Hi NonniG,

Thanks so much for sharing! As some of the other Forumites know, I'm a high school science teacher and a volcano nut! We're talking about volcanoes right now in our curriculum, and I'm going to share these images with my classes tomorrow. Talk about a teachable moment!

BoK

Hi Mrs. K...don't think I told your honey that I taught the earthquakes and volcanoes unit to my earth science class in high school. Only one of the myriad topics we kicked around on that rainy Sunday in midtown. Along with with my son's magnficient views of Mount Rainier from his home on Bainbridge Island, WA and that of Mount Baker, from his home in the Lakemont area of Belleview, WA, is the ever present knowledge that he's living along the Cascadia Subduction zone. I wonder how David deals with that thought. As for Nonni...well...he's where I wouldn't mind being right now. The odds of the mid-Atlantic ridge spltting apart seem to have gone away with Saturday. If David hasn't been down to Longview yet, he's long overdue. My last visit was on August 24th 2003. August 24th is a big day in volcano history, but we'll leave that one for the others to figure out. Hope all is well with you at this writing. Are they naming kids 'Vulcan' these days? I just recently reviewed the video I shot on the Big Island about 8 years ago, particularly from the Halemaumau overlook which the new vent has obliterated. There's a walk across the southeat caldera floor to that point which is now unaccessible because of the new vent. I consider myself lucky that, after a 50 year wait, I was able to do what I did.
Who knows, perhaps, in your time, Pele will return to Halemaumau, and you'll have your shot.

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"Another day in paradise!"

Not trying to but in, please excuse, I live in sight of all the larger Cascade volcano's and can tell you first hand that everyone is a little nervous all the time, and probably wont admit it. In the last coupel of months we have noticed an increase in small earth quakes and that usually sparks coments on the local news and that starts us thinking about it. it's not an easy fealing. Sory for the intoruption.
----Danny,

Hi Doc,

I didn't know that you taught the earthquake & volcano unit in HS. But he did tell me that your son was near Rainier. It was a beautiful place! But like Danny said, I'd be afraid to live there, for fear of eruptions. As you know, volcanoes are deadly and unpredictable to a degree.

I haven't heard of any kids being named Vulcan recently, but Vulcana would be a better fit Iceland is on my list of places to go. I tell my students that I can't wait to be straddling the boundary between two plates. I explain that I'd be jumping from one side of the boundary to the other like a jackrabbit. The looks I get are priceless! Everything is going well, school's almost out for the year and a relaxing summer is ahead of me.

By the way, thanks for the tip on the Pompeii exhibit. We had a blast (haha) and saw some really awesome artifacts. The fountain and frescoes were particularly beautiful. The only issue was that there was a Harry Potter exhibit in the same place, and since it was over spring break, the place was crawling with little kids and their parents. It made for some chaotic moments until we told the staff we were there for Pompeii. Then it was smooth sailing, virtually no lines or waiting.

There's part of me that would love to have a PhD in volcanology, but I'm definitely on the wrong coast. Who knows where life will take me in the future!

I've been to Rainier and I'm familiar with the towns scattered through the valleys downslope from the volcano, I know about the lahar drills the town of Orting, among others, run with regularity, and have read the history of the great one, 5000 years ago, which ran clear out to Puyallup. Where are you, Danny, in regard to that?
In the pursuit of higher education, I think Bromo-Tengger on Java would be a great place to spend some time, or perhaps Hawaii. The trick is to find the right material for a study. Siggurdson killed the big one with Vesuvius and he's working back and forth between the excavations on Tambora and the ocean floor at Santorini. Got to be something more exotic than something like "Gas Chromatographic Analysis of Pleistocene Pumice Ejecta at Novogorodinski Volcano."

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"Another day in paradise!"

Glad to help Mrs. K. Here is another trivia for your students. Ash... tastes like sand I got to try that tonight while cycling home from work, btw I live in the Hafnarfjörður near Reykjavík on the south west coast.

