450-year-old Cinder Cone and Fantastic Lava flows are 10 miles north east of Lassen Peak. Photo by John Scurlock. The potential for future basaltic eruptions always exists in the region, now under the purview of CalVO.

US Geological Survey announces the formation of a new volcano oberservatory in the US – CalVO, the California Volcano Observatory. This observatory will be operated out of the USGS center in Menlo Park, and will have responsibility for volcanoes in California and Nevada. The former Long Valley Observatory is now subsumed into CalVO, and Cascade Volcano Observatory will no longer be responsible for the Cascade volcanoes in northern California: Mount Shasta, Lassen Peak, Medicine Lake, and the ever-potent cinder cone fields in northeastern California.

Read Erik Klemmetti’s post on CalVO on his Eruptions Blog, here. If you are a volcanophile, and are not already subscribed to Erik’s blog, consider doing so. Lots of interesting updates from around the world, something new pretty much daily. Erik is also a great supprter of MBVRC, and has gotten attention and promoted t-shirt sales and other fundraising efforts for our research group from around the world.

DT

Thursday February 1st. Artist reception at Book Fare Cafe, 5-6:30 PM

Scurlock’s photographs of the North Cascades will be hanging at Book Fare Café, on the mezzanine level of Village Books, during the month of February. The Café will be hosting an open artist reception from 5-6:30pm before John’s talk and slide presentation downstairs at Village Books.

Slide presentation in Village Books Readings Gallery 7 to 8:30. Seating is VERY LIMITED.

Sandboarding at Cerro Negro. http://www.veoelmundo.com/volcano-boarding-cerro-negro-nicaragua

Here is a strange and maybe not so safe way to come down a volcano. Click here to read a blog post by an American woman who is traveling in Nicaragua. She climbed Cerro Negro, a young cinder cone, and then slid down on it on a toboggan, with the help of an able guide.

Watch out for the rough scoria!

No sandboarding today. http://wwwobs.univ-bpclermont.fr/lmv/equip/volcEN.php

Aerial photo by John Scurlock.

John  Scurlock, author of Snow and Spire, was spotted Thursday in an interview for KING-5 TV’s Day Northwest . Here is the link to  watch the 8 minute interview. Includes photos, and some of the story behind the photography.

January 10 (Tuesday) 7:30 P.M.- British Columbia Mountaineering Club, Vancouver, B.C.:  ANZA Club, #3  West 8th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C.  Free and open to the public.

January 14 (Saturday) 4 P.M. Port Townsend, Jefferson County Land Trust Geology Group: Quimper Unitarian Universalist Foundation, 2333 San Juan Ave. $5 donation

January 24 (Tuesday ) Alpine Club of Canada, Vancouver B.C. Details TBA.

February 16 (Thursday) Whatcom Museum, Bellingham.  Free event. Details TBA.

All MBVRC supporters are cordially invited to the book release party for North Cascades pilot John Scurlock’s book of winter aerial photographs.

November 30th, 7-9 PM, Skagit Station Meeting Room, 105 E. Kincaid St, Mt Vernon

John will give a slide presentation on the making of the book. The first copies of the book will be for sale at the book signing party. Dessert and refreshments will be provided by North Cascades Institute.

The book  is filled with John’s remarkable color photos. The  book also features several illustrated essays: Lowell Skoog on the history of winter mountaineering in the North Cascades, Dave Tucker on the geologic origin of the North Cascades, and an account by Jim Nelson of the first winter ascent of Mount Slesse’s iconic NE Buttress Route. The 192 page coffee-table size book retails for $60.

John Scurlock portrait, by Dave Tucker

John is a board member of MBVRC, and frequently provides photos for volcano research as well as helping hump loads up the mountain. He is also a contributor to the upcoming USGS Professional Paper on Baker’s Holocene geologic history by Kevin Scott, Dave Tucker, and Jon Riedel. He is arranging with Mount Baker Volcano Research Center to sell his books to raise funds for volcano research. Watch for the announcement that the books are available on this website.

