Volcanoes Revisited: Part 3 - Volcano Basics

[00:00:00] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Welcome to Planet Go, the podcast where we talk about our amazing planet, how it works, and why it matters to you.

[00:00:13] Dr. Jesse Reimink: [00:00:15] Chris, aren't you just looking so cozy over there.

[00:00:19] Chris Bolhuis: I do. It's, uh, cold in Michigan. Can we not discuss what I'm wearing right now? Like seriously

[00:00:24] Dr. Jesse Reimink: I, no, I have to set the stage a little bit because I was cracking up before we hit record here [00:00:30] because you jumped on the Zoom before I did, and then I came on and you're sitting over there in your bathrobe and you're staring off into space with your headphones on. And I'm waving. I think you're set. Your headphones are off or something.

[00:00:43] Chris Bolhuis: mm-hmm.

[00:00:44] Dr. Jesse Reimink: waving [00:00:45] at you for like a minute before you could hear me.

[00:00:47] Chris Bolhuis: I couldn't hear anything. My headphones weren't syncing with my computer, and yeah, I'm, listen.

[00:00:52] Dr. Jesse Reimink: So, no, I have a question. I'm gonna interrupt you. I'm, I have a question. What does Crystal Heiss think about when he is there with his headphones on? No sound, just [00:01:00] staring off into space. What's going on?

[00:01:01] Chris Bolhuis: So I thought about this, I thought, I just got it outta my hot tub. Um, do I need to like, present myself for Jesse on the podcast? And I, I'm thinking, you know, it's just Jenny and I at [00:01:15] the house. ? no, I really don't, cuz I don't care. So like, I like, it's cold in Michigan and I, I like to be cozy. I'm in my log home. Okay. I got my, rock fire walls behind me, you know, and [00:01:30] I'm in my bathrobe. I'm just, I like it. It's comfort. It's like comfort food for me,

[00:01:36] Dr. Jesse Reimink: And Chris, you're setting the stage very nicely cuz we are on a break from recording new episodes, . And so you are very much enjoying the break [00:01:45] But uh, we're in part three of re-releasing a series of, well, a bunch of interviews. And then this episode that we're gonna release today, which is actually going back to season one, which surprised both of us here , that we had to [00:02:00] go all the way back to season one to find this episode. We couldn't remember where we released it for a while back. What do we cover in this episode, Chris?

[00:02:06] Chris Bolhuis: we're gonna cover everything. Volcanoes. And, and we've spent a lot of time talking about this, how, you know, volcanoes are kind of [00:02:15] underrepresented, maybe in typical physical geology classes, like what you took, what I taught you and versus what I teach now. And so we're gonna go back to vulcanism. Basics, but we're gonna be inclusive, we're gonna [00:02:30] expand the list. And that's what this was all about. And I think it's really important actually. Like I, I, I loved doing this. It was, it was fun. It's a good episode. The, there's a lot to learn,

[00:02:39] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, definitely. And it fits in nicely with our interview series. And so we've got this one. Uh, [00:02:45] today we had a couple really excellent interviews with Top, top Topnotch Falcon, the last two episodes that released. So if you haven't listened to those, go back the last couple weeks and listen to those. And we have another one coming up next week. So, uh, so stay tuned in our [00:03:00] sort of series on volcanoes here over the break, while we are enjoying. Some rest.

[00:03:05] Chris Bolhuis: That's right. And then you know what, Jesse, one thing that's interesting is we had to really be choosy with what we were gonna re-release in this. You know, I mean, we have [00:03:15] so much under the belt that we couldn't do it all. So we had to pick and. Shoes and there's kind of a randomness to it maybe, but

[00:03:22] Dr. Jesse Reimink: but it's kind of fun. I, I think, uh, people have expressed that it's kind of fun to to listen in series. We are, uh, maybe a little bit [00:03:30] scatterbrained when it comes to releasing episodes. We don't often put things in a series and, uh, people seem to , like that aspect. So

[00:03:36] Chris Bolhuis: I want everybody to know that that is by you, the scatterbrainedness. That is not by me. I like organization. We have fought over this [00:03:45] many, many a time.

[00:03:46] Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's true. I, uh, I'm the scattered one. Yep. my fault. All right. Hey Chris, let's get to it. This is a great episode on all things volcanoes and sort of the naming schemes of volcanoes coming at you.

[00:03:56] Chris Bolhuis: Enjoy.

[00:03:57] Dr. Jesse Reimink: [00:04:00] this is, this is something you're interested in and I'm interested too, but this is something you brought to the table here. I did. Yep. So lead us in. What are we talking about and why are we talking about it?

[00:04:12] Chris Bolhuis: Um, I don't know, this kind of [00:04:15] scratches niche, like I want

[00:04:15] Dr. Jesse Reimink: to get, uh oh. Scratches a niche. That's always, you never know where we're gonna go with this. Scratch is

[00:04:21] Chris Bolhuis: an niche here. I know, but I just wanted to do just kind of an episode just on volcanoes in general. Just general vulcanism stuff. Right. . [00:04:30] And so there's that. And then, uh, I was begin putting this together and thinking about it. I, I'm struck with this thing about, you know, the way that volcanoes are taught in a typical intro class is quite often, it's just, it [00:04:45] leads to confusion at least.

[00:04:46] Dr. Jesse Reimink: So this is a intro to geology class that you'd take in college or the class you taught me in high.

[00:04:52] Chris Bolhuis: Right. And in fact, when I taught you in high school back a long time ago, I've changed the way that I do this because [00:05:00] the way that I taught you the, the system just doesn't work. But let's start with some introductions. You are Dr. Jesse Reich. You are one of my former high school students. One of the best I might add, um, you went on to get your, yeah. you [00:05:15] went on to get your PhD, um, in geology. and now work as a professