Yellowstone Tremors
- Thread starter Hunkydory
- Start date
Jay, you may be right. Obviously this is pretty much hypothetical speculation. but it is fun.
I spent months sorting, searching and planning where to be, and when the Mt St. Helens eruption would be, in order to be in the right place at the right time to photograph it. Had all that planning and prep work come to full fruition, I would not be here today because I was headed for a site at the north end of the lake where I would have had a beautiful reflection in the lake of the hot, glowing, molten lava flowing out of the side of the mountain at 1 AM on May 20. Based on the lunar cycle, and tides of the month and year, which would have been at their highest point at that time.
Mt St H had few vents and therefore little chance to release the pressure in small doses, consequently, the massive buildup of pressure and eventually, displacement of a cubic mile of "plug" that was holding that pressure contained. That was the most exciting thing I have ever seen in my life and I spent that whole day witnessing that event from up close. I now have 2 birthdays each year, my original DOB and May 18, in thankfulness to having a very good (and I might say very busy), guardian angel.
My theory is based on the fact that Yellowstone is covered with geothermal venting opportunities and the chance to build the pressure to equal that VEI 5 event. Even if the lake bottom dropped out and all that water went down into a Magma vault, the resulting steam buildup would be so rapid that the lake bottom would not have a chance to seal off and build up the pressure required for that cataclysmic event. Obviously this is only my opinion and based only on observation. I have no real expertise in geology, just enjoy looking at it.
Jay said:
I also had a brother-in-law working for Weirhouser during that time. My in-laws lived just out of Cougar, and spent most of my non-work time up and around the mountain. 2 days after the blow we flew up around and into the crater, and I have photos of the gysers still erupting along teh route from the old Spirit Lake and down the Toutle river. That was before Jimmy Carter was there and declared it a "moon scape" officially.
The death, destruction and devastation was unbelievable. Where I had planned to be was under the new lake, probably several hundred feet, and there would have been no chance of survival. That was another lifetime ago.
Isn't this fun,
Harvey
SleepyC :moon
I spent months sorting, searching and planning where to be, and when the Mt St. Helens eruption would be, in order to be in the right place at the right time to photograph it. Had all that planning and prep work come to full fruition, I would not be here today because I was headed for a site at the north end of the lake where I would have had a beautiful reflection in the lake of the hot, glowing, molten lava flowing out of the side of the mountain at 1 AM on May 20. Based on the lunar cycle, and tides of the month and year, which would have been at their highest point at that time.
Mt St H had few vents and therefore little chance to release the pressure in small doses, consequently, the massive buildup of pressure and eventually, displacement of a cubic mile of "plug" that was holding that pressure contained. That was the most exciting thing I have ever seen in my life and I spent that whole day witnessing that event from up close. I now have 2 birthdays each year, my original DOB and May 18, in thankfulness to having a very good (and I might say very busy), guardian angel.
My theory is based on the fact that Yellowstone is covered with geothermal venting opportunities and the chance to build the pressure to equal that VEI 5 event. Even if the lake bottom dropped out and all that water went down into a Magma vault, the resulting steam buildup would be so rapid that the lake bottom would not have a chance to seal off and build up the pressure required for that cataclysmic event. Obviously this is only my opinion and based only on observation. I have no real expertise in geology, just enjoy looking at it.
Jay said:
I also had a brother-in-law working for Weirhouser during that time. My in-laws lived just out of Cougar, and spent most of my non-work time up and around the mountain. 2 days after the blow we flew up around and into the crater, and I have photos of the gysers still erupting along teh route from the old Spirit Lake and down the Toutle river. That was before Jimmy Carter was there and declared it a "moon scape" officially.
The death, destruction and devastation was unbelievable. Where I had planned to be was under the new lake, probably several hundred feet, and there would have been no chance of survival. That was another lifetime ago.