Hey Doc, who is that Siggurdson you are talking about? Is there a change that he is of a scandinavian decent? His name reads alot like Icelandic Sigurðsson.

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Deyr fé
Deyja frændr
Deyr sjálfr ið sama
En orðstír
Deyr aldregi
Hveim er sér góðan getr

You've got the spelling on that one correct. My error. He is Icelandic. Google Haraldur Sigurdsson for his bio. He has quite a track record.
On the matter of 'volcanic ash'. It tastes like sand because is is basically 'silica', and not the combustion product of organic matter such as wood, coal, or paper. It bolluxes up the innards of jet engines because it fuses into glass at the temperatures found therein.

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"Another day in paradise!"

One of the things my students have a hard time understanding is that ash is very harsh and scratchy. They think that it's soft like ashes from their fireplaces or wood stoves. I have some ash a friend collected from a 1992 eruption in Alaska that I make them feel. They're very surprised at the difference.

A guy that I work with has a summer house that got a lot of ash fall last year, he brought some to work and showed me, what surprised me was that it was magnetic. But it only stays magnetic while it is "fresh".

But Hollywood shows volcano ash as fluffy as a snow, just look at "Volcano" with Tommy Lee Jones and "Dante's Peak" with Pierce Bronsnan.

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Deyr fé
Deyja frændr
Deyr sjálfr ið sama
En orðstír
Deyr aldregi
Hveim er sér góðan getr

I brought some back from St. Helen's, but nothing from Hawaii. A neighbor of mine poo-poo-ed that ancient Hawaiian curse and brought back some basalt. Soon thereafter, things in her life started going awry, and she wasted no time sending it back. When I was in Kona, on the Big Island, we stayed at the Four Seasons, That entire area sits on an old lava field out of Hualalai. It sports a magnificently designed 18 hole golf course sculpted out of that field. They were obliged to move the stuff around in working the design and building it, because carting the lava away was forbidden. Before leaving Halemaumau I walked out to the crater rim overlook and thanked Pele for being so gracious as to permit me to realize my quest of many years. I may be old, but no fool.

Here's an idea for an science demonstration. I've never done it but trying heating some ash with a butane torch and see if you can get it to liquefy into volcanic glass. You're going to need laboratory wear, particulary a container which sustains high heat. We used to use [heaven forbid...asbestos pads.]...for such things. I expect there are substitutes. Also, Corning Glass used to make these small ceramic cups we used to fire materials in. See what you can dream up. Not as exciting as the old ammonium nitrate demos, but far more instructive.

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"Another day in paradise!"

The magnetism is likely due to the iron....the reason for Hawaii's famous 'red dirt', The basalt weathers down to soils rich in iron oxide. In the matter of Hollywood ash, the same holds true for '2012'. However,there's plenty of video around showing the ash falls in Washington State during the St.Helen's eruption, and in the villages of the Phillipines following Pinotubo, which are more representative of the real thing, not to mention the lahars.

_________________
"Another day in paradise!"

Here is another photo taken by a Policeman which shows the first 18 minutes of the eruption.

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Deyr fé
Deyja frændr
Deyr sjálfr ið sama
En orðstír
Deyr aldregi
Hveim er sér góðan getr

I'd like to buy a vowel, Pat.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

That makes me CRAZY! I talk about that ALL the time! All of my students refer to these movies in particular, although the movies are getting a little older. These days they talk about 2012, which I won't even waste my time seeing. I show a good documentary by Nova called Volcano Under the City (actually watching that today & Wednesday) which talks about Mt. Nyriagongo in the Congo. I also rely on a lot of the materials I got from the USGS during my two visits to the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Washington. They help to make the risks and hazards more realistic and less Hollywood.

OK, I'm off my soapbox now Thanks for starting a cool thread NonniG!

BoK

There's one scary mountain. I call it 'the African Merapi', though the lava's different. A stratovolcano version of Kilauea. Vancouver WA is on my bucket list. You just keep them cards and letters coming. We need to keep broadening the world view of these people.

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"Another day in paradise!"