View an online slide show of John’s work at www.ncascades.org/multimedia.

models for hydrothermal system at Sulphur Springs, Mount Baker

MBVRC has begun sampling water from a spring at 3400′ near Schreibers Meadow. Water chemistry at the spring indicates that the water contains traces of magmatic chemical influence, meaning it has a connection at depth with magma or with fluids and gases coming off magma. We hope to eventually train ‘citizen scientists’ to assist with this work. Currently all 5 MBVRC board members are getting experienced with the methods.

Robert H. Mariner and William C. Evans of the USGS identified the Sulphur Spring site as the single best hydrothermal-monitoring site at Mount Baker because of its chloride content and magmatic-carbon signature.  Two post-2000 Sulphur Creek water samples showed 90% magmatic (dead) carbon, with carbon-isotope composition similar to Mount Baker fumaroles; chloride concentration ranges from 4.8-6.2 mg/L (~ 0.0005 – 0.0006 weight %) so it’s a tiny signal.  Still, it’s at least an order of magnitude higher than the Cl concentration in precipitation. These chemical concepts are explained a bit more at the bottom of this post*.

This active monitoring site is near the Schriebers Meadow cinder cone, the source of the ca. 8,800 ¹⁴C years BP Sulphur Creek lava flow. Monitoring is done as a volunteer effort under the auspices of hydrogeologist Steve Ingebritsen and geochemist William Evans at the USGS in Menlo Park, California. This is part of a larger project to measure and monitor hydrothermal systems throughout the Cascade Range. More information on this USGS project is available at the USGS ‘Dynamics of hydrothermal systems website. The website also has links to databases of geothermal and hydrothermal data, and a host of other volcano-related information and monitoring projects. There is also a volcano-hydrothermal monitoring methods website.

Monitoring the spring’s chemistry is a way to track changes in the magmatic and hydrothermal system beneath Mount Baker. Collecting fumarole gases at Sherman Crater is a related but much more arduous method to do the same thing. The location of the spring in Schreibers Meadow will allow MBVRC to collect data for USGS much more frequently; ideally monthly for a year or so. Access to the area in the winter will likely require coordination with volunteers with snowmobiles (the sample site is in a heavily used snowmobile recreation site).

Sue Madsen, Doug McKeever, and Pete Stelling gage the stream below Sulphur Springs.

It is not sufficient to collect water samples. The stream must also be gaged during each sampling visit in order to calculate flow volumes. Gaging involves measuring the depth and flow velocity across the entire width of the stream, in order to calculate concentrations of the various chemical species, such Cl, SO₄, and He. Alkalinity and pH of the water are also measured.

Boulder Creek, which drains Sherman crater, is another obvious monitoring target but lacks a deep thermal (i.e. chloride) signature.  Further, monitoring at Boulder Creek is hampered by its shifting alluvial stream channel and rapid current.  Part of MBVRC’s responsibilities on this project will be to search out a safe place to cross the creek in order to gage the flow.

*Basic chemistry concepts:

‘Dead carbon’ has no detectable trace of the isotope C₁₄. It takes 50,000 years for the radioactive C₁₄ isotope to decay to such a vanishingly small level. Absence of C₁₄ in ground waters indicates that the water been isolated from the atmosphere (source of C₁₄) for that period of time.

Chlorine is a very tiny proportion of atmospheric gas, though it is a significant component in the crust, where it reaches around 126 ppm (parts per million). Cl dissolves readily in magma, where it is concentrated. Chlorine concentrations at Sulphur Springs are quite elevated relative to precipitation in the area which typically contains 10 times less Cl.

Some scruffy guy and his lovely wife Kim model the 2010-2011 MBVRC shirts. Kim is wearing a woman's medium chocolate long sleeve shirt.

Last chance to purchase the few remaining original 2010-2011 MBVRC fundraiser t-shirts. These will be collector’s items! The field trips nearly cleaned us out. First come, first served. To order, email research@mbvrc.wwu.edu. Provide your color and size preference. Shirts are $15 each. It is NOT too early to be thinking about holiday gifts, or to replace the one you bought a year ago and wore out because you can’t bear to wear any other t-shirt!

