Friday, July 18, 2014

Mount Rainier Magma Plume

McGary and others (2014) (nature.com/nature/journal) used electric and seismic sensors to produce an image of the subduction slab and magma plume associated with Mount Rainier.
 
Colors are resistivity which reflects the plume nicely as well as the cold blue ocean crust subduction slab. The red dots are recorded seismic events
 
 
The Nature article requires subscription, but Utah State has a news release that provides some good information about the investigation: utah.edu/new-view-of-rainiers-volcanic-plumbing

3 comments:

susan said...

The article in Nature should be available for no cost since "The study was funded largely by the National Science Foundation’s Earthscope program, which also has made underground images of the United States using seismic or sound-wave tomography, much like CT scans show the body’s interior using X-rays." We paid for most of that research.

Penny's Textiles said...

thanks for the link which is more informative than other articles about the study. We don't understand the red dots at 25 miles and in the top of the slab.
Can you explain? Penny

Dan McShane said...

The red dots are recorded seismic events. They match the position of the blue cool ocean slab where some seismic activity would be expected.