics and models of cyclic activity at Fuego Volcano, Guatemala (2005-2007) derived from visual observations and seismic, acoustic and thermal measurements by John Lyons. Fuego is a basaltic Guatemalan volcano that experiences cycles of "flow" (lava flow with minor Strombolian), "chug" (violent Strombolian and lava fountaining) and "pop" (explosions without effusion) activity. The authors applied the collapsing magmatic "foam" model of Jaupart & Verniolle to explain these cycles: flow behavior represents constant effusion of small bubbles of gas with magma near the top of the conduit, chugging represents continuous release of large bubbles, and popping happens when bubbles are released but the magma free surface is some distance below the mouth of the summit conduit.
• Field trips as a tool for recruitment, retention and education by our own Callan Bentley of NOVA Geoblog. Callan often leads geology field trips along the Billy Goat Trail in the Great Falls area of Maryland, and finds that they're an important way of both stimulating the interest of his students and getting them excited about geology. I think my favorite quote was from one of the students he surveyed, who said that "Callan's field trips are like crack - I'm just here to get my fix." Having been on the Billy Goat Trail trip before, I totally agree.
• Challenges to volcanic risk mitigation by John Ewert. There are physical, technical and social challenges involved in volcanic risk mitigation (volcanic risk is a combination of the chance of volcanic hazards occurring combined with the possible monetary, human, etc. consequences). Many of them have to do with how complicated volcanic behavior is, how difficult it is to forecast, and the importance of continual, timely hazard education and communication. It's not an easy job - but it's definitely important!

Monday was also the great alumni reception marathon, as well as the geobloggers meetup at the Tugboat Brewery. Seeing old friends was great, but getting to finally meet a whole new set of scientists was completely awesome. I'll try and post some of my blurry photos later, but Callan was our "official" photographer, and he'll have much better ones. It was a great turnout - at least fifteen people at one count, including some geo-tweeters. (I also think we created a new bar tradition while we were there - think Moe's Southwestern Grill and you get the idea.) There was definitely a high level of geekery, especially when the Iphones started coming out. I'm glad to have finally meet everyone, and I hope we get to do this again at other GSAs!

Predictions, Forecasting and Eruptions

A half-joking query that I'm sure every volcanologist has encountered in their career is: "When will the volcano erupt? When's the 'big one' coming?" A major misconception of the public is that volcanologists can predict eruptions. Volcanologists, on the other hand, prefer to say that they can sometimes forecast eruptions - but not all the time, and often only in rough terms. This is a situation where semantics can cause a rift between scientists and the public, and it's the responsibility of both the scientist and the layperson to help fix it - the scientist by defining their word choice, and the layperson by realizing that in volcanology, forecast and predict don't mean the same thing.

(Photo of the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, Phillipines, in 1991; courtesy US Geological Survey Photographic Library.)

In volcanology, a prediction would mean saying that a volcano will erupt with a specific type and magnitude of phenomena, at a very specific time. If I were to say, "Mount St. Helens will produce a Plinian eruption in the next month," I would be predicting the volcano's behavior. There's also a good chance I'd be wrong. Volcanologists do not make predictions.

A forecast, however, involves probabilities, much like a weather report. "There is a high probability that Mount St. Helens' activity will increase in intensity in the next few weeks," would be an example of a forecast. (NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN ACTUAL FORECAST - real ones for Mt. St. Helens can be found here.) A forecast is a statement of what volcanologists think may happen based on current monitoring and evidence of past eruptions. But even when they're based on the best data available, forecasts can be wrong; they are, however, a more responsible way of answering the "when will it blow" question.

Activity forecasts are usually associated with currently active volcanoes, or volcanoes which are showing signs of becoming active. If, for example, an earthquake swarm occurs under a volcano, scientists might take this to mean that magma is moving through the volcano's plumbing system, if they are the right kind of earthquakes. Or, an inflation of a volcano's flanks might indicate an influx of new melt into the chamber of an already active volcano. Volcanologists have learned what the general signs are that might indicate volcanic activity is about to start or change, but these signs vary significantly depending on the volcano.

In addition, most volcanoes have not been studied long enough to understand the full range of their behavior. 30 or 40 years might represent a volcanologist's entire career, but in geologic terms, it's an incredibly short period, especially considering that volcanoes can erupt over timescales of hundreds of thousands of years. (In addition, eruption styles can change, so even if scientists understand a volcano's current behavior, they can still be surprised by sudden shifts in eruption style.)

What this all boils down to is that NO ONE, at this point in the evolution of volcanology, can say exactly what a volcano will do. Volcanoes are constantly surprising even the people who have spent their lives studying them. Because volcanoes are natural systems, there is always a chaotic element to their behavior (scientists call this aleatoric uncertainty). Aleatoric uncertainty can be reduced by acquiring knowledge about a system, but can never be completely eliminated. Volcanologists do their best with the knowledge that they have, and try to take into account the full range of phenomena that a volcano can produce, but hazard analysis and mitigation are still difficult.

This is why websites like this one, which advertises a computer program that supposedly forecasts volcanic eruptions, are extremely misleading and even dangerous*. It is no great stretch to say that a volcano that has been active in the last decade will continue to be active, as the website's "forecast" does in many cases, but those volcanoes could just as easily cease their activity. Computer simulations of the plumbing systems of volcanoes are still being refined, and we'll probably never really be able to "see" inside a volcano with the accuracy that will allow us to predict its behavior. There are simply too many variables to take into account: different eruptive materials, structures, weaknesses, melt compositions and rheologies, gas contents, etc etc.

