Thanks for the reminder of volcanic activity along the Pacific rim of fire and in Hawaii, and for some beautiful photos.
4
Few local people realize it but there is a dormant volcano in the hills overlooking SLC on Ensign Peak. Ensign Peak is widely know locally as a the spot where the City and Valley was mapped out by the its founders, as is a popular hiking destination due to that history and the views which have only improved since it was first scaled by Brigham Young. There are even hot springs at the base of it the peak to the west, so you would think the fact it is actually a volcanic peak would be more widely known. But then again the hot springs were fouled by near by petroleum refineries a couple generations ago and the bathhouse is fed is no longer in use. So maybe that is why.
6
The local realtor has a sign that says “They aren’t making land anymore”. Sorry. Wrong. That’s what volcanoes do. The Hawaiian Islands are are great example of hoe the Ring of Fire builds islands.
11
Yes, let's all panic because a volcano erupted 2,400 miles of the coast of California! It's like saying, well that pimple on your feet, well you could have another 2,000 erupt elsewhere on your body. Fear the pimple!
No, let's not panic. But let's use this event as a reminder that the earth is always changing, and sometimes in rather dramatic and catastrophic events. As students in Geology 101 learn, "Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice" (Durant).
28
In Northern New Mexico, not far from Interstate 25, there is a cinder cone volcano where you can drive or bike up and take a walk around the rim of the crater. Capulin Volcano stands out conspicuously in the otherwise flat terrain.
This has been preserved as a National Monument. Here are the map coordinates for any mapping app you would like.
36°46′56″N 103°58′12″W
Here is the National Park System website:
https://www.nps.gov/cavo/index.htm
17
Love that place. A must stop on the way to Colorado from Texas.
3
Do mortgage lenders require the equivalent of flood insurance for people living in the vicinity of volcanos? Is that insurance program, if it exists, sufficiently funded? We hear an awful lot about flood insurance and the cost of resilience and/or retreat in the flood context ... and there is a fair amount of "shaming" for folks who live in flood zones (i.e., you knew you lived in a flood zone, how dare you expect any help form anyone when your house floods). It is unclear to me why similar (statistical probability-adjusted) standards don't exist for volcanos, earthquakes, wildfires, etc.
6
I believe that in Hawaii, people can get fire insurance, but not insurance to cover lava-- or maybe they can get it but lava insurance would be pretty expensive if you live on an active volcano. But often the lava will start a fire before it actually reaches a house, so insurance might cover the fire. But it might not, if the coverage says it would not cover fires caused by lava. But this is what I was told 20+ years ago when I lived there, I don't know if it is the case today.
4
The USGS considers any volcano that has not erupted in the last 10,000 years as active, yet dormant; they are the true sleeping giants. What we are seeing in Hawaii are naturally occurring events and not 'apocalyptic' as some news agencies have stated.
12
Also worthy of honorable mention: the San Francisco Peaks that rise 5000 feet above Flagstaff, Arizona, and the surrounding field of 600 volcanoes. These have a long duration of activity, with the youngest, Sunset Crater, erupting around 1085.
One geologic lesson about these volcanoes, like many other natural phenomena, is that the time scales involved challenge our human perception. Eruptions occuring every thousand years seem unusually rare to us, but represent a rapid drum beat on the scale of geologic time.
20
I was just thinking about Flagstaff. The Four Corners area has a long history of volcanic activity that continues into the geologic present day. Also, Flagstaff is kind of amazing so I think about it a lot anyway.
10
My biggest concern with a U.S. volcano is Mt. Rainier. Huge lahars from ancient eruptions sped like hellish furies down the mountain and into the major suburbs of Seattle and Tacoma. Today Mt. Rainier has one of the largest alpine glacier covers of any mountain in the lower 48. If it erupts, those lahars (which are avalanches of melted ice water mixed in with ash and pumice) will be massive, and will obliterate billions, if not hundreds of billions, of dollars in property down by Seattle. The death tolls will probably be on the lowish side, like with Mt. St. Helens, since these eruptions usually have lots of very worrisome precursors.
Of the major volcanoes around the world that worry me-Vesuvius is literally in the middle of the Naples metro area, with 4 million people. It is an explosive monster ready to blow up. Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl are very close to Mexico City, home to 22 million people, and like Mt. Rainier and Seattle the city and its suburbs sit atop ancient lava fields and lahars that originated from those two massive volcanoes. And the whole island of Java, with 141 million people crammed into an area roughly the size of Illinois, has explosive volcanoes that have not truly blown their tops off in spectacular fashion for thousands of years. I'd hate to see the quick evacuation of 30 million people from a very overcrowded island. That would be a catastrophe of massive proportions, the likes of which we've never seen...
17
Let's not talk about, OK?
WA and OR are jammed with glaciated stratovolcanoes (the kind that blow up). The mudflows from an exploding Mt Rainier and sudden glacial melting are already mapped with evacuation routes. And then there is that Cascadia Subduction Zone which creates a 9.0 earthquake about every 1,000 years. I've seen those disaster movies, not pretty.
No wonder Amazon wants to build HQ2 in another city.
15
In New Mexico we have Valles Caldera, the last eruptive event only thousands of years ago, and the Cerro Toledo event 1.4 mya if happening today would take out all of Santa Fe and much of northern New Mexico. There is also a rising plume under Socorro, New Mexico south of Albuquerque. New Mexico has the most diverse types of volcanoes in the country.
23
If I were to return to college, I would study Geology.
I remember in another life driving from Guadalajara to Manzanillo through lush vegetation and seeing a smoking volcano in the distance. It was so primordial looking, we all stopped and got out of the car to look at it.
24
Steve, no need to wish for another life. You can learn plenty from books and online resources. And more than a few companies offer geo-tourism. Once you learn to "read the rocks" you can see the world in new ways.
17