Seeking geology...
Apr. 15th, 2009 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpI stopped by the library again today to browse some more through the Hershey Collection, which comprises pretty much a wall of materials devoted to the Southwest, with emphasis on the Four Corners Region.
Recently, I checked out a book with the intriguing title Advances in San Juan Basin Paleontology (intriguing, because paleontology is not exactly a science in which I would expect advances, but I digress...). The tome goes into some detail about a chunk of real estate that - roughly speaking - subsumes the northwestern quadrant of New Mexico.
Curiously, I'm also finding it a pretty good source for terminology and the manner of its presentation that I often encounter when doing petrochemical translations, but again, I digress...
As fascinating as the tome is, we here in Pagosa live in a substantially and fundamentally different place, geologically, at least according to a CD I found at the library today, devoted to the Geology of Pagosa Country.
It turns out - according to the information on the CD compiled by the Forest Service and BLM - I live about 60 miles from the site of a volcanic eruption that was far larger and more violent than the massive Yellowstone Caldera explosion, which is estimated to have blown about 400 cubic miles (1700 cubic kilometers) of the planet into the atmosphere around 600,000 years ago (and again about 1,200,000 years ago, and which those in the business of hyping hysteria tout as "overdue" to blow again, any day now).
However, according to the USGS, the most destructive volcanic eruption ever (a superlative the Wikipedia article qualifies with the phrase "since the Ordovician," or roughly 400+ million years ago) was the La Garita Caldera, which blew out 1500 cubic miles (6250 cubic kilometers) of rock and ash from, basically, the next county over.
La Garita, though, doesn't merit the same apocalyptic press, as the underlying earth appears to have quieted down.
I am so not complaining.
Cheers...
Recently, I checked out a book with the intriguing title Advances in San Juan Basin Paleontology (intriguing, because paleontology is not exactly a science in which I would expect advances, but I digress...). The tome goes into some detail about a chunk of real estate that - roughly speaking - subsumes the northwestern quadrant of New Mexico.
Curiously, I'm also finding it a pretty good source for terminology and the manner of its presentation that I often encounter when doing petrochemical translations, but again, I digress...
As fascinating as the tome is, we here in Pagosa live in a substantially and fundamentally different place, geologically, at least according to a CD I found at the library today, devoted to the Geology of Pagosa Country.
It turns out - according to the information on the CD compiled by the Forest Service and BLM - I live about 60 miles from the site of a volcanic eruption that was far larger and more violent than the massive Yellowstone Caldera explosion, which is estimated to have blown about 400 cubic miles (1700 cubic kilometers) of the planet into the atmosphere around 600,000 years ago (and again about 1,200,000 years ago, and which those in the business of hyping hysteria tout as "overdue" to blow again, any day now).
However, according to the USGS, the most destructive volcanic eruption ever (a superlative the Wikipedia article qualifies with the phrase "since the Ordovician," or roughly 400+ million years ago) was the La Garita Caldera, which blew out 1500 cubic miles (6250 cubic kilometers) of rock and ash from, basically, the next county over.
La Garita, though, doesn't merit the same apocalyptic press, as the underlying earth appears to have quieted down.
I am so not complaining.
Cheers...
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Date: 2009-04-16 02:23 pm (UTC)Thanks for sharing.