The Volcano Listserv recently distributed this email about the website I mentioned:

Please be advised that Volcano Listserv does not endorse the forecasts
made by R.B. Trombley or others that have not been vetted in the
peer-reviewed scientific literature. To our knowledge, Dr. Trombley does
not have training as a volcanologist, and his previous reports have
raised concerns among a number of volcano practitioners and
organizations (including WOVO, the World Organization of Volcano
Observatories) about the possibility of misinterpretation.

Dr. Jonathan Fink
Founder and Editor, Volcano Listserv

Dr. Warner Marzocchi
Co-chairman WOVO (World Organization of Volcano Observatories)

-----Original Message-----
From: VOLCANO [VOLCANO@asu.edu] On Behalf Of Kimberly Genareau
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2009 7:54 PM
To: VOLCANO@ASU.EDU
Subject: Year 2009 Volcano Eruption Forecast

****************************************************************
From: R. B. Trombley,Ph.D. <swvrc@usa.net>
****************************************************************

The global volcano eruption forecast for the year 2009 as forecasted
by ERUPTION Pro. 10.7
can be found at the following URL:

http://www.intlvrc.org/forecast.htm

I'm going to repeat the warning: DO NOT use this website, or anything like it, as a means of deciding whether you are in danger of a volcanic eruption. Listen to the volcanologists who study a particular volcano, your local Civil Defense or other disaster prevention agency, the National Guard, etc. They are the ones who have the most experience in dealing with eruptions, and that experience is more valuable and reliable than anything a computer program can spit out.

*I did notice that the website for the program contains a disclaimer stating that the software is not the be-all and end-all of eruption forecasting, but I take issue with the fact that the software is in any way touted as a legitimate tool for hazard mitigation. Especially by a person who has absolutely no qualification as a volcanologist, and who is trying to sell an MS-DOS-based program for almost $500. I certainly wouldn't buy it - the program or the claims.

The Fish Lake Plateau: "A most eligible summer camping-place" (Accretionary Wedge #14/15)

I haven't done a whole lot of research yet, but I always enjoy a good chance to get out in the field. For my undergraduate thesis, this meant spending a few weeks in south-central Utah, on the High Plateaus. The work was part of the 2006 NSF Fish Lake Research Experience for Undergraduates, a joint effort between the College of William & Mary and Coastal Carolina University. The project was in its second year, and had been inspired by past W&M field trips to Fish Lake.

My first visit to Fish Lake was on one of those trips - I had just finished my freshman year, and I was still struggling to learn all the basic skills of field mapping. As I remember, we had a discussion about whether Fish Lake was formed by glacial or tectonic processes (and I was on the glacial side, which ended up being not a great choice). Shortly after that, however, my advisor mentioned that the REU would be doing research there, and (dropping a blatant hint to get me interested) that there might be some volcanology I could work on.

So, in the summer of my junior year, I helped drive a minivan full of equipment from the East Coast to Utah. With three people rotating through, and not stopping other than for gas and food, we made it there in about 40 hours. (The rest of the group flew to Salt Lake City and drove from there, but at least they left us a couple of days to recover.) The three weeks that followed were an amazing, challenging, and at times frustrating experience, but I couldn't have picked a more fascinating place to spend them.

The Fish Lake Plateau has something for everyone*: Mesozoic sedimentary rocks,

Tertiary volcanics,

forest,

desert,

faults,

cirques,

landslides,

and scads of Quaternary sedimentary deposits.

It has been a geologist's playground since Clarence Edward Dutton's expedition reached it in the 1880s, and since my brain is a bit fried from studying for finals, I'll let him do a little of the describing for me:

"...we may look down upon the beautiful surface of Fish Lake. This sheet of water, about 5 1/2 miles in length and a mile and a half in breadth, is walled in by two noble palisades..."

"Not the smallest among its attractions for the geologist is the fact that it is a most eligible summer camping-place. In the daytime, throughout July, August, and most of September, it is mild and genial, while the nights are frosty and conducive to rest. The grass is long, luxurient, and aglow with flowers."

"Clumps of spruce and aspen furnish shade from the keen rays of the sun, and fuel is in abundance for camp-fires."

"Thus the great requisites for Western camp-life, fuel, water, and grass, are richly supplied, while neither in in such excess as to be an obstacle to progress and examination.

"On every side it is bounded by precipitous cliffs, except along a part of its southwestern flank, but here and there the malls are broken and notched. Along the side facing west-northwest runs a cliff of vast proportions, second only to the western front of the Sevier Plateau in magnitude and grandeur. Upon the very brink of this wall is the highest point of the plateau, from which, in a clear day, we may easily discern the peaks of the Wasatch around Salt Lake City and beyond."

"Upon the east side rise two conspicuous masses - Mount Terril and Mount Marvine."

"No resort more beautiful than this lake can be found in Southern Utah. Its grassy banks clad with groves of spruce and aspen; the splendid vista down between its mountain walls, with the massive fronts of Mounts Marvine and Hilgard in the distance; the crystal-clear expanse of the lake itself, combine to form a scene of beauty rarely equaled in the West."

*As far as it concerns me, however, Fish Lake has no fish. Or, rather, it has fish, but they didn't want to be caught by me - not even after two days of fishing attempts. So much for that 4th of July fish fry we had planned.

At least I won't get attacked by monkeys

I just came across an article from a July 2007 Wired Magazine article about the "Best Dangerous Science Jobs". Guess what #7 is?

Volcanologist! (I love the little graphic.)

And #6 is...

Graduate student.

Yep, I'm doomed. Happily doomed, though.