The front features Mount Baker. The back has an eruptive history of the volcano.

Available shirts are:

MENS Short sleeves (6 oz. cotton):

Size medium: BLACK (1 left)

Size small:  CHESTNUT BROWN (1 left)

WOMENS short sleeves (3.2 oz cotton):

Jenny Locke Howley, of Hanover, New Hampshire, designed this shirt. Thanks again, Jenny!

Size XL: ROYAL BLUE (2 left)

WOMENS long sleeves (these are ‘junior’ sizes. Order 2 sizes up for a loose fit.

Size XL: BLACK (1 left)

Size large: CHOCOLATE (1), BLACK (1)

Size medium: CHOCOLATE (1)

Field trips are over for 2011- snow is a’ comin’! Watch for announcements for next year’s trips. Some ideas kicking around so far:

• a hike out Ptarmigan Ridge to look at Kulshan caldera deposits and early lavas of the Mount Baker volcanic field;
• Roadside geology at Heather Meadows and Artists Point (we’ll have to see what La Niña brings us!)
• an all-day hike to Hannegan Pass to see Hannegan caldera deposits. Possible overnight?
• a trip to the Pinus Lava flow, above the North Fork Nooksack (early season);
• a hike to the toe of the Easton Glacier.

Your suggestions are welcome. Other possibilities broached on the most recent field trip:

• multi-day trip to Eastern Washington geology;
• Mount Saint Helens (2 days)- lava tubes and Johnston Ridge;

What do you think? Send suggestions to MBVRC by using a comment, or email at research@mbvrc.wwu.edu. Tell us what sort of trips you’d like to do (all volcanics? other geology?).  How much would you be willing to pay for your proposed trip?

Nikki made a geochemical study of five basaltic lavas in the Mount Baker volcanic field. She determined that the erupted magmas show evidence of their origins in two source regions of the mantle, and they have been markedly influenced by fluid given off by the subducted slab that gave rise to the melt in the first place.

The MBVRC blog will keep subscribers up-dated on Mount Baker news. You will be the first to hear about upcoming field trips, public presentations, and other Mount Baker research and monitoring news. For instance, if there was a swarm of earthquakes under the volcano, you’d be notified quickly. Newly published research results are also quickly posted.

These posts are presently written by Dave Tucker, a member of the MBVRC’s Board of Directors. Please click on the tabs at the top of the webpage to learn about Baker monitoring and other topics. Also, visit the main webpage hosted by Western Washington University for more detail about Baker: photos, videos, scientific references, the text of meeting abstracts dealing with the volcano, and links to other interesting websites: www.mbvrc.wwu.edu.

Always feel free to post a comment on anything you read or to ask for clarification. Comments and questions come to MBVRC via email, where they will be either approved for posting, or answered personally if that seems more appropriate. Once one of your comments is approved, subsequent ones will automatically be posted on the website.

News: the September 24 field trip to Schreiber’s Meadow cinder cone is full. There is space for a few more on the October 1 trip. Sign up via email right away.

research@mbvrc.wwu.edu

Cut and paste the address. We do not use hyperlinked email in order to forestall spamming robots.

Welcome aboard.

Dave

September 19 2011 Herald essay. Click to enlarge

For blog readers outside the Bellingham area, the Bellingham Herald published a guest article by me (Dave Tucker) today (Monday September 19) about MBVRC and the field trip program.

The link (off-site) is: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/09/19/2188099/mount-baker-volcano-research-center.html#storylink=misearch

As a result, the September 24 field trip has only one seat left, the October 1 trip is filling gradually. The paper edition included a photo of WWU’s Kristin Hill and Mike Johnson (now her husband) during her research back in 2006. The online edition doesn’t have it.

Thanks to Herald Executive Editor Julie Shirley for inviting me to submit the essay.