Eruptions

Great opportunity! Very agreeable of him to do this!

Posted by: Callan Bentley | March 4, 2010 5:05 PM

It is big of him and you Erik to do this.

Posted by: Randall Nix | March 4, 2010 6:06 PM

And thanks to the wonders of the Internet, you can read the paper I worked on after St. Helens blew. I was an assistant city editor at the time, and I'm listed as a member of the "Volcano Squad" on page 9:

http://bit.ly/brzdtW

Posted by: Alan Boyle | March 4, 2010 8:10 PM

Thank you!

(I have often been annoyed over the coverage of the curse of Pele after one takes just a bit of volcanic rock from one of her precious volcanoes.)

I would love to know if Mr. Boyle feels we could postpone a major eruption by a sacrifice to Pele?

Just a little snark!

SJR
The Pink Flamingo

Posted by: SJ Reidhead | March 4, 2010 9:39 PM

@Randall, I answered your question to me under the Chile leads, #115. I didn't know if you had seen it or not.

Thank yous to Alan and Erik for providing us a chance to ask questions and have dialog. This is going to be very interesting!

Posted by: Diane | March 4, 2010 11:13 PM

I have two questions:
1) How much interest would there be in a Documentary Series about Geology? Something a little deeper than just Yellowstone, St Helens and the San Andreas over and over. For instance, the 26 "supervolcanoes" in Colorado?

2) Does your network train your broadcasters at all in Disaster Presentation? It seems like every news channel has the same problem, after the first reports are given, confusion, stammering, repeating. Isnt there a canned set of questions and graphics to show for such repeatable events as quakes, crashes, and balloon joy rides?

Posted by: Fitz | March 5, 2010 10:14 AM

@Randall, here in CA they have just about shut down everything! I was hoping Schwartzenegger woudl not sign the dredging bill, but he did. That will affect the econonmy in ways they don't realize and all because one tribe of Indians are worried about THEIR particular river and the salmon! So they shut down all the rivers. It is a major issue here.

There are those in Congress who want to shut down all mining in this country and where do they think they get their gold jewlery from?! Oh, you see, we can buy gold from other countries. Yeah, right! Anyway, I'd better quit now because when I get to talking about this stuff I can get pretty upset.

We can go to a few places where my DH can get to still. I can go where he can't as he is on oxygen now. But that is not going to stop us from going to the river when we can.

If you pattened another mine, where would it be? I think it is still possible, but it would take a lot of rigmarole to get it done. Do you get the California International Mining Journal? DH and I laught at some of the adds in there for "virgin" ground up by LaPorte. Ain't no such thing. He knows some of the guys that post adds in there and they are not to be trusted. You may know who I am talking about.

Posted by: Diane | March 5, 2010 12:10 PM

@Randall, don't ever tell them! ;-D

Where we go is to an area that cannot be claimed, but you can dig as long as it is in the river or where the river has flooded to. There is one crevess I like to dig out and each time there is gold in it, but there seems to be less and less. The funny thing is last summer there was a guy with a 2" dredge (before shut down) and he nearly cleaned it out, but he didn't get it all. (grin grin) In that area the is a little hole that is deeper than it looks and it takes a bit to dig out, but every time I have I have at least gotten a flake or two. It is a fun place to dig at because the rock in the area makes a great place to sit and pan. With my feet and legs in the river, I keep cool.

The hydrolic pit gets HOT! It can be 100 there, though most of the the time it is in the 90s, but very little shade anywhere. It is the area that has a lot of white quartz and some kind of hot rock that has a lot of junk in it. I mentioned it before and it looks to me like a lava flow that ran into some river rock and all stuck together. I just may be from a hot mud flow or pyroclastic stuff that hit the gravel like stuff and it all stuck together. I know it will make a metal detector sing sometimes. I have found three different kinds of clay there, too; redish orange, tan, and whiteish. There is gold there and also a caved in tunnel, which I haven't trudged over to. It is hard walking in there.

BTW, a couple of the GoldHounds found a very large rock that didn't move no matter how much the river flooded. It had been there a good while (years)and they decided to detect it. It was full of gold! They had a heck of a time breaking it up and hiking it out. They also found a piece of quartz with a gold wire on it and they got $4500 for it. I got to see it before they sold it. It was really neat. Some of the gold wire can be worth more for specimen value than even jewlery value so watch what you get. It may be worth a lot to somebody who is collecting.

Posted by: Diane | March 5, 2010 7:07 PM

Hello Alan,
I was just wondering what types of pressures you feel in editing for a source that so many look to in order to form their opinions on current events, especially in the area of the sciences and technology, and how you deal with them?

Posted by: Arron | March 7, 2010 3:36 PM