Volcano geeks
Lots of hot rock
Growing up in Central Washington I always found volcanoes fascinating. It was fun to climb basalt cliffs, but just as much fun to contemplate the multiple enormous lava flows that piled up 3,500 meters of basalt in some places. It was a blast to have all that igneous geology laid out where you could hike on it, touch it, and sense the scale of it all. Yes, that’s a bit geeky, so how have I missed The Volcanism Blog until now?
The images of the pre-eruption lava dome in their 07 May post, and the river valley between it and Chaiten town (think pyroclastic flow) really make you wonder about the sanity of the few holdouts who are refusing to evacuate. Getting roasted to death in a pitch-black cloud of superheated volcanic ash does not sound like a good way to go. Anyway, here’s some video:
Given the scale of the images, it’s difficult to imagine how fast the gas plume is erupting. Most things that are miles away appear to be moving pretty slowly even if they’re moving pretty fast. The flow appears to be moving fast, which means it’s moving really fast. When it blows laterally instead of vertically, I think people imagine they could run away in their cars or something. Well, ... not.
When Mt. St. Helens pulled a similar stunt a few years ago my brother sent me a bag of volcanic ash that fell on Ellensburg, 45 miles to the E/NE. It’s super-fine, very abrasive and very heavy. People were wrapping panty hose around their cars’ air cleaners, and went through a hell of a lot of windshields. A few roofs collapsed closer to the volcano, from the weight of the ash.
Here, longer video. Starting about 2:26 is some footage shot by somebody who should have already gotten the frack out of there, conveying the sense of awful impending doom in a threatened community. Does anyone know the name of the sad violin piece playing in the background? Can anyone translate the muttered narration? You can also hear dogs barking, the narrator calling a dog, patting it on the side, and the dog growling strangely.
I do believe that’s the theme from Schindler’s List playing on the violin.
Posted by Sheryl on 05/09/08 at 08:47 PMDog to owner: “There’s a great big freakin’ volcano erupting over there and you’re filming it?!? Are you insane? We should be RUNNING AWAY, doofus!”
I’ll be showing my age, here, but I wrote a get-well card to Mt. St. Helens when I was five years old. It looked like it hurt.
This video looked like hell.
Posted by Dana Hunter on 05/10/08 at 04:43 AM
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