Stories by Dana Hunter

Let's talk disaster! A few geological disaster-related items have come across my newsfeeds lately. Discover why dictators need geologists, and which volcanoes might be out to get you.

A fascinating "slow earthquake" along the Cascadia subduction zone reveals more about the different ways Earth moves

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone! At this time of the year, many of us think a lot about gifts. Here's one gift you'll never forget!

Whether your Earth science-adoring loved one has been gnaughty or gneiss this year, I've got lots of gifts on this list that they won't take for granite! These gifts were hand-selected with the last-minute shopper in mind. You don't even have to leave home to make the holidays rock!

Richard Waitt's In the Path of Destruction tells the stories of the folks who survived the cataclysmic May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount Saint Helens. In this edition we learn that the key to survival is often pure chance, combined with a little savy, courageous search and rescue teams, and skilled medical care

I've made you a list and checked it twice! If you're shopping for science books for people on your list, these summaries and reviews should help you pick some titles that will earn you Best Gift Ever awards.

This ran last year. I think we shall make it a tradition! Traveling with a geologist can make even the most boring bits of highway exciting. If you're having to take a long journey this holiday season, try to acquire an earth sciences person so that "Are we there yet?" turns into "Let's keep going! Oooo, wait, stop at that road cut!"

I'm so sorry if any bubbles get burst by this news, but Mount St. Helens isn't really more explosive than we thought. She's still pretty much the same. I mean, yeah, she'll erupt again. She's a young and active volcano. She has some growing to do. We might even get to see some hawt dome-building activity in our lifetimes, if we're really lucky. But she's most probably not going to suddenly become a supervolcano and wipe out Washington State.

Today, we're going to visit another unexpected gift of the lahar that poured from Shoestring Glacier that morning. We'll see 13,000 years of volcanic havoc laid gloriously bare

I'm about to show you one of the most delicious results of the May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount Saint Helens. But first, I need to introduce you to the South Side Approach! It's got some really incredible views and absolutely gorgeous examples of the volcano's eruptive history. You will love love love it!

Our own RQ tormented me a little bit this summer. She kept sending nifty tidbits of geology from her summer excursions in Latvia. And she's got lots! By popular demand*, we're going to have a super-swift overview of Latvian geologic yumminess, with the promise of more where that comes from

In the meantime, we return to In the Path of Destruction! In our previous installments, we saw Mount Saint Helens wake up and suffer some pretty extreme swelling, and we ended on the eve of eruption. Now it's zero hour. Ready or not, thar she blows.

Last week, Chile suffered a massive magnitude 8.3 earthquake. You can read the USGS's summary here, and an overview of the science behind it here. Thanks to excellent earthquake preparedness, even a quake that massive followed by a fifteen-foot tsunami, while dealing quite a bit of damage, had a surprisingly low human toll. So far, just over a dozen people have been reported dead, and a handful are missing. It's remarkable that events that flattened buildings and left boats stranded ashore didn't hurt or kill more people, but Chile has been dealing with frequent, massive quakes for as long as people have lived there. They've learned to live with them as best as humans can. This is the power of stringent seismic building codes, strong emergency services networks, and an earthquake-aware populace.

In our last edition of ITPOD live-blogging, we watched the north flank of Mount Saint Helens bulge ominously. In this edition we'll watch people try very hard to go about their business despite the signs that the volcano isn't going to go quietly back to sleep. We'll be covering Chapter 5: You're Perfectly Safe Here, Aren't You? and Chapter 6: Totally Clear, No Activity. These are the last chapters before the spectacular May 18, 1980, eruption

At the risk of this blog becoming all volcanoes, all the time, I bring you... more volcanoes! Two of my favorite geobloggers wrote mustn't-miss posts on some of our Cascades volcanoes. They showcase the beauty and the danger we live with here in the Pacific Northwest. Anyone who lives near a bit of the earth that's prone to violently exploding knows the feels.

Our epic liveblog of Richard Waitt's In the Path of Destruction continues! In this edition, we'll cover the very long Chapter 4: "Bulge," in which the volcano begins to swell ominously, and a lot of very foolish people parade to the summit of Mount Saint Helens. I may have shouted at them quite a lot

I'm reading USGS geologist Richard Waitt's exciting Mount Saint Helens book, In the Path of Destruction. I'm live-blogging the experience as I go! Join me for a sometimes serious, sometimes funny review, with occasional LOLspeak. You'll probably ROFL and be like ZOMG.

Something of a love-letter to science, from a version originally posted on En Tequila Es Verdad. Back-to-school time seems like a good time to remind everyone what a pleasure it is to know science stuff!

Hawaiian lava flows are awesome! We watch videos of firey a'a flows.

Where I go all white-knuckle and stark terror is on Seattle’s few double-decker roads. Whenever I have to take the southbound I-5 express lanes, I’m staring up at the freeway above, and out toward the Cascadia subduction zone off the coast, and begging it to please oh please not choose this particular instant to rip. Whenever I’m on the coast, the first thing I’m looking for is the quickest route to high ground. See, I know that the Cascadia subduction zone is prone to enormous earthquakes, much like the one that devastated an appreciable chunk of Japan in 2011, and I also know that earthquakes don’t give any warning before they hit. One instant, you’re going about life as usual. The next, the ground is shaking, things are falling, and there’s nothing you can do but ride it out.

Heyo, it's International Tiger Day! Yeah, I know, we don't do biology around here, but that's okay - I've got just the rock for the occasion: A raw bit of Tiger's Eye! I'll bet you've seen this polished. Can you believe this little piece of quartz used to be worth half an ounce of gold per carat in the 1870s? Now you can get it for a song, because we found abundant quantities of it in South Africa, and it's been abundant ever since.

Recently, there was an all-day party at the new homestead, which featured Don Ehlen's outstanding collection of gorgeous and fascinating insects. I want to relate something Don said as we talked science, the universe, and everything. We were discussing the aftermath of Mount St. Helens's May 18th, 1980 eruption. And he mentioned an insight he'd had hiking there in the years after. Lupines were among the first plants to colonize the blast zone, and there's a particular caterpillar or some such that feeds and lives upon them. I wish I could remember what, but I was exhausted and slightly sloshed at that point, so memory falters, alas. Anyway. The area he hiked through was teeming with lupines and a far bigger population of these particular arthropods than normal. And he said he realized that what was a complete disaster from other perspectives happened to be a Golden Age to these little dudes. They'd had to put up with just the occasional lupine dotted here and there before. Now, they had all the lupines they could possibly want. The world, from their perspective, had improved immensely.

Ya'll can thank B for your Baker photos today, because he's the one who said, "Let's do it." See, when we got up Friday morning, the cloud cover was thick and low. Weather.com promised me partly sunny skies at Mount Baker, but I hadn't any faith, especially not with the Cascade foothills covered in clouds. I was ready to give it all up and head to Larrabee State Park instead. But B wanted Baker, and he convinced me to take a chance on it. So up we went.

Sometimes, having your plans fall through is the best possible thing. B and I headed up to Mount Baker yesterday to get you all some lovely volcano photos. Alas, the haze in the air was so thick you couldn't see across a lake, so voluptuous volcanic vistas were not in the cards. The weather was cool enough for some Puget Lowland adventure, though, so we picked a park and went hiking.