Isn't this fun,
Harvey
SleepyC :moon
Yellowstone
New member
Folks - How about a non-scientific, non-geologic explanation for the tremors. It so damn cold at Lake Yellowstone right now, the lake is just shivering. I would be curious to find out how thick the ice is going to get this winter. Any bets on when the ice is going to melt this coming summer? We could set up a pool. John
T.R. Bauer
New member
rogerbum":2wbjv9js said:
Well said
Harvey, yes I agree it is hypothetical speculation for us and definitely a fun discussion to be involved in.
In order to better understand what is happening in Yellowstone I discussed today this subject with my youngest son who is a geologist and now employed by Chevron Mining Corp as the Kemmerer Coal Mine, resident Geologist-mining engineer located in Wyoming where I am employed as a truck driver. I hesitate to relate his explanations of this subject to me due to my likely misstating or understanding his explanations, so any errors here on the facts I will readily except as due to my interpretation. So anyway my upstanding of what He told me and from an article that I read from a meeting of the American Geophysical Union is none of the hydrothermal explosive events have been associated with magmatic or volcanic events. In other words the superheated water and gas explosions are located very near the surface and a long long way from the magma bubble of the caldera which although much closer to the earth's surface then the average continental crust of 25 miles its still way to far for water to reach at about 4.5 miles and though it may be possible for water depth over a thermal vent to help seal and add to the restriction pressure needed for a hydrothermal explosive event the 300 feet of Yellowstone Lake is nothing compared to the 4.5 miles of rock it rest on. The downward pressure of the rock is so great if a crack in it opens the magma explosion released is so high that the content of water in the lake is insignificant. In the case of Mt St Helens the magma reached up into the cone of the mountain and the plug was near the top. This does not relate to the Yellowstone caldera where the magma is a bubble approximately 30 miles across and under the extreme pressure of 4.5 miles of rock holding it down. This all makes it highly unlikely to have a water related explosion reach a VEI 5 or Mt St Helens Magnitude.
What a coincidence on our brother-in-laws. Mine who's name is Louie Wheatley also grew up and then continued to live just out of Cougar, Washington during the St Helens eruption period. Wouldn't doubt at all with the small size of the town and closeness of old time logging community that the families know each other. You are fortunate to still be here with the plans you were making during that period. Enjoyed your relating your involvement in that very rare event.
John its actually been a warmer then average year for us here so far, so I'll pick something near to what I've seen in the past. Hopefully as Roger stated it will get "warm" and the ice will be gone by my birthday May 31.
Jay
In order to better understand what is happening in Yellowstone I discussed today this subject with my youngest son who is a geologist and now employed by Chevron Mining Corp as the Kemmerer Coal Mine, resident Geologist-mining engineer located in Wyoming where I am employed as a truck driver. I hesitate to relate his explanations of this subject to me due to my likely misstating or understanding his explanations, so any errors here on the facts I will readily except as due to my interpretation. So anyway my upstanding of what He told me and from an article that I read from a meeting of the American Geophysical Union is none of the hydrothermal explosive events have been associated with magmatic or volcanic events. In other words the superheated water and gas explosions are located very near the surface and a long long way from the magma bubble of the caldera which although much closer to the earth's surface then the average continental crust of 25 miles its still way to far for water to reach at about 4.5 miles and though it may be possible for water depth over a thermal vent to help seal and add to the restriction pressure needed for a hydrothermal explosive event the 300 feet of Yellowstone Lake is nothing compared to the 4.5 miles of rock it rest on. The downward pressure of the rock is so great if a crack in it opens the magma explosion released is so high that the content of water in the lake is insignificant. In the case of Mt St Helens the magma reached up into the cone of the mountain and the plug was near the top. This does not relate to the Yellowstone caldera where the magma is a bubble approximately 30 miles across and under the extreme pressure of 4.5 miles of rock holding it down. This all makes it highly unlikely to have a water related explosion reach a VEI 5 or Mt St Helens Magnitude.
What a coincidence on our brother-in-laws. Mine who's name is Louie Wheatley also grew up and then continued to live just out of Cougar, Washington during the St Helens eruption period. Wouldn't doubt at all with the small size of the town and closeness of old time logging community that the families know each other. You are fortunate to still be here with the plans you were making during that period. Enjoyed your relating your involvement in that very rare event.
John its actually been a warmer then average year for us here so far, so I'll pick something near to what I've seen in the past. Hopefully as Roger stated it will get "warm" and the ice will be gone by my birthday May 31.
Jay
Yellowstone":4htuljnd said:
My guess - Ice out: May 29, 2009. 2008 was one of the coldest/snowiest winters there in a decade, and the ice went out on June 2nd. It is an amazing thing to see when the ice goes out there... the whole lake opens up in just a couple days. Standing on Fishing Bridge to watch the ice flow under was an experience - it sounded like a child screaming; you could feel the bridge vibrating.
A spectacular place, year 'round.
Best wishes,
Jim B.
Jay, I do like your explanation, and it does make good sense. Like I said, I have no geological expertise, but I love the PNW and it's mountains and mostly photographing in the area.
My brother-in-law's name is Ned Fristad, (or Frosty), at that time he was a shovel operator for Wheirhouser, and prior to that he and a partner had a gippo logging out fit there. He lived down the road towards Woodland and teh folks lived about 4-5 miles west of Cougar. Ned knew all the back roads and we had passes to get into the red zone at will.
I have been to Yellowstone a few times, and canoed on the lake but have not spent nearly enough time in the area. Worked for 12 years in Logan UT and made a few trips up that way but never in the winter. It's another of the places to go after retirement, so we don't have to rush back to work after the weekend.
Have a great day,
Harvey
SleepyC :moon
My brother-in-law's name is Ned Fristad, (or Frosty), at that time he was a shovel operator for Wheirhouser, and prior to that he and a partner had a gippo logging out fit there. He lived down the road towards Woodland and teh folks lived about 4-5 miles west of Cougar. Ned knew all the back roads and we had passes to get into the red zone at will.
I have been to Yellowstone a few times, and canoed on the lake but have not spent nearly enough time in the area. Worked for 12 years in Logan UT and made a few trips up that way but never in the winter. It's another of the places to go after retirement, so we don't have to rush back to work after the weekend.
Have a great day,
Harvey
SleepyC :moon
El and Bill
New member
Harvey -
The Mount Mazama eruption that created Crater Lake in Oregon has a VEI of 7. It exploded 5677 BC ± 150 years. It was a biggie, but at least ten times less than the big one at Yellowstone.
Of course, if you are on the spot, like you almost were with Mt. St. Helens, an explosion could be VEI 0 and you're still just a puff of steam.
PS- I taught several courses on geologic hazards (one as a GEO100 level for introducing to non-geologists and another to grad students, with a very different level of study. By the way, the 100-level class always filled to capacity - the students called it "disaster a day" - it was fun to teach, as you know (and you would probably have been the first to sign up! :wink: )
The Mount Mazama eruption that created Crater Lake in Oregon has a VEI of 7. It exploded 5677 BC ± 150 years. It was a biggie, but at least ten times less than the big one at Yellowstone.
Of course, if you are on the spot, like you almost were with Mt. St. Helens, an explosion could be VEI 0 and you're still just a puff of steam.
PS- I taught several courses on geologic hazards (one as a GEO100 level for introducing to non-geologists and another to grad students, with a very different level of study. By the way, the 100-level class always filled to capacity - the students called it "disaster a day" - it was fun to teach, as you know (and you would probably have been the first to sign up! :wink: )
Harvey, I sure don't have any geological expertise either just trying to recite and share what I've read or been told and there's a lot of different theories on this subject as any other scientific one to try and sift through even for the geological experts. I too do love the mountains though have spent very little time in the PNW compared to the Rocky Mountains. Do know its hard to beat the view of those big volcanoes rising out of the PNW mountain chain on a clear day.
Next time I talk to my brother-in-law am going to ask him if he knows Frosty.
Where you lived in Logan UT is the closest larger town to us and where we go for specialist Dr's and bigger item shopping. One of the more beautiful scenic roads anywhere of which I think you would agree is the one from Logan over the Wasatch to Garden City on Bear Lake.
Hope you do make it out to this area again. Would like to spend some time sharing the views of Yellowstone and other mountains in this area with you and Deena.
And Jim I agree with your ice melting date or maybe even a bit earlier. only picked the May 31 due to it coinciding with my birthday. Other than last year I too can't remember a year in the last 10 years when there was still ice on the lake the 31st of May.
Jay
Next time I talk to my brother-in-law am going to ask him if he knows Frosty.
Where you lived in Logan UT is the closest larger town to us and where we go for specialist Dr's and bigger item shopping. One of the more beautiful scenic roads anywhere of which I think you would agree is the one from Logan over the Wasatch to Garden City on Bear Lake.
Hope you do make it out to this area again. Would like to spend some time sharing the views of Yellowstone and other mountains in this area with you and Deena.
And Jim I agree with your ice melting date or maybe even a bit earlier. only picked the May 31 due to it coinciding with my birthday. Other than last year I too can't remember a year in the last 10 years when there was still ice on the lake the 31st of May.
Jay
I love Geology. During grad school (Univ of Oklahoma) I elected to take the Geology Majors 110/111 course w/ lab for students declared and accepted into the school of petroleum geology. One of the absolute all time best courses I've ever taken (outside of my own career field). 135 students, 98 undergrads, a dozen non-degreed grad students, and the remainder grad students - I was 3rd in the class - completely absorbed and studied every fricking igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rock formation I could get my hands on. We had seven instructors in one semester. It was awesome - specialists in igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary, with additional instructors who spent their lives studying magnetic dating of the spreading of the seafloors and mapping those magnetic data strips to the position of Ursa Major, Vulcanists, Stratigraphers, and even a professor who studed lunar/stellar rock formations - it was the BOMB. Unfortunately, they had to do away with this "type" of instruction since the undergrads weren't grasping the material very well. Speaking with the College Dean and others (I was a full-time employee of the University during graduate school on a full research partnership) it turns out the curriculum teaching forum was difficult for the undergrads to grasp - seven instructors teaching their own speciality was overbearing for the students since they apparently had difficulties swithcing between one instructor then another, then another, etc. I personally thought it was one of THE BEST opportunities I had to take a course outside of my own career field, but I could certainly understand the study habits of undergrads since I've done my own share of college instruction - and, it can be tough on young minds when study habits have not fully developed. ROCK ON!!!
T.R. Bauer
New member
El and Bill":1jb73drl said:
Bill,
Does it make me sick if I have read the entire Fire and Ice books like 6-7 times? I remember in the 1st addition it said Mt. Adams was likely to be extinct. I thought, "yeah right"..... You know, I was going to be a geologist once, but then I decided I needed to teach kids how to do math. Rocks are normally more respectful, more predictable, and best of all, you can leave them on a field trip and their parents don't care. But then again, sometimes the parents ask me to leave their kids when I take them on field trips.......
Tim
Camamity":22vwt8c9 said:
It's the way we normally go in the summer to Ogden, UT or sometimes to Salt Lake City and it is a spectacular drive. In early Dec of the winter of l983 was coming back from Ely, Nevada where I was working doing oil exploration for Shell Oil and took that road as a short cut over the Wasatch Mt after giving a ride to a fellow worker to Ogden, UT on way home to Afton area in Wyoming during a blizzard. Right at the top of Monte Cristo I was completely blinded by the snow and blowing snow and ran off the road into a snow drift around midnight and it would have been long odds on me being here today if the last rig over the road that year, a jeep hadn't come by and pulled me out. . No creme de la creme on the road that night just a long most fortunate to get home drive and ordeal.
El and Bill
New member
For those coming down to Lake Mohave, or others interested in the geology of the Great Basin, you might check your library for a copy of a book I wrote years ago for the geologically interested layman, The Geology of the Great Basin. It is still a 'best seller' for the Univ. of Nevada Press, who published it - and it's twenty years old! (so some of the information has been modified by more recent research).
