| Online: | |
| Visits: | |
| Stories: |
| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Magma Rising In Mount Rainier (Video)
Scientists from the University of Utah have determined that Mount Rainier, one of the most prominent peaks in North America, will erupt again. The question of when remains unanswered, but science has recently discovered how: By measuring how quickly Earth conducts electricity and seismic waves, they’ve effectively “mapped” Rainier’s magma “plumbing.” “This is the most direct image yet capturing the melting process that feeds magma into a crustal reservoir that eventually is tapped for eruptions,” says geophysicist Phil Wannamaker, of the university’s Energy & Geoscience Institute and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “But it does not provide any information on the timing of future eruptions from Mount Rainier or other Cascade Range volcanoes.” The interesting part? Some, if not most, of Rainier’s magma reservoir is located not under the volcano, but somewhere between 6 and 10 miles northwest of it. It’s buried about five miles beneath the surface, and “appears to be 5 to 10 miles thick, and 5 to 10 miles wide in east-west extent,” says Wannamaker.
A ticking time bomb waiting to erupt. Many say its eruption would be larger than that of mout St. Helens in 1980 which killed 57 people and threw ash in 11 states and 5 Canadian provinces.
