Important Discovery
This stark desert holds the record for the hottest, driest spot in North America. Scientists now say it also poses a different threat: spectacularly explosive volcanic eruptions. A new study from geochemists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory reveals that around the year 1300, a volcanic explosion in the northern part of the valley ripped a half-mile-wide hole in the rock, blasting out super heated steam, volcanic ash and deadly gases.
This would have created an atom-bomb-like mushroom cloud that collapsed on itself in a donut shape, then rushed outward along the ground at about 200 miles an hour, as rocks hailed down. Any creature within two miles or more would be fatally thrown, suffocated, burned and bombarded with rocks. They assumed that the craters were thousands or tens of thousands of years old. That would have the eruption at the end of the last ice age when it was wetter. It made sense because when magma mixes with water it becomes explosive.
But when the geochemists used a new technique to date the volcanic craters, they turned out to be young. They ranged from 2,100 years old to 800 years old—meaning they formed long after California had dried out.That left the researchers with only groundwater to blame. The present-day water table is shallow, probably only 150 meters below the floor of Ubehebe crater. “This and the youth of the most recent activity suggest that the Ubehebe volcanic field may constitute a more significant hazard than generally appreciated,” the researchers concluded.
This would have created an atom-bomb-like mushroom cloud that collapsed on itself in a donut shape, then rushed outward along the ground at about 200 miles an hour, as rocks hailed down. Any creature within two miles or more would be fatally thrown, suffocated, burned and bombarded with rocks. They assumed that the craters were thousands or tens of thousands of years old. That would have the eruption at the end of the last ice age when it was wetter. It made sense because when magma mixes with water it becomes explosive.
But when the geochemists used a new technique to date the volcanic craters, they turned out to be young. They ranged from 2,100 years old to 800 years old—meaning they formed long after California had dried out.That left the researchers with only groundwater to blame. The present-day water table is shallow, probably only 150 meters below the floor of Ubehebe crater. “This and the youth of the most recent activity suggest that the Ubehebe volcanic field may constitute a more significant hazard than generally appreciated,” the researchers concluded.