Volcano research heats up
Chris Coplan - April 3rd, 2008Several NAU professors have received national recognition for their work on the sleeping giants known as volcanoes.
A team of environmental science and geology professors, led by associate professor of environmental science Michael Ort, researched scoria-cone volcanoes, relatively-small volcanoes that release less debris. Last week, the team’s work was featured on the Discovery Channel’s Web site, highlighting the geological liveliness of northern Arizona.
“These volcanoes are on the smaller end of the spectrum,” said Wendell Duffield, an adjunct professor in geology and part of Ort’s research team. “Northern Arizona is definitely not dead in terms of volcanoes.”
In terms of the number of volcanoes in this region, Duffield said there were several spread across about a 50-mile length, from the west near Williams, moving east through the San Francisco Mountains and ending east of Sunset Crater. The most recent volcanic activity in the region occurred at Sunset Crater in the year 1080. The research conducted by Ort and Duffield demonstarted the relative youth and volatility of volcanoes in the area.
“Statistically, moving from west to east, volcanoes get younger,” Duffield said. “We thought Merriam Crater was 150,000 years old. Turns out it’s only 20,000.”
Duffield said the near-proximity of eruptions to our own time show us how other cultures dealt with volcanic activity. Native Americans in the area around Sunset Crater built corn into their homes that had been left near flows, potentially to help protect from further eruptions.
Younger volcanoes are a threat as they are more prone to eruption, but Duffield said any eruptions, which may not happen with our lifetime, would probably be safe enough to be something to be enjoyed by spectators.
But the supervolcanoes researched by Mary Reid, professor and chair of the NAU geology department, can have more disastrous impacts. In her research, highlighted in the February edition of Elements Magazine, she found northern Arizona is surrounded by three supervolcanoes, one in Yellowstone National Park, one near Albuquerque, N.M. and the last in Long Valley, Calif. These volcanoes have the power to shift Earth’s temperatures.
“Eruptions from these would have sent a cloud of ash into the air,” Reid said. “That would have been carried by the wind and could create years of winter conditions for the planet.”
Duffield said in a time of fears stemming from the threat of global warming, volcanic activity can counteract the conditions.
“Supervolcano eruptions would have cooled the world a fraction of a degree for a decade,” Duffield said.
Reid said these supervolcanoes can also explain many natural events that lead to cultural changes, including the 1845 Irish potato famine.
In terms of when the next supervolcano could go off, Reid said it is often nearly impossible to predict.
“It could occur anytime,” Reid said. “The data says one should occur every 600,000 years and we’re behind on that. Of course, that is always plus or minus 100,000 years. We also don’t know if the next one will be wimpy or if we’ll need to clear the western half of the U.S. for the next 100 years.”
Reid said one method she found to detect potential supervolcanoes is to look for more crystal-heavy magma, as that can be an indicator of a supervolcano ready to form and erupt.
Duffield said another indicator of particuarly powerful volcanoes is several smaller eruptions, wich indicate build-up of more magma that could lead to a supervolcano.
But if the last great supervolcano eruption is any indicator, the earth may be in trouble. Toba Caldera, a part of Indonesia, erupted 75,000 years ago and nearly destroyed