Lost in the fog of a cosmic storm Floating on
whimsical wavelengths is the norm Dancing through
the stars, chasing spectrums of light I have
an absolute treat for you. Or maybe it's just
a treat for me. Well, I guarantee I am super
excited for this discussion. Why? Well, because
I'm going to have my past graduate supervisor,
mentor, and friend on for this episode. Dr. Glynn
Williams -Jones, professor at Simon Fraser University
in the Department of Earth Sciences. So that
means back towards volcanology. This one and
the next one, it's almost a two -parter. Two
episodes, two different guests, approximately
the same location, and a great way to start the
year. Usually, my guest and I's backstory is
pretty simple. I poke someone by email, they
say yes, or they redirect me to someone else
who says yes. The two exceptions, no surprise,
have been the episodes that sit squarely in my
geological wheelhouse. I think because there's
a colorful story here, I'll dig into a little
bit of the backstory before getting into the
science. So I came out of my bachelor's with
a combined major in physics and geology. Because
why choose between rocks and hard places? Also
dreams of studying volcanoes. You know, poke
and lava with a stick. I wasn't a straight -A
student. I mean, I wasn't a bad student either.
I was just, you know, somewhere in the middle.
Not exactly the kind that just grabs a committee's
attention. So I headed north. Literally. It's
a cliche that young people go backpacking and
see the world when they're young. I guess I did
the same, although I traded culture for mosquitoes,
caribou, and bears. I used my parents' address
as a fixed address while I bounced around Canada's
remote regions collecting geophysical data. When
you're in the middle of nowhere, there's no rent,
no groceries, no distractions. I saved up a pile
of money and managed to volunteer at the Hawaiian
Volcano Observatory. Between the degree and the
previous three -month co -op stint at the Hawaiian
Volcano Observatory and experience working in
hazardous environments in Canada, I managed to
get in. I even spent a night camping on the erupting
vent of Pu 'u O 'o, which for a volcanologist
is basically the equivalent of a front row seat
at the universe's... biggest concert. Along the
way, I met retiring professor Dr. Al Edgars,
who picked up the work from a former student
who had tragically passed away. I must have made
some kind of impression because he connected
me directly with my future supervisor. And that
was that. Instead of how I met your mother, how
I met my PhD supervisor? Luckily, that's not
what we tuned in to today. Today's topic, Mount
Meagher. A volcano in British Columbia, Canada,
that shares a surprising amount of overlap with
Mount Baker and even Mount St. Helens. It's a
Cascade volcano. Full stop. And no, the Cascade
arc doesn't politely end at the Canadian -U .S.
border. Subduction zones don't carry passports,
and as we've covered here on Whimsical Wavelengths
before, this is where dense oceanic crust is
sinking beneath North America, releasing volatiles
into the mantle. lowering the melting point of
the mantle above, and creating magma that eventually
pushes its way up towards the surface. If you
need a refresher, have a listen to the first
episode of the season all about Messiah Volcano
and basaltic plinian eruptions. It's a blast,
literally. So this is kind of a two -parter,
and the second will be something completely different
with a different guest. But same rough location.
Listeners, please welcome Professor at Simon
Fraser University in the Department of Earth
Sciences, my past PhD supervisor, Dr. Glynn Williams
-Jones. Hey there. Glad to join you today. It's
about time. I mean, normally on academic resumes
and application packages, it's standard, normal
to have your past PhD supervisor as a reference.
Why is that, and what does that say about Whimsical
Wavelengths not having you on until now? Well,
I guess some people like to say it's all about
the academic pedigree, but really it's more about
what you get on and go and do with things. So,
you know, you are missing out that the first
episode of Whimsical Wavelengths was in my basement.
So I was in there serendipitously. I think technically
it was like the third or fourth, but whatever.
But yeah, no, I think for most of us, the key
thing is as a supervisor is like being a proud
parent. You know, what does your former students
go on and move on to and do bigger and better
things? I was more thinking more of like a sausage
making of science thing because. If you don't
have your PhD supervisor on your application
to say to become a professor for a job, like
that's usually a red flag, isn't it? I mean,
it would raise a flag potentially. People would
ask why. And then you'd have to have some difficult
conversation as to why. But, you know, my dad
said a PhD, it's just a driver's license. Uh,
it's, it's a degree to go on and do your thing,
do what you need to do. Okay. This is totally
piled higher than deeper. Now this is kind of
like, we're really getting in deep. Um, so your
dad is actually a professor at McGill university
emeritus now, right? He's still fully active,
fully active and producing more papers now than,
than he ever has. It's insane. But that's not
why we got you on here. But that's what happens
when you start chatting, especially to an old
friend who we still drink beer on regular occasions
and lament about how we're going to take over
the world with science. I'm not sure who's pinky
and who's the brain. Global domination, that's
where we're at. So we're here for me to ask you
questions about a volcano that I love dearly
and is absolutely gorgeous. The Canadian volcano
Mount Meagher. So many different ways to tell
this story. It's also been framed the most dangerous
Canadian volcano. That implies we have lots of
them. I mean, we're not known for them. So why
is Mount Meager dangerous and how many do we
actually have? So we've got lots. The challenge,
why is Meager dangerous? Well, and that's the
bigger issue for most of our volcanoes is we
know very little about them. They're fairly remote.
They're hard to get to. And we've not had a big
eruption in sort of, well, any eruption in living
memory. And so getting people to be thinking
about it, aware, is a challenge. And that awareness
is also funding to go out and do the work. But
Meagher is, it's 60 kilometers northwest of Pemberton,
about 150, 160 kilometers northwest of Vancouver.
So it's a bit remote. But nevertheless, the communities
are at risk. And it's the site of Canada's most
recent explosive eruption only 2 ,400 years ago.
So by lots, though, like we talking all of our
volcanoes are like Yellowstone. They're like
Kilauea. Where are we going here? Because no
one really talks about volcanoes in Canada. Yeah,
we don't talk about volcanoes. We've got students
in my group have been doing some research on
that, trying to better understand. the perception
issue. We've got, you could certainly say, hundreds,
but the issue is that, again, they're not overly
active in terms of the time frame, and British
Columbia being a very young part of the country,
those observations are sort of lacking. We haven't
had our Mount St. Helens eruption to be up front
and center, but we have... Volcanoes that run
the Gambit from small little innocuous cinder
cones that you might see in Mexico through to
big volcanic complexes, Mount Edziza up north,
and now, again, very close to home, Mount Meager,
Mount Cayley, Mount Garibaldi. And those are
of... concern because they are closest to population
centers and infrastructure. So highways and pipelines
and electricity corridors, these are important
aspects that we have to consider. All right,
so let's dive into the 2 ,400 years ago. Yeah,
the last eruption of Mount Meagher, mainly because
it's the one I know best. But how? When? Why?
Like what happened? Yeah. And it's a cool story,
which is like so much in real estate. It's location,
location, location. So we have this large mountain
of multiple overlapping volcanoes built up over
about the last two million years of activity.
But 2400 years ago, there was an eruption again.
Think visually on the scale of a Mount St. Helens
style event. So there was a big ash column jetted
up into the air. We think on the order of maybe
15 to 20 kilometers high. And it was big enough
that it sent ash all the way out to Calgary,
just on the outskirts of Calgary. So we're looking,
you know, 500 kilometers to the east. So we had
this big explosion and it... rain down sort of
things like tephra, but specifically pumice,
you know, what you have in the bathroom to work
on those bunions. Well, up to 80 meters of this
material built up around the volcano. And then
subsequently, the eruption actually changed.
And it went from an explosive eruption into what
we call an effusive eruption. lava flows coming
out of the side of the volcano. But that's not
abnormal, isn't it? Like Mount St. Helens did
the same thing. Yeah, exactly. So it's not abnormal.
But also the key thing is that those lava flows
are not like Hawaii. They're more like Mount
St. Helens, much more sticky and viscous because
of their composition. And that lava flow tried
to come out onto the side of the volcano. We're
still not certain whether we would classify it
as a flow or as a dome think about sticky toothpaste
coming out the side and but it's hot you know
it's maybe eight nine hundred degrees celsius
it's pushing out onto a steep slope and then
eventually it can't gravity is at work and it's
pulling down on that that dome and it breaks
apart and it breaks apart and flows down the
the flank of that volcano into the Upper Lillooet
River Valley. The flow is what we call a pyroclastic
density current, or what used to be called pyroclastic
flows, and this specific type is what's called
a block and ash flow. So there were huge fragments
on the order of, you know, car -sized blocks
of this lava surrounded by pulverized blocks
of the same lava, just fine ash. And what's so
cool is that pyroclastic flow flowed down into
the river valley, couldn't go anywhere, and so
it bulked up and built up a dam of material 110
meters high and about three kilometers wide.
And because it couldn't go anywhere and because
it was still hot, it basically melted itself
back together again. It welded to form this essentially
impermeable dam. Wow. And you can see this actually,
as well as SFU and UBC, I guess you guys often
do this field trip together. So if you're taking
forth your volcanology at SFU, and I suggest
you do it if you're at all interested, you can
go and see these cliffs that the river has cut
down. And it's quite amazing because you see
these clasts or these broken bits in a finer
grained matrix, a gray. matrix and black class.
And I think the most special thing of all is
what you can find downstream. Yeah, because what's
cool is, you know, we dammed, we, the volcano
products dammed the river. And this is a sizable
river, the Lillooet. Yeah, it's not small. It's
not huge, but it's not small. It's not small,
but it's not huge. And it ended up making, forming
a lake behind that dam of up to a half cubic
kilometer of water. So the river is building
up, it's got nowhere to go, it forms this huge
lake, and then that lake overtops the dam, and
we get a catastrophic outburst flood. We use
the term Jalkulof, it's the Icelandic term, because
we see these events so often in Iceland. But
it bursts out, and then... Thanks to work by
my friend and colleague at UBC, Kelly Russell,
and his team of graduate students and researchers,
they model, they suggest that this whole thing
unzipped two and a half kilometers of that three
kilometers of dam, unzipped backwards in maybe
as little as eight hours, which is... Absolutely
mind -blowing. And now what we see, if you stand
on the remnants on the leftover part, what's
called Keyhole Falls, you can see this tiny little
slot canyon that has formed over the last 2 ,400
years of erosion, and this amazing valley just
opening up in front of your eyes. But downstream,
as you mentioned, we can see these blocks of,
you know, sort of, say, a meter to three, four
meters in diameter. blocks in the deposits from
that outburst flood and what's so cool it's these
welded blocks of really glassy fragmental material
that have then are rounded just as they've been
you know transported but you can see all of these
what we call cooling joints uh and they're radial
so they come from the outer edges cooling in
and that tells us that that dam was still hot
when it fail catastrophically because the cooling
joints tell us about that process. So it's this
amazing detective story to figure out the sequence
of events. And history has a tendency to repeat
itself. So in 2010, big landslide, dammed the
river, and lo and behold, we had another event.
Not of the same scale, but it's a concern. Yeah,
I think for listeners following along, I think
the best way, if you're at all geology curious,
you've probably already seen columnar joints
with basalt due to it just cooling from the top.
And that's essentially what this is. Although
it's not basalt, you can still get these types
of jointing in other lava flows, not just basalt.
important things that I'll always remember Professor
Kelly Russell for is that the columns never lie.
They always tell you the direction of cooling.
And so if you ever see those images, and I've
seen lots of people say they're AI, most of them
are not anyway, where you have these radial joints,
they almost look like a fan. And that's because
the cooling surface was rounded. And so it's
always pointing back to where it was cooling
from. In this case, usually it's due to glaciers.
In this time, you have this hot class being rafted
out in this amazing flood, huge giant flood.
And so now the cooling surface is all around
the class. And that's why you get these radial
joints. I just so phenomenal. I always get a
kick out of seeing those things. The rule of
thumb is that that joint is always perpendicular
to the cooling surface. So if the cooling surface
is changing, then your joint is going to change
and rotate. And so. You know, that's one of the
really also the neat things. It wasn't the case
2400 years ago, but in Western Canada, where
we've had glaciations, you see so many of these
different features where, yeah, you've had lavas
come into contact with glaciers. And in fact,
just a little bit to the south near Whistler,
there's some amazing lava flows that we think
are like lava eskers that flowed into either
beneath glaciers or maybe even to glacial curves.
crevasses, and you can see these incredible changes
in orientation of those joints and the sizes
of those joints. So some really neat stuff. Okay,
so the last eruption, about 2 ,400 years ago,
was smaller but similar to Mount St. Helens'
1980 eruption. Its dome, instead of being in
a central crater, was off to the side of a hillside,
so it ended up being too steep, and eventually
that dome failed, filled the valley, created
a lake, which then overtopped and broke that
dam, that landslide, as I'll call it. And that
was the last eruption. So what does the future
hold for Mount Meagher? Well, and that's what
we're trying to figure out, because one of the
challenges in volcanology is trying to forecast
the future. So what we always try to do then
is if you... want to get a hint of what might
be happening in the future. Well, you look to
the past. So some recent work with Kelly and
his team, we were able to put some dates on some
using isotopes on an earlier eruption about 24
,000 years ago. And it was the same kind of eruption.
It formed one of these block and ash flows. And
in that case, 24 ,000 years ago, there were glaciers
in that valley. So we're fairly certain that
the flow went right across the top of the glacier,
the valley glacier, and glued itself up onto
the far side of the river valley. So we've got
two eruptions that we have dates on. We need
much better resolution. So in lacking that, some
of the work that my team have done in the past
is to... take some scenarios and say, well, if
we had an eruption in the future, if it was a
little one, what could we expect? If it was a
medium -sized one, what could we expect? And
if it was a papa bear, well, yeah, what would
we look for? And so in all likelihood, a future
reactivation of Meagher would involve something
similar, some kind of a probable dome growth.
Maybe because it is still capped with glaciers,
although the glaciers are in pretty terrible
shape because of changing climate, what we call
phreatic eruptions, so steam bursts if we've
got heat coming up close to the surface. Maybe
some small explosions if the system were to build
up. But right now, we are in sort of a background
level. There are hot springs at the base of the
volcano. And a few years ago, working with some
expert speleologists, expert ice cave, actually,
they work in cave search and rescue. They went
in into these ice caves where there is volcanic
gases coming from Meagher and were able to sample.
and measure what we call fumaroles, so these
volcanic vents. And the temperatures are about
90 degrees Celsius, which is sort of the boiling
temperature at that elevation, about 2 ,000 meters,
2 ,200 meters. So it's low -level activity right
now, but this mountain's been active for 2 million
years. So looking forward, we've got to start
monitoring the volcano, and that's a challenge.
Okay, well. You've answered kind of my whole
question about the next thing. But it does bring
up another important kind of suggestion because
I know every once in a while you'll see Mount
Meager kind of in the local news, obviously not
the international news because it's not erupting,
with something like, oh my gosh, we found another
vent. Is it getting active type thing? Only locally,
only through journalism. But I guess that comes
down to the fact that we just don't monitor it
very well, hey? Nope. At the moment, the only
monitoring that we have, well, there's sort of
two things. We have one station up on a ridge
looking at what's called Jobe Glacier. And this
is where there are these basically ice caves
that have been formed by the volcanic gases.
melting away and also the glacier thinning because
of warming climate. So that's one station. We've
got a couple of cameras and a small seismometer.
That's not very effective. We have, thankfully,
satellite monitoring now in place. Natural Resources
Canada are using a special type of radar satellite
monitoring to look for changes in surface deformation
so that's in SAR in SAR yeah so yeah just just
for the listeners that's where you take a couple
of pictures and you compare the two pictures
and then you're looking for phase difference
from a laser essentially bouncing off I'm simplifying
a lot but you're looking for a difference in
the length distance between the two satellite
images there and it can be accurate down to it
depends on how you do it but it can be about
half a centimeter yep And especially if you keep
measuring over time and get repeat measurements,
then you can start. It's challenging in Canada
because of forests, because of steep slopes,
all sorts of things. But that's now a semi -routine
monitoring system. But beyond that, as with any
kind of volcano monitoring, we never rely on
just one technique. We want to have multiple
layered approaches. we really need to have on
-the -ground seismometers. And that's really
the challenge, to measure those tiny earthquakes
that might be generated by movement of magma,
changes in the hot hydrothermal fluids that are
within the volcano. And the more important thing
right now, given Meagher's sort of non -volcanic
activity, is the landslides. It is the site.
of Canada's largest ever landslide in 2010. And
so there are, again, former work by one of our
former research students here identified at least
25 slopes on the volcano massif that are moving.
And this is because the volcano is altered. And
so there's unstable ground there. So we're trying
to... uh to understand those areas and better
map them but we need to be monitoring that so
that's what we're hoping to start to be building
out this coming summer in fact you talk too fast
glenn okay yeah i'm joking i'm joking i just
didn't get a chance to get in there with another
question yeah because now i want to move on to
the actual landslides but i still feel like i
need to go back you did mention there was one
seismometer currently there yeah and i guess
is it close enough to be able to pick up tremor
and that kind of stuff if it were to happen the
the little seismometer that we've got it could
but because of its location it's it's really
too noisy that's what you mean by it's not a
very good station and we mentioned it it's just
because ground is not good yeah look listeners
sometimes you really want to make sure that your
seismometer is directly installed into bedrock
or something. Because if you're into certain
types of sediment, that sediment can shift. It
can also pick up vibrations from wind a lot easier.
And it can be a very noisy station if it's not
right on bedrock or a good substrate. So that's,
I guess, what we're talking about here. Although
I did not know that. I'm just putting it together.
But I really want to get into the landslides
because I think that is really the real danger
probably in our lifetimes from this volcano,
right? Like it's not... Of course, it could start
getting the activity to erupt in the near future,
but it's much more likely to fall down on us.
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, the
2010 landslide is the largest in Canadian history.
So, you know, this was... Even bigger than the
Hope slide and the one on the crow's nest? Yep.
This was, the recent work suggests it was 53
million cubic meters. So that is about... 20
times the volume of the pyramids, the Great Pyramids
of Cheops. I didn't bother figuring out how many
swimming pools that was. But, you know, a huge
volume, absolutely huge volume. And that landslide
came down on the south side of Mount Meagher,
went into a river there called Meagher Creek,
and then dammed the river. And so it forced evacuation
of, I believe, 1 ,500 people downstream in the
area of what's called Pemberton Meadows and actually
the village of Pemberton. And there is continual
movement on the whole Massif because of landslide
activity. That Big 2010, it's so big, it's having
long -term impacts on the downstream. component
because of flooding, because of the sediment
moving down. But we know that it continues to
have small rockfalls and landslides. And in fact,
just two years ago, with our one sort of on the
ground monitoring station and the two cameras
and this little seismometer that's not so good
for volcano monitoring, we just by good luck
picked up a rockfall that ended up Running the
numbers, we figured it out as about 200 ,000
cubic meters. So not as big by any means as the
2010 failure, but still a sizable event. And
that was just above where the fumaroles are located.
And so this rockfall actually flowed, turned
into a debris flow. It scooted across the glacier
and down the valley and didn't quite... get far
enough to enter the um the lillooet river but
it just goes to show that these are our major
challenges uh for for this volcano so why does
it want to fall down though What makes it so
hazardous? Because it's not every mountain tries
to fall down on us all the time like this one
does. This one, it's because of its volcanic
history. So this long -lived history, 2 million
years of activity, 1 .9 if you want to argue
the details, but over that 2 million years, You've
had all of these fluids, you know, I mentioned
sort of hydrothermal fluids, hot water coming
around the magma at depth. And a lot of the time,
these fluids are acidic. And so that those fluids
and any acid gases are percolating their way
through the mountain. altering that rock that
rock that typically is actually fairly strong
but turning it more into like essentially changing
its chemistry into much weaker rock that is more
like a clay and so if you go out and dig in your
garden you can see how that clay when it's compacted
could be you know quite hard but you get in there
you can smear it around with your you know with
your fingers so If now you've over time, over
geologic time, turned these rocks into clay or
lots of parts of it, then you've made it weaker.
And then on top of it, we've got glaciers. So
in the Canadian context, we've had long periods
of glaciation and the surface glaciers on the
mountain are changing and interacting with the
mountain and making it weaker. And so then it's
just gravity. Right. OK, one more really hardcore
science question, because I got I mean, I kind
of know the answer to it because I was your student.
I would have been a poor student if I hadn't
already had my own thoughts on this. But just
not that long ago, something similar came out
across kind of the science media where glaciers,
the rapid removal of glacier ice. can cause or
destabilize magma chambers because you're removing
all that mass. And I already think I'm doing
a better job of explaining it than some of the
science media that I read. But if we have this
very large edifice or relatively large edifice,
and it can have very large landslides, you're
moving a lot of mass very, very quickly. Is that
having a potential knock -on effect to the volcanic
hazards as well? It could. So in this case, the
ice that is up there now is so thin that the
change, if we just melted all of the ice off
Mount Meagher tomorrow, that change, removing
that weight is going to be actually pretty minor
in the scheme of things. If we were in Iceland
and we had a kilometer or maybe two kilometers
of ice and we removed that, all of a sudden,
different situation. However... There is interesting
work suggesting that if you remove those glaciers
because of changing climate, because of warmer
temperatures, there's a debuttracing effect in
the sense that that glacier is helping support
the slope. And again, there's still some details
in there, how strong is that relationship. But
one of the sort of thought experiments that we're
quite interested in looking into is to say, if
we had another really big landslide like the
2010, or maybe bigger still, it's in fact possible,
if the unfortunate dominoes lined up, that you
could lose maybe something even 10 times. larger
in volume than the 2010 failure. If that were
to happen, and this is where we need to do some
sort of computer modeling, is that change, if
you have a massive landslide, could that pressure
change be enough to actually pull the cork, take
the top off your pressure cooker and trigger
a volcanic eruption? So this is something, again,
that a former PhD student had put out as a thought
experiment with some sort of advanced but still
fairly sort of limited modeling. That's an area
that we're quite interested in trying to further
explore. What would it take? So in the case of
Meagher, just melting off the ice is not going
to do it. But if we had a truly massive landslide,
That might be enough. But we actually need to
do the geophysical modeling and the numerical
modeling to pin that down. And a lot of dominoes
have to be lined up for that to happen. That
magma would need to be primed and ready to go.
But we know that there's lots of it down there.
We don't have a handle on the numbers, but it's
there. When you get the numbers, whoever does
it needs to come back on the show. Oh, yeah.
Because, I mean, you're going to be all over
the media locally anyway, once you come up with
that paper. They're going to be like asking you
for all kinds of things. Well, see, this is other
dominoes that have to line up. I need to line
up the right person and the right funding and
then the right, you know, modeling. And maybe
we can basically show that actually this is not
a problem. You know, that the change would have
to be so extreme as it's just incredibly unlikely.
Or be so close to eruption that the point is
kind of moved. It really doesn't matter. It was
going to erupt anyway. It just triggers it. Yeah.
Okay. So what about the average person? So we're
all talking here, science and, you know, this
is what we've kind of sort of dedicated our life
or at least large, you know, chunks of our life
to. What about the average person living in BC
or around these volcanoes? Do they have, are
they recognize these hazards? they are starting
to recognize these hazards. And in fact, work
by one of my recently graduated PhD students,
Uyen Pan, has actually been out to try to explore.
And in fact, you and I, we were both very much
under this assumption, faulty assumption, that
Canadians didn't know anything about volcanoes,
that they didn't have. Well, in fact, Uyen's
research suggests that in fact, people broadly
do understand that we've got volcanism because
they understand the idea of plate tectonics and
the ring of fire. But it's in, you know, getting
into the subtleties of things like volcanic hazards.
Are you dealing with a lava flow versus a pyroclastic
density current versus ashfall? Those are details
that still need more education. You know, as
a scientist, we know what the implications are,
but there are some interesting challenges that
UEN study, for example, when communicating with
emergency managers, there's a misconception on
the part of the emergency managers that the volcanologists
will be able to provide long -term warning of
an imminent event. And if we're not monitoring,
We can't do that. Even if we're monitoring, we
may not be able to do that. Exactly. So that's
why there is this push to expand monitoring.
And if all goes well, we will have our first
monitoring site set up this coming summer. So
it'll be a start. But that's only one site. For
sure. And just for listeners, like normally at
a volcano that hasn't erupted in a very long
time, you often get precursory activity for weeks
or months ahead of time. Not years, but usually
weeks and months as things become destabilized.
But you can also have it erupt. pretty quickly
without a whole lot of precursory activity, like
days to week. And that's not enough time for
most, I would say, emergency managers to get
fully up to steam of what's going to happen and
how to deal with the situation, which is definitely
a problem if they're just kind of assuming that
the volcanologists will have time. And in fact,
you know, in the ideal situation, a bare minimum
to be monitoring a volcano that is that is active
but not currently erupting, we should have at
a bare minimum at least six seismometers around
the volcano. At the moment, the only seismic
network we have is focused on earthquake monitoring
at the tectonic scale. So it's not sensitive
enough. It's not sort of deployed in the appropriate
fashion for volcano monitoring. So we don't even
have one at this stage. But, you know, there
are some situations. There was an eruption in
Chile at the volcano called Calbuco where they
had seismometers around the volcano. They'd been
monitoring it for many, many years. And the eruption
happened so fast with almost very, very, very
little seismic activity beforehand that... They
didn't detect it until a few hours before it
erupted. So the locals felt it and self -evacuated.
So even in the best scenario where you've got
lots of monitoring, those volcanoes can pull
some surprises. Each one's got its own personality.
So every now and then, there'll be a surprise.
But if we're not monitoring, then we have no
chance. That's where we have to be going. And
we're taking baby steps. But we've got a way
to go. All right. So this is actually part one
of a two part series, but you're not on. You're
not the star of the show for part two. So I'm
going to go out on a limb and see if you can
plug. Give me a hook for for the next episode.
So I think the next episode, what is so cool,
it's about how do we manage these types of events?
Because we're dealing with a natural. event.
You're not going to stop a volcanic eruption
just like you won't stop a hurricane, but you
can manage the impact. And so some of that is
about monitoring, but other parts, especially
in the case of Mount Meagher, is how do you respond
after the fact? And in the case of Mount Meagher,
where we've had this huge landslide in 2010,
What can you do to minimize that impact? And
some amazing work is being done in terms of nature
-based solutions to try to reduce the cascading
hazards of multiple events in a way that's sustainable,
that's economically sustainable and doesn't involve
pouring billions of tons of concrete. Yeah. Okay,
so now is the time to, I guess, call out future
work. Yeah, future work. I mean, what we need
to do in all of the Canadian volcanoes, but in
volcanoes worldwide, is be able to better understand...
those precursor signals that you mentioned. And
so there's really neat work that can be done
using advanced AI techniques, machine learning.
In Canada proper, we need to be doing more work
to understand what has happened in the past as
we start to monitor. And so some really neat
work looking at the rocks from past eruptions
and dialing in. Where did that magma go? How
long did it sit there before it erupted? These
kinds of things. While also doing the planning
and the communication. And so, yes, we're fortunate
to have, in fact, a recently funded grant that'll
continue both expanding the monitoring at MIGR
over the next four to five years, but also seeing
about how we go around. really working collaboratively
with communities who are potentially at risk
from these natural hazards. And I think that's
a really interesting area that hasn't had much
work. So this is going to be fun. More than anything,
it's also going to be really important to get
this work done. Absolutely. Maybe that's why
I was so drawn to natural hazards as a young
kid, because I realized... more than just being
awesome about looking at volcanoes and poking
lava with a stick is like some of the things
that you learn have real world implications directly
without even having to go into the nuance of
it all which is awesome and and it's When I was
a grad student working on a volcano in Nicaragua,
one of the key things was that realization, yes,
I get to come down and I get to do exciting science
and learn new things, but I'm not living next
to this volcano and dealing with the day -to
-day impacts of long -term volcanic activity.
And so that's a it's eye opening. And so, you
know, your point is really important. Can we
can we help those people who are living next
to volcanoes live, continue to live there, but
in a safe way? And that means having plans, you
know, if there is an eruption and having the
ability to know to forecast that one may be imminent.
Yeah. So maybe this is a good you brought it
up again. Messiah volcano. that was the first
episode of this season i i made you listen to
it yeah yeah i know it's fun you know um anything
you want to add i like you got it and if you
haven't listened to it and you've listened to
this one you got to go back and listen to that
one uh we i took a very high level kind of approach
glenn's like i'm gonna make my fourth years listen
to it as kind of like a review I didn't put it
on the exam, though. You didn't? Well, there's
always next year. But I think the key thing with
the Messiah episode that you brought up that
is really important is when we're communicating
to the broader public, there's this, oh, yes,
all basaltic volcanoes look like Kilauea. Well,
of course they don't because everyone is different.
And the fact that... a volcano like Masaya can
have these incredibly large eruptions, like explosive
eruptions. It's not just nice, passive, runny
lava that is safe. These systems are far more
complex than we initially thought. And so that's
where the science is interesting. And again,
why it's also so important to... you know, be
communicating to the public that it's, you know,
the devil is in the details. For sure. And part
of the reason why this whole podcast got launched,
it's not the only reason, was a brainchild of
mine that we are still going to work on without
getting too much in the details, but looking
at very large runny type eruptions of basalt
and how quickly they happen. How quickly can
they inflate? How much gas do they produce? And
I guess we're still looking at like three to
four years away from being able to do that work.
Yeah. Well, we'll have to be patient on that
project, unfortunately. Yeah, it sucks, but it
is what it is. And I honestly can't wait because
this entire feed, it'll be several episodes all
at once, probably all about the same thing. Hopefully
at some point, maybe we'll even do like a before
middle, like before, during and after. So that
way you guys, the listeners, whenever we get
around to it and. the stars align. I'm pretty
sure it'll happen, though, can actually follow
along the beginning, the middle and the end of
how one of these science projects actually come
together. Because I think that's a bit eye opening
for people that have just because life is life.
It is no one. Not everyone can be a scientist.
Not everyone can be able to go through one of
these things and take them from start to finish.
So I think it'll be an interesting project for
you guys to listen to and for us to conduct.
Yeah. And I think that one take home is science,
like so much in life, involves a lot of patience.
Oh, gosh. Yes. Yes. Yes. Backing to the Messiah
episode again, picking crystals out of Petri
dishes. Yeah. Yeah. OK. But we're here at the
most infamous part of every episode with a guest.
Glenn, you have to tell us a science joke. So
I went hunting and. All of the volcano science
jokes, I thought they were kind of dumb. This
is the only type of hunting you'll ever do, right?
I know, exactly. Except with a cat. But I thought,
you know, given the scope and the, you know,
the name of your podcast, I would go with this
one. So, Photon walks into a hotel and asks for
a room. The front desk attendant says, any luggage?
Photon replies, me? Nah. I'm traveling light.
Awesome. Awesome. Well, I can almost guarantee
that Glenn will be on again. So don't provide
me too much hate because I'm bringing him on
anyway. Thank you so much for doing this, Glenn.
My pleasure. This is fun. And there it is. The
first full episode of the new year out to your
listening ears. Thanks so much for listening.
If you haven't all yet, subscribe. Poke me on
social media. Continue bringing in some of that
amazing and good feedback. I need it. I need
to know what listeners want and how that jives
with where I want to take the show. I did get
some listener feedback most recently, and I'm
creating a solo episode just about that topic.
It's amazing. You can have an effect on the show
and what everybody else gets to hear. In the
meantime, subscribe, tell a friend. You know
the drill. See you in two weeks. Chasing down
wonders Always seeking