El and Bill
New member
eNORMous -
Loved your description of your geology course at Univ. Okla. Too bad they couldn't continue teaching it. I had a real struggle with my geology department who wanted to teach introductory geology in the conventional Geol 101/Geol102 approach. I thought it was time to change the traditional way. The department wouldn't approve a change, so I asked the Dean, and he gave permission as 'an experiment.' So for some years I taught a sequence of Geol 100 courses, for non-majors: Geol of the National Parks, Environmental Geology, Geologic Catastrophes, Geol of the Las Vegas Area, Planetary Geology, Plate Tectonics ... We had more geology majors begin from those classes (by far) than the conventional Geo 101-102, so the department finally (reluctantly) went along with them as a part of the curriculum (as you know departmental budgets are allocated by the numbers of students in the department - those 100 level courses filled every semester to the capacity of our large lecture hall, and Geol 101 had 20-30 max. (and the number of Geo majors almost doubled from the influx coming from the 100 courses) so $ convinced the department.
Another class you would have enjoyed. I also taught 101F - a geology 101 course taught exclusively in the field - 8 hours a week of 'knocking rocks" outside (the only 'lecture' inside was the first day of class when we told the students how the class was structured). Also, I didn't teach it conventionally - only asked questions, answered none. Totally 'Socratic.' Led students to outcrops progressively more complex, and they solved the geology (reading on their own, arguing amongst each other, and finally convincing themselves with data they derived). One outcrop, later in the class, was complex - a bright student decided to ask the local director of the USGeological Survey to explain it. The USGS guy said, "oh, it's all in such and so book." The student replied, "That won't do - we must find the evidence ourselves in the field. Where do we find it?" The USGS dude said, "Darned if I know." He called me and asked if he could join our class in the field the next day. I said, "Sure, but you answer no questions. Discuss, argue, find evidence, but no 'authorative answers' - he came and said "I've never enjoyed geology as much as with those 101F students." By the way, the bright kid, is now the Director of a USGS regional office. And the department no longer teaches either 100 or 101F ... in my opinion, some of the biggest fossils are in academia.
Loved your description of your geology course at Univ. Okla. Too bad they couldn't continue teaching it. I had a real struggle with my geology department who wanted to teach introductory geology in the conventional Geol 101/Geol102 approach. I thought it was time to change the traditional way. The department wouldn't approve a change, so I asked the Dean, and he gave permission as 'an experiment.' So for some years I taught a sequence of Geol 100 courses, for non-majors: Geol of the National Parks, Environmental Geology, Geologic Catastrophes, Geol of the Las Vegas Area, Planetary Geology, Plate Tectonics ... We had more geology majors begin from those classes (by far) than the conventional Geo 101-102, so the department finally (reluctantly) went along with them as a part of the curriculum (as you know departmental budgets are allocated by the numbers of students in the department - those 100 level courses filled every semester to the capacity of our large lecture hall, and Geol 101 had 20-30 max. (and the number of Geo majors almost doubled from the influx coming from the 100 courses) so $ convinced the department.
Another class you would have enjoyed. I also taught 101F - a geology 101 course taught exclusively in the field - 8 hours a week of 'knocking rocks" outside (the only 'lecture' inside was the first day of class when we told the students how the class was structured). Also, I didn't teach it conventionally - only asked questions, answered none. Totally 'Socratic.' Led students to outcrops progressively more complex, and they solved the geology (reading on their own, arguing amongst each other, and finally convincing themselves with data they derived). One outcrop, later in the class, was complex - a bright student decided to ask the local director of the USGeological Survey to explain it. The USGS guy said, "oh, it's all in such and so book." The student replied, "That won't do - we must find the evidence ourselves in the field. Where do we find it?" The USGS dude said, "Darned if I know." He called me and asked if he could join our class in the field the next day. I said, "Sure, but you answer no questions. Discuss, argue, find evidence, but no 'authorative answers' - he came and said "I've never enjoyed geology as much as with those 101F students." By the way, the bright kid, is now the Director of a USGS regional office. And the department no longer teaches either 100 or 101F ... in my opinion, some of the biggest fossils are in academia.
:wink: