DNR weekend reading: Research findings about earthquakes, volcanoes, and forests

Twenty-five years after the 1980 eruption, the Pumice Plain north of the Mount St. Helens crater is covered in wildflowers. Photo: P. Frenzen/USDA Forest Service (2004).

Here are links to articles about natural resources, climate, energy and other topics published recently by universities, scientific journals, organizations, and other sources:

University of Pennsylvania: Penn Research Helps Paint Finer Picture of Massive 1700 Earthquake
Researchers from the United States and Canada used a fossil-based technique of investigation to provide a finer-grained portrait of a massive earthquake and tsunami that hit the Pacific Northwest coast of the United States in the year 1700. Understanding the changes in coastal land level produced by the estimated 9 magnitude earthquake will help citizens and government to better prepare for future large earthquakes.

Mother Nature Network: Which U.S. volcanoes are likely to erupt next?
There are three main sections of the U.S. that tend to experience volcanic activity, and scientists believe many of the volcanoes there may be about due for a major eruption. Seven U.S. volcanoes (including four in Washington State) pose some of the highest risks.

University of Alberta: Helping forests gain ground on climate change
Timber industry and government foresters are using tree-planting guidelines developed by University of Alberta researchers to get a jump on climate change. Researchers also have developed maps of likely climatically suitable habitats for tree species based on climate predictions for the 2020s through 2080s.

Deep Carbon Observatory: Presence of Life in Oceanic Crust Confirmed
Researchers have discovered evidence of life 500 meters below the seafloor of the Juan de Fuca Ridge. “They found genetic evidence of Methanosarcinales, anaerobic archaea known to metabolize methane. Further experiments showed that microbes have affected the chemical signature of sulfur in the host basalt, suggesting they could harness energy from the breakdown of sulfates.

Mount St. Helens: The big blast was 33 years ago today

On the morning May 18, 1980, Keith Stoffel, then a DNR employee, took this photo while on a sightseeing flight over Mount St. Helens. It is the only known image of the initial eruption. Photo: Keith Stoffel (c) 2010.

The explosion of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, produced a powerful blast that destroyed 230 square miles of national, state and private forest, and took 57 lives. Some of those who died from powerful shock waves and clouds of hot ash and superheated gases were several miles away. Others drowned when  lahars — mud flows – spilled down local valleys and river beds.

Today, a 110,000-acre area around the mountain is a National Volcanic Monument. The mountain has been a lot quieter since the events of May 18, 1980; several steam eruptions occurred in 2004, but caused no injuries or deaths.

DNR’s Geology and Earth Resources Division works with the U.S. Geological Survey and other agencies to monitor Mount St. Helens and the other active volcanoes in Washington State.

Read more about Keith Stoffel’s narrow escape from the mountain’s blast after snapping today’s photo, and learn more about the eruption on our Mount St. Helens information page.

More photos of Mount St. Helens are on the DNR Flickr page.

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Mount Rainier: Regional landmark is also nation’s most potentially dangerous volcano

The community of Orting, Washington, is built on top of 500-year-old lahar debris from Mount Rainier (rear). Photo: USGS.

May is Volcano Awareness Month in Washington State. On the eve of tomorrow’s anniversary of the May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens, DNR Ear to the Ground has featured one of the state’s five active volcanoes each day this week. Today, the spotlight is on Mount Rainier.

Because of its elevation (14,410 feet), massive icecap, glacier-fed valleys, and proximity to Seattle and Tacoma suburbs, Mount Rainier is the most potentially dangerous volcano in the nation — it’s also ranked among the top ten most-most dangerous in the world. According to the US Geological Survey’s Volcano Hazards Program, there hasn’t been a major eruption on Mount Rainier in 1,000 years, but an explosive eruption (a la Mount St. Helens) isn’t the primary concern. Mount Ranier can generate huge lahars — rapidly flowing slurries of mud and boulders — even without an eruption. Avalanches caused by heated rock or volcanic gases can swiftly melt snow and ice and produce torrents of meltwater that pick up loose rock and become a lahar.

In its role as the state’s geological survey, DNR mapped the routes of past Mount Rainier lahars. The most destructive — and most likely — lahar routes are on the mountain’s north and west sides. A lahar here could feed into the Puyallup River valley where cities, towns and housing developments have been built on top of lahar deposits from as recently as 500 years ago.

DNR estimates that a moderately large lahar in the Puyallup River valley would cause $6 billion or more in damages to structures and other property. Large lahars of the past have reached Puget Sound via the Nisqually River Basin, Commencement Bay and Elliott Bay, including the ports of Seattle and Tacoma.

Have you given much thought to the potential of a large lahar from Mount Rainier? Has it influenced your decisions on where to live or work? Join the discussion on DNR’s Facebook page.

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Mount Baker: Tons of snow and ice atop a sleeping volcano

As the second-most glaciated mountain in the Cascades, an volcanic eruption on Mount Baker could produce deadly lahars in several populated river drainages. Photo: USGS.

Volcano Awareness Month and our countdown to the 33rd anniversary of the Mount St. Helens, May 18, 1980, eruption continue with a look at Mount Baker. The main hazards posed by this active volcano in central Whatcom County are debris flows and debris avalanches from its considerable glaciers and snowpack–events that can occur even without a volcanic eruption.

Mount Baker has been mostly quiet since the mid-19th century when several explosions were seen from Bellingham – a mere 30 miles due west. It perked up in 1975 with several large emissions of volcanic gases. As the second-most glaciated mountain in the lower 48 states, Mount Baker presents similar mudslide dangers as Mount Rainier (the mountain with the largest glacier cover in the lower-48 states).

It’s quiet… for now.  

Mount Adams: Majestic giant has been quiet lately but still poses a threat

Mount Adams as seen from Mount St. Helens in this aerial photo. Photo: USGS.

May is Volcano Awareness Month in Washington State. As we approach the 33rd anniversary of the May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens, DNR Ear to the Ground is featuring one of the state’s five active volcanoes each day this week. Today the spotlight is on Mount Adams.

One of the largest volcanoes in the Cascade Range, Mount Adams has been less active during the past few thousand years than its neighbors (Mounts St. Helens, Rainier, and Hood). The most common type of eruptions over the long history of Mount Adams have been lava flows–streams of molten rock–which created a volcanic field that now covers about 500 square miles of the landscape in Skamania, Yakima, Klickitat, and Lewis counties and the Yakima Indian Reservation. Even if there is no eruption, landslides of weakened rock originating on the steep upper flanks of Mount Adams can spawn dangerous lahars, which are watery flows of volcanic rocks and mud that surge downstream like rapidly flowing concrete.

Here is the current alert status for Cascade Range volcanoes from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Cascades Volcano Observatory.

DNR and its Division of Geology and Earth Resources help map, monitor and educate the public, governments and others about geologic hazards, including volcanoes, such as Mount Adams.

Have you been to Mount Adams lately? Join in the discussion on DNR’s Facebook page.

May is Volcano Awareness Month

Mount St Helens, May 18, 1980. Photo: DNR.

May is Volcano Awareness Month in Washington State. This Saturday, May 18, will mark 33 years since the deadly explosion of Mount St. Helens. The eruption produced a blast that, traveling at the speed of sound, mowed down thousands of acres of forest and showered hot ash and gases across the landscape. Fifty-seven people died, including two people who were watching the eruption some 25 miles away from the mountain.

Helping us to prepare for the next time one of the state’s five active volcanoes threatens to erupt is the Washington Emergency Management Division with some helpful reminders.

Visit the website of the U.S. Geological Survey to view an informative, illustrated paper about Mount St. Helens and what the mountain has been up to since 1980. Throughout the week, we will look at what’s known about Mount St. Helens and the four other active volcanoes in our state: Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Rainier and Mount Adams. And we should not forget Mount Hood, just over the border in Oregon, which is considered the most potentially hazardous of the five active or potentially active volcanoes in Oregon.

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DNR weekend reading: Mixed forests grow better, electronic whale tracking and other stories

Two volcanoes — Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens (right) tower over the Chehalis River Basin in western Washington on a foggy day. Photo: Venice Goetz/DNR.

Here are links to reading selections about climate, wildlife, the environment and other science news published recently by science journals, universities, websites, and other sources:

AlphaGalileo Foundation: Mixed forests – a missed opportunity?
Forestry and nature conservation can benefit from promoting a diversity of tree species, new study finds. A new study from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Future Forests shows that mixed forests, in comparison with monocultures, have positive effects on the production of timber, food for wildlife carbon storage and other many ‘ecosystem services.’

Science Daily: Whales’ Foraging Strategies Revealed by New Technology
Jeremy A. Goldbogen of the Cascadia Research Collective in Olympia, Washington, and his colleagues are using multisensor tags attached to whales with suction cups to report depth, acceleration, pitch, timing and other information about the animals as they make foraging dives. The information tells scientists more about oceanic food webs and ecology.

youis.com: Under the weather, literally
Storms and persistent rainfall can cause sewage overflows that release water with bacteria and viruses into waterways which, in turn, raises the potential of stomach upsets among those come in contact with the water either directly in indirectly. In the short-term at least, climate change-related increases in precipitation and storms may have a more direct impact on human health than climate change-related increases in average temperature.

Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen: Clamorous city blackbirds
Many urban birds sing at a higher pitch than their country cousins to differentiate their song from the low-frequency sound of road traffic. As it turns out birds can sing louder at higher frequencies to make themselves heard in traffic noise.

University of Pennsylvania: Mountains Are Only Minor Contributors to Sediment Erosion and Climate Regulation
New research published in the journal Geology directly challenges previous studies which suggested that small mountain rivers contributed most of the sediment to the world’s oceans.

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DNR weekend reading: Tuning out tech and taking a (long) hike improves creativity

Find the porcupine in this photo taken recently on forested state trust land in Washington state. (Photo: Rick Foster/DNR)

Here are links to reading selections about climate, wildlife, the environment and other science news published recently by science journals, universities, websites, and other sources.

PLOS One: Creativity in the Wild: Improving Creative Reasoning through Immersion in Natural Settings
Time spent in natural settings and away from electronic media can substantially improve creativity. Researchers found that four days of immersion in nature, and a corresponding disconnection from multi-media and technology, increased performance on a creativity, problem-solving task by a full 50 percent.

Scientific American: Which U.S. City Is the Greenest ?–It Depends on Whom You Ask
Every year dozens of publications and websites release their assessments of which cities have the most environmentally conscious citizenry, the highest percentage of recycling or the lowest carbon footprint per capita. Some of the leading choices may be a surprise.

Science Daily: Even in Same Vineyard, Different Microbes May Create Variations in Wine Grapes
Differences in the microbes present on grapes — even in different parts of the same vineyard — may contribute to flavor fluctuations in samples of grapes from different tanks from the same harvest.

Close up of a porcupine peaking out from under a log. Photo: Rick Foster/DNR

Scientific American: Robot Glider Detects Rogue Waves and Other Ocean Anomalies Missed by Satellites
The wave-powered unmanned sub Papa Mau not only set a record while crossing the Pacific Ocean autonomously, it also studied rogue waves, micro currents, and other marine phenomena invisible to eyes in the sky.

Geomar: When the ice melts, the Earth spews fire
It has long been known that volcanic activity can cause short-term variations in climate. Now, researchers at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (Germany), together with colleagues from Harvard University have found evidence that the reverse process also occurs: Climate affects volcanic activity.

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DNR briefs Pierce County, Orting officials on Mount Rainier lahar hazards study

LEFT to RIGHT: Jody Woodcock, Pierce County Emergency Management Deputy Director; Hunter George, Pierce County Director of Communications; Kevin Phelps, Pierce County Deputy Executive; Pat McCarthy, Pierce County Executive; Keri Rooney, Director of External Affairs-Pierce County Executive’s Office; Mark Bethune, Orting City Administrator; Tim Walsh, DNR Chief Hazards Geologist; and Recip (Ray) Cakir, DNR Hazards Seismologist. Photo: Bob Redling/DNR.

Officials from Pierce County, including County Executive Pat McCarthy, were briefed Tuesday afternoon (July 31) on DNR’s latest estimates of the economic impact of a major lahar (volcanic mudflow) from Mount Rainier. DNR’s Chief Hazards Geologist Tim Walsh explained how the department used mapping and loss-estimation software to compute a potential of $6 billion in structural damages to Puyallup Valley communities from a large lahar.

Also attending the Tuesday afternoon briefing were Orting City Administrator Mark Bethune and Pierce County Deputy Executive Kevin Phelps.

Among the eight major drainages from the volcano, geologists consider the northwest side a likely origination point due to the many weakened rocks there — lahars can be caused by landslides and earthquakes as well as by volcanic eruption. The Puyallup River Valley also is the most populated of the several potential routes for a  major lahar from Mount Rainier.

Because lahar-related flooding has the potential to reach as far as Commencement Bay and Elliott Bay, including the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, community officials are paying close attention to hazard estimiates and plans to mitigate the potential losses to lives and property.

View online maps of likely lahar flows from Mount Rainier, including the locations of properties by street address, on the DNR Geology Portal’s Mount Rainier Lahar (Volcanic Mudflow) Hazards – Property at Risk map. Or download the full report: Loss Estimation Pilot Project for Lahar Hazards from Mount Rainier, Washington, which was funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

DNR offers technical assistance, mapping, education and other assistance to citizens and government officials and planners on a range of subjects, including geologic hazards.

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New study sends (DNR and UW Washington) scientists 60 miles deep into Mount St. Helens

A national monument for scientific research of Mount St. Helens was created following its massive 1980 erruption. Photo: DNR

A new study funded by a $3 million National Science Foundation grant will take DNR, Rice University, Columbia University, the USGS, Oregon State University, and University of Washington scientists 60 miles down inside Mount St. Helens to examine what happens between the mantle and the volcano itself.

One of the principle investigators, UW Professor John Vidale, says that taking images of the reservoirs of molten rock beneath the volcano could help us to predict the risk of volcanic eruptions in Washington and around the world.

Most volcanic studies only look into the top 10 miles of a volcano’s crust; this study will be the first of its kind to dive deep into the mountain to find out what happens 60 miles below the surface.

“We’re trying to look all the way down to the mantle, to see the deep structures and see what magma bodies we can find and how it rises to the surface,” Vidale said. “It’s an ambitious study.”

The four-year study will likely begin operations next summer. It will cover about 60 square miles around Mount St. Helens and will involve setting up about 2,500 small seismographs and setting off 10 – 20 underground explosions in 80-foot-deep wells in the next two years.

“They won’t disturb the ground much, but they will produce a signal you can see out 100 miles,” Vidale said. “With all those instruments we should have a very detailed picture.”

Volcano’s ‘plumbing and electrical’ systems under scrutiny