[James Bond Agent 007]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003592844_rainier28m.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2007/02/28/2003575531.jpg

Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Rainier, third most dangerous U.S. volcano, USGS says
By Warren Cornwall
Seattle Times staff reporter

Mount Rainier looks constant and unchanging, an impassive landmark on the horizon. But the mountain hasn't always been so quiet.

About the time Christopher Columbus was arriving in America, a torrent of mud rolled down Rainier's western flank, burying the spot where Orting stands today. Five hundred years before that, an eruption sent a mud flow down the White River Valley to what is now Auburn.

Now, with thousands of people moving within reach of Mount Rainier, scientists say they need to "listen" much more closely to the third-most dangerous volcano in the nation.

Over the next two years, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) plans to increase the number of earthquake monitors from five to nine, ring the mountain with eight new global-positioning (GPS) units to monitor the mountain's movements and speckle it with 21 small metal discs to gauge whether the mountain changes shape.

Mount Rainier National Park officials announced the plan Tuesday, saying the potential environmental impact of the plan will be studied before permits are issued. Park officials are now accepting public comment.

Today, scientists track the mountain's movements primarily with the five earthquake stations. That's enough to be sure they aren't blindsided by an unexpected eruption, said Cynthia Gardner, scientist in charge of the Geological Survey's Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash.

But they still have significant blind spots, she said.

For example, they can't watch for subtle flexing in a volcano's surface, she said. That can be an early sign of a pending eruption or the collapse that leads to destructive mud flows. The GPS units would do that by beaming a continuous stream of data back to scientists.

The additional earthquake gauges would enable scientists to get a better picture of an earthquake, such as how deep it is. The depth can indicate whether molten rock is moving toward the surface.

In 2005, the USGS declared Mount Rainier a "significantly under-monitored" volcano. It also ranked it the country's third-most dangerous based on how big an eruption could be and how much damage it could cause. The top two are Mount St. Helens and Hawaii's Kilauea.

The present system's limitations were made apparent in October, when a 4.5-magnitude earthquake struck Rainier's eastern edge, said Seth Moran, a seismologist at the Vancouver observatory.

Earthquake monitors showed that aftershocks could be edging closer to the mountain's center, a possible sign of something bigger to come.

It turned out to be nothing — a false clue created by gaps in the network, Moran said. One of the proposed new monitors would sit right near the epicenter of that quake.

The proposed improvements were welcomed by John Vidale, director of the University of Washington's Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, which monitors earthquakes in Washington and Oregon, and has worked with the USGS on the plan.

"The proposed upgrade will help a lot," he said. "But in the end we'd like to get twice as much instrumentation up there."

-----------------------------------------

Top 10 most dangerous U.S. volcanoes
Based on U.S. Geological Survey ratings of size and potential damage of an eruption.

1. Kilauea, Hawaii
2. Mount St. Helens
3. Mount Rainier
4. Mount Hood, Ore.
5. Mount Shasta, Calif.
6. South Sister, Ore.
7. Lassen Volcanic Center, Calif.
8. Mauna Loa, Hawaii
9. Redoubt, Alaska
10. Crater Lake, Ore.

[bgwah]

Third? Seems like it would be #1 for potentional danger to people...

[MrVandelay]

I watched a discovery channel episode that ranked Rainer as #1 also, due to the proximity to large urban areas. The lahars from Rainer is what would be the most destructive.

[moosanova]

data from previous eruptions have showed thet the mudflows would fan outwards to areas that are now heavily populated.

these flows would reach puget sound but not be nearly as destructive as they would be further inland.....

just to give you some example.......

Orting,Wa would be under 40-50 feet of mud and debris

Puyallup would be under 30-40 feet of mud and debris

and cities like kent and auburn would be buried also....

keep in mind that cities such as orting, black diamond, buckley and the like are built on old mudflows.

it has happened before and it will happen again.


Mount Rainier should be # 1 on every list.....

[PDXPaul]

on shit son, numbers 2 and 3! We be taking home medals and shit. Take that oregon, can't touch this california, what-what now alaska yeah, yeah that's what i thought, nuthing!

[Urban Zombie®]

Ohmigod!!! Dangerous!!! Then I guess we should rally around the government to protect us! The War against terroristic volcanoes is about to lift its curtain!

--seriously, could the headline be anymore sensationalist?

[NW Mike]

I posted this story in the weather thread a couple of days ago Bond. Even though its really not weather.

[ltsmotorsport]

How the hell is Kilauea the most dangerous? Its eruptions are far reaching, and where its lava does flow is mostly in the national park and not towards people's homes. I would think Rainer, Hood and St. Helens would be the top three, with maybe Redoubt in AK being up there with the danger of all the airline routes flying right next to it.

