Iceland’s newest volcano is treating the Reykjanes Peninsula to a reprise in activity, and I’ve got all your volcano video needs covered right here. I was 95% sure this would happen when the eruption went on hiatus last year, and I’m so excited to see eruption activity resume. Hopefully it will behave as politely as last time, and avoid destroying any civilization while it treats us to a lava-ly* show.
First, Geology’s Hub’s announcement of the August 3rd reawakening:
Next up, one of my favorite Icelandic news sites broadcasts right from the edge of the eruption. (more…)
To be fair, though, Loowit (Mount St. Helens) isn’t very old as far as volcanoes go. So when she rumbled awake in late September of 2004, volcanologists weren’t terribly surprised. She’d slumbered for less than 20 years after her 80s eruptive sequence, but it wasn’t shocking to see magma on the move again.
Her prompt eruption on October 1st signalled a new phase of dome building. And this time, we had better cameras, better monitoring equipment, and the plans in place to do some serious monitoring.
Dome within Mount St. Helens’ crater is hot and glowing as it grows, viewed from Johnston Ridge Observatory (JRO), with base of small steam and ash plume. 11/4/2004. Caption and image credit: USGS
Volcanoes leave one heck of a mess to clean up when they explode near civilization. It’s not pretty, although as you can see above, it sometimes looks pretty metal.
While Washington State called out the National Guard and folks figured out how to cope with the copious ash, volcanologists picked through the ruins of a once-verdant forest, measuring various volcanic deposits and learning all they could from them. At first, it was shocking. But once you started adjusting to the change, you could start seeing the beauty in the devastation.
Look at the channel carved through the debris avalanche here: you can see gorgeous reds in the gray where hydrothermally altered rock from the former summit mixed with the more prosaic grays of younger material. The iron-stained creek flowing through added more color to the moonscape. It was alien and strangely pretty. (more…)
It’s a beautiful, quiet morning with spectacular weather, and then suddenly it isn’t. An earthquake strikes, the bulge gives way, and the volcano blows up and out.
Mount St. Helens in eruption. Aerial view of base of eruptive column, crater rim at right. Shows “cauliflower” effect in column. 1235 hrs PDT. Skamania County, Washington. May 18, 1980. Caption and image credit: USGS
This actually isn’t a particularly large eruption. Between the lateral blast, Plinian ash column, and the pyroclastic flows, it totals only about 1.4 cubic kilometers of material. Barely a VEI of 5. But if you’re in it, it seems large enough to have swallowed the world. It is, indeed, cataclysmic.
For the people who lived and worked on the flanks of Loowit (Mount St. Helens), her awakening was both curse and blessing. Living with a restless stratovolcano isn’t safe nor comfortable. But the tourism it draws is great for the local economy. Locals leaned in, creating funny hats and shirts, renaming menu items, and finding other creative ways to capitalize on her activity.
For the scientists who flocked to her, it was the chance of a lifetime.
Aerial view of Mount St. Helens and drifting plume, from northwest. Photo taken from U.S. Forest Service observer plane at 12:32 p.m. Skamania County, Washington. April 4, 1980. Caption and image credit: USGS
Volcanologists flocked to her slopes, installing equipment, taking measurements and photos, and flying over the summit as steam and ash spurted into the sky. They’d seldom had a chance to study an actively erupting composite cone so conveniently close to highways and large cities. Loowit was wonderfully accessible, and easy to observe, even in the Pacific Northwest’s capricious early spring weather. (more…)
There’s this old saying about March: “In like a lamb, out like a lion.” This turned out to be very true in Loowit’s case as the 1980s began.
After over a century of peaceful slumber, Loowit (Mount St. Helens) began to wake. Seismic activity is nothing new around volcanoes, but this swarm was intense enough to shake the snow from her summit.
North side of Mount St. Helens, Washington, as of 24 March 1980. Numerous snow avalanche fracture scarps may be related to continued earthquake shaking. No signs of volcanic activity are evident. Caption and image credit: USGS
What’s the answer to life, the Universe, and how many years it’s been since Loowit (Mount St. Helens) erupted? Why, 42, of course! We’ve plundered the archives of the United States Geological Survey and the US Forest Service for 42 of the best historical photos, plus bonus featured images.
Grab your towels and join me on an epic journey back to the 20th Century, in those years when plate tectonics was still in its infancy, volcanology was still young, and Loowit had yet to stir.
Yeah, it has been a long time since I wrote something substantial, hasn’t it? Even Women’s History Month passed without a peep. Both work and my poor teeth exploded, so it’s been a few months of ending up too drained to word properly while I take care of those matters. Thank you so much for sticking with me regardless. It’s about to get good and earth sciency around here.
I haven’t been completely idle: I’ve been researching Marguerite Thomas Williams, the first African American to earn a PhD in geology. Dozens of articles are out there about her. Precisely none contain any of her words. They list off the same few facts, mostly, which tell us some important and interesting things about her, but don’t give her a living memory. She feels remote, removed, like we’re viewing a damaged newsreel from the back of a theater with a moth-eaten screen and a failing projector. Some of the facts given are there to try to illustrate how unique she was, but they’re wrong: she wasn’t born in the Reconstruction era, in fact was nearly twenty years too late. Even the photo many use to portray her isn’t actually her.
2021 was an excellent year for eruptions that were fascinating to watch and not terribly dangerous to humans! Let’s look back on the eruptions we covered, and see where they are now, and what might be in store for 2022.
Kilauea, United States
Tūtū Pele has celebrated the last couple of New Years with sweet summit eruptions. From late December 2021 through most of May of 2021, we were treated to a spectacular end to the water lake in the crater and entertained by the dancing islands of the new lava lake. Pele took the summer off before abruptly returning on September 29th. She’s been putting on a crater lava show ever since, with just a few breaks, including a pause over Christmas. By the new year, she was back in action and put on a lovely show over the holiday.
Since Pelee’s only taken one year off since the 1980s, I’m expecting this year to include some gorgeous lava action from her current home. And stay tuned to see if she does any remodeling at Mauna Loa!
