Dr. Eric Baer, a geologist serving as the Chair of Pure and Applied Science here at Highline College, led Highline students into the world of volcanoes, what makes them super, and what a disruption an eruption would cause at his Science Seminar hosted by the college earlier this month.

Baer has studied volcanology, the study of volcanoes, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before coming to Highline. He’s researched volcanoes, specifically supervolcanoes, across Japan and the United States.  

What is important to remember is that a supervolcano is immensely larger in size in terms of eruption output compared to a regular volcano, like Mt. Saint Helens or Mt. Rainier. Volcanologists use various measurements to determine whether or not there is a supervolcano.

Supervolcanoes are essentially a size category of a volcano – any type of volcano can be considered a supervolcano. However, supervolcanoes are typically more catastrophic than regular volcanoes due to the sheer size of the magma chamber itself – giving them a wider range of destruction.

Turns out geologists don’t have as much information about supervolcanoes as they would like.

Baer explained, “The last real supervolcano eruption was probably about 20,000-25,000 years ago.” He adds, “Depending on what you consider to be a modern human – no modern human has ever seen a super volcano erupt.” 

Which makes super volcano eruptions difficult to estimate accurately. With so little data to study, many questions still remain about supervolcanoes. As devastating as it would be, an eruption would allow geologists to record and look into these rare occurrences of nature.

Additionally, he has researched a present super volcano in Japan, and the Mt. Saint Helens eruption. Dr. Baer first uses the 1980 eruption of Mt. Saint Helens as an example in order to better understand the category difference between a super volcano from regular volcanoes. 

Dr. Baer listed out the criteria for determining is a volcano is considered a supervolcano: How much debris a volcano has sent out versus how much one could send out in an eruption, measured by mass; size of magma chamber and its proximity to the surface; where it falls in relation to the jet stream on the globe. 

The jet stream is a concentrated air current in the Earth’s atmosphere. Volcanologists look at this to determine where ash or debris from the eruption could end up. 

Baer discussed where he was during the 1980 eruption of Mt. Saint Helens. He talked about how he could see the ash blown into the air all the way from Denver. He brought in a jar of volcanic ash produced by Mt. Saint Helens that he collected off of Mt. Rainer later that year. 

While this jar of ash was passed around for each student to look at, Baer states, “Mt. Saint Helens, as big as that eruption was, is not a supervolcano.” He then goes on to say, “Most of the Cascades are generally not considered supervolcanoes because they are not-generally-big enough.” Instead he cites Yellowstone as an example of a supervolcano.

Yellowstone is considered a supervolcano because of its previous eruption output – it reached VEI 8 several times as seen by geologists studying the cooled lava flows left on the surrounding landscape.

Baer introduced the ‘Volcano Explosivity Index’ (VEI) as one of the ways volcanologists have measured volcanic eruptions. 

The VEI is a scale that ranges from 0-8. Various factors are included; time length of an eruption and which layer of atmosphere the erupted ash went up to. The VEI scale is used as frame of reference for much of the volcanos discussed throughout the lecture 

Dr. Baer goes back over to the Mt. Saint Helens 1980 eruption to give perspective to the sheer difference of super volcanoes from regular volcanoes. Stating that the eruption column of Mt. Saint Helens went up to 30 thousand to 40 thousand feet into the air and had the energy level of several nuclear bombs going off. 

The 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens is a VEI-4 on the eruption scale and is not considered a Supervolcano. Instead a volcano would need to have an eruption that is at the VEI-8 level to be called a supervolcano.

Baer described the eruption as “the largest eruption in the United states since the early 1900s.” 

While it’s easy to think that because Mt. Saint Helens had such an impactful eruption that it would be on the higher end of the VEI scale, as it turns out that is not the case.

To put this in visual perspective, a VEI-6 volcano would have to be 10 times bigger than Volcano at VEI-5, and a VEI-7 volcano would be 100 times bigger than a VEI 5. Meaning that a VEI-8 Volcano will have to be 1,000 times bigger than a VEI-5 volcano.

If Mt. Saint Helens was 1,000 times stronger, then volcanologists would be more inclined to grant it the title of ‘super volcano.’

Dr. Baer moves on to introduce a different volcano that is much closer to the Supervolcano VEI-8  rating but is not considered a supervolcano. Mount Mazama, otherwise known as Crater Lake in Oregon, is an example of a bigger volcano that erupted approximately 5.7 thousand years ago. 

The mountain erupted so much of its magma chamber that the entire mountain collapsed in on itself leaving behind a caldera. Currently the caldera can be seen today with a lake inside that is about five miles across. 

Dr. Baer stated that the Mt. Mazama eruption was approximately 50 times stronger than the Mt. Saint Helens eruption. Mt. Mazama had a rating between VEI-6 and VEI-7. He said, “Mt. St. Helens would not be there anymore if it had this size of an eruption.

Notably very little is known about Mt. Mazama’s eruption or what the mountain looked like before the drastic eruption as no humans recorded the event. Although there were Native Americans who lived near there and likely witnessed the event at the time, with how big the eruption was, it was also very likely anyone nearby didn’t survive the event.

Although both had very catastrophic eruptions, neither Mt. Mazama nor Mt. Saint Helens, would be studied as a supervolcano. The only thing left are evidence of past super volcanoes, like Yellowstone or, as Dr. Baer brings up, Crooked River, Ore.

Yellowstone is technically a supervolcano and still has the potential to produce a VEI 8 eruption. Baer estimated the Yellowstone supervolcano’s last eruption to be “10 times bigger than the eruption of Crater Lake. So that pushes it to the VEI 8. And it had some bigger eruptions.”

Dr. Baer shortly discusses the other super volcano. “There’s an eruption called the Crooked River Caldera and it happened about 30 million years ago. And that [it was] 10 times bigger than the eruption of Crater Lake – and [Crooked River] is bigger than [parts] of Yellowstone.” 

Geologists estimate that a super volcano appears once in every 50,000 years. Baer states that because of this estimate, super volcanoes are not a geological hazard to be most concerned about. Instead he points out that there is a much more dangerous geological hazard in the local area of Seattle, known as Mt. Rainier. 

But the explosivity of Mt. Rainier’s past eruptions have often been much smaller than Mt. Saint Helens eruptions and volcanologists have studied its history of eruptions, including pre-eruption signs. Both critical information for scientists to have in order to accurately predict when a volcano will likely erupt in the future and conduct a safe evacuation. 

Dr. Baer greatly recommends having an evacuation plan in place and to just keep an eye on Mt. Rainier, concluding the science seminar.

As intimidating as the prospect is, studying volcanoes can provide insight into how the Earth has been shaped over time. Along with uncovering geological mysteries.