[NW Mike]

How the hell is Kilauea the most dangerous? Its eruptions are far reaching, and where its lava does flow is mostly in the national park and not towards people's homes. I would think Rainer, Hood and St. Helens would be the top three, with maybe Redoubt in AK being up there with the danger of all the airline routes flying right next to it.

You have never been to the east side of Kilauea?
In the 80's a lava flow wiped out entire neighborhoods.In the 90's the flows were very close. They never really know where the flows will be. Trust me I lived in Hawaii for 18 years and knew many familys that lived with it. That mountain is very active!

[oilcan]

Not sure how many of your remember or where actually alive for I was only 6 but remember it well..besides the immediete base area of the mountain when St Helens erupted in 1980 eastern Washington recieved the majority of the wrath and the p-sound area was primarily untouched... So just because you are that close does not always mean you will get the blunt of it depending on winds, type of erruption.. etc.. Little shot in the eye for Oklahoma... take the Sonics and next time it will be worse :) ...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f1/1980_St._Helens_ashmap.png/800px-

[MtnClimber]

You have never been to the east side of Kilauea?
In the 80's a lava flow wiped out entire neighborhoods.In the 90's the flows were very close. They never really know where the flows will be. Trust me I lived in Hawaii for 18 years and knew many familys that lived with it. That mountain is very active!

Kilauea? I think not. All the hawaiian volcanoes are shield volcanoes and tend to admit highly fluid lava. They are not compositve volcanes and are not as destructive..

I think most geologist would agree that the Cascade volcanoes along with the ones in Alaska are probably some of the most dangerous in the USA, because they are composite volcanoes and can cause very destructive explosions and large Lahars.

Barring yellowstone and mammoth of course =). Yellowstone is a caldera, and if it erupted the the world economy may collapse. Fortunately that only happens every 10 thousand years or so.

[bgwah]

Not sure how many of your remember or where actually alive for I was only 6 but remember it well..besides the immediete base area of the mountain when St Helens erupted in 1980 eastern Washington recieved the majority of the wrath and the p-sound area was primarily untouched... So just because you are that close does not always mean you will get the blunt of it depending on winds, type of erruption.. etc.. Little shot in the eye for Oklahoma... take the Sonics and next time it will be worse :) ...


Deadly lahars and mud flows < ash

Oh well, does anybody on an urbanist forum like SSP really care about suburban Pierce County? I'm sure they'll all whine about how it is the government's fault that they just HAD to have their cheap ugly exurban houses. I guess being negro-free is safer than being in the path of Mt. Rainier?

Have fun drowning in mud.

[CanadianCentaur]

Kilauea? I think not. All the hawaiian volcanoes are shield volcanoes and tend to admit highly fluid lava. They are not compositve volcanes and are not as destructive..


Kilauea not only poses a serious threat to property with its extensive basalt lava flows - it also has an even more unpleasant secret that's only been revealed within the last 20 years or so. It's had had surprisingly powerful explosive eruptions in the past, the most recent large one being in 1924. The second most recent in 1790 was even larger and may have killed as many as several hundred people. (A band of native Hawaiian warriors and their families were traveling past the summit caldera at the time). Even larger explosive eruptions than the 1790 one are known from over 2,000 years ago, and some of those eruptions wrecked an area up to two-thirds that of the area devastated by Mount St. Helens in 1980. In a nutshell, Kilauea does have explosive eruptions, just not as frequently nor as large as the stratovolcanoes (composite volcanoes), but they can still be very dangerous. As for the summit caldera at Kilauea - it was formed by slow subsidence of magma underneath rather than through explosive eruptions. That is typical of calderas atop many other shield volcanoes worldwide.

Check these links out below...
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/hazards/explosivepast/
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs132-98/fs132-98.pdf


Barring yellowstone and mammoth of course =). Yellowstone is a caldera, and if it erupted the the world economy may collapse. Fortunately that only happens every 10 thousand years or so.

Yellowstone's frequency of large caldera-forming eruptions actually occur at a frequency of roughly every 600,000 years. Although the last one occurred over 630,000 years ago, there are no signs that it will have another caldera-forming eruption anytime soon. It could be possibly tens of thousands of years in the future. But no eruptions of this scale has ever been recorded historically, so we don't really know what to expect. This is although the USGS does maintain a volcano observatory there and monitors earthquakes there closely (see link below).

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/

As for Long Valley, I don't know, although that caldera formed 760,000 years ago and is still a highly geothermal area. Eruptions almost the size of one at Mt. St. Helens in 1980 have occurred as recently as the 14th-15th Centuries in the Mono-Inyo Craters just to the northwest of Mammoth Mountain at Long Valley's caldera rim. The most recent eruption in that area was about 250 years ago - definitely not long ago in geological terms.

And yes, there is a volcano observatory at Long Valley.
http://lvo.wr.usgs.gov/

[ltsmotorsport]

You have never been to the east side of Kilauea?
In the 80's a lava flow wiped out entire neighborhoods.In the 90's the flows were very close. They never really know where the flows will be. Trust me I lived in Hawaii for 18 years and knew many familys that lived with it. That mountain is very active!

I knew about the flows, but I didn't realize that they were so unpredictable. I figured they just stayed on a somewhat regular course, and the homes were too close to that.

The Yellowstone volcano would wipe out North America if it went. Even if it doesn't erupt as frequently, the impacts would be felt world wide, not just in our country.

Had to post this picture of Yellowstone too. What a nice little caldera rim we have.
http://sciencebulletins.amnh.org/earth/f/yellowstone.20060601/images/header_steam.jpg

[James Bond Agent 007]

I posted this story in the weather thread a couple of days ago Bond. Even though its really not weather.
Oops, sorry, didn't see it. :runaway:

[MOPIdaho]

on shit son, numbers 2 and 3! We be taking home medals and shit. Take that oregon, can't touch this california, what-what now alaska yeah, yeah that's what i thought, nuthing!

Hey, St. Helens should be considered Portland's volcano, or at least we need weekend/holiday custody.

[Black Box]

I do not want to live to see the day when this happens.

[MtnClimber]

are no signs that it will have another caldera-forming eruption anytime soon. It could be possibly tens of thousands of years in the future. But no eruptions of this scale has ever been recorded historically, so we don't really know what to expect. This is although the USGS does maintain a volcano observatory there and monitors earthquakes there closely (see link below).
http://lvo.wr.usgs.gov/

Are you sure about that? From what I understand yellowstone has risen 72 cm's in the last few decades. Certaintly part of a more distrubing trend we should be paying attention to.

Furthermore it has been over 640K thouand years from the last eruption. A supervolcano like yellowstone or mammoth in CAlifornia would be one of the most devestating things witnessed by mankind.

[NW Mike]

oops

[NW Mike]

I knew about the flows, but I didn't realize that they were so unpredictable. I figured they just stayed on a somewhat regular course, and the homes were too close to that.
The Yellowstone volcano would wipe out North America if it went. Even if it doesn't erupt as frequently, the impacts would be felt world wide, not just in our country.
Had to post this picture of Yellowstone too. What a nice little caldera rim we have.



Take a look at Google earth and you'll see what is happening on the BigIsland(Hawaii).That is why land is so damn cheap on the east side near Puna district and Kalapana (Southeastern side of island) South of Hilo...Lots of streets but not many homes left.But you can buy a great piece of land for a few thousand bucks and stick a manufactured home on it, put in a catchment system and solar and your good to go untill the lava flows come again. And once its a hard desert of rock who will want to come back.
http://aycu34.webshots.com/image/11393/2005708585630409579_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2005708585630409579)
Nice neighborhood huh?

[SEA-TOWN]

The Yellowstone volcano would wipe out North America if it went. Even if it doesn't erupt as frequently, the impacts would be felt world wide, not just in our country.

When I saw "Super Volcano" on the Discovery Channel, based typical winds, we are supposed to get little if any ash from the eruption. (Seatte/Portland/Vancouver). However, the East Coast is doomed if it happens.

[65MAX]

When I saw "Super Volcano" on the Discovery Channel, based typical winds, we are supposed to get little if any ash from the eruption. (Seatte/Portland/Vancouver). However, the East Coast is doomed if it happens.

Man, they get everything; tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, heat waves, super volcano fallout. All we get is rain. And some ice once in a while.

[PuyoPiyo]

Well Washington, Oregon, and California is on the Ring of Fire. Maybe that's why we are the number one. Washington is famous volcanoes eruption, California is famous earthquakes, but I am not sure about Oregon...

[Chicago3rd]

Man, they get everything; tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, heat waves, super volcano fallout. All we get is rain. And some ice once in a while.

And 9 point earthquakes...let's not forget....lol

[65MAX]

They get those too. A 9 pointer on the New Madrid Fault near Memphis and St Louis would be felt by everyone east of the Rockies. Plus they're less prepared for a major quake, so the damage would be much worse.

[i-215]

I lived in Portland for two years and I didn't even know Mt. Ranier was volcanic.