The subject of volcanoes has long held a strange fascination for me. They always seemed to me to be more or less in the background, something that undeniably existed, but which I knew little about. Sort of like twisters or earthquakes, they were natural disasters that seemed to occur from time to time. When they did, they could be responsible for enormous damage.
Strangely enough, the first major news story that I can actually remember (just barely, admittedly) was the eruption of Mount St Helen's in May of 1980. I remember, specifically, some people who were refusing to to leave, who would not evacuate. And then, the eruption itself. Again, my memories are very fuzzy, and I can barely claim to remember at all. This all happened when I was five years old, after all, and it as not like we were living anywhere near the eruption itself or anything. At that time, it was just a fascinating news story.
For many years, I safely remained almost oblivious of volcanoes. They were occasional mentioned in science class, and there is a picture book or two that I may have leafed through, but that was about it.
Then, in 1997, two things happened that really helped to bring volcanoes to life. First of all, there was the movie Dante's Peak, which I really actually enjoyed, and made the awesome powers of a volcanic eruption feel a lot more real, and a lot less abstract. Later that same year - just a few weeks, really - my then girlfriend (later wife, now ex-wife) took the first of two trips to Washington state to visit her brother. There, I remember being stunned at the wonderful beauty all around Seattle. There were green valleys and the waters of the Puget Sound, and all around, there were towering, snow-capped mountains worthy of being on postcards. Many of them were volcanoes, including the wonderful Mt Rainier, which dominated the Seattle landscape, despite being about sixty miles or so away, and which was and still is featured on the Washington license plates.
Somehow, volcanoes suddenly felt much more real. I learned just how much of a threat volcanoes could be. If Mt Rainier ever woke up and erupted, it could do some serious damage, even to a major city like Seattle, which was fairly far away. I became absolutely fascinated with volcanoes for a little while, and began tuning into those nature shows specifically about volcanoes.
Since then, they have remained a source of fascination for me.
This story was something that I accidentally kind of ran into. But again, it piqued my curiosity about volcanoes, especially the so-called "supervolcanoes," which could have such enormous eruptions, that they could alter the course of life on this planet, quite literally. There was one eruption in Indonesia in 1815 that was so powerful, that it prevented a real summer from occurring in Europe that years, despite Europe being on the other side of the world. And supervolcanoes could be worse - much worse - than that, even.
Still, they are a rare phenomona, with only three of them existing, to my knowledge.
Recently, they just discovered that there may be another one in the Alaskan islands.
Truly fascinating! Click on the link below for more information on this story:
An enormous supervolcano may be hiding under Alaskan islands by Beth Geiger December 7, 2020:
A geologic game of connect the dots reveals hints of a giant undersea crater
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mysterious-supervolcano-alaska-aleutian-islands?fbclid=IwAR1lhevSIhdNKmLPQeMc0LZpEByzhisF-_kBx3EoNz0M2V6AURJd8_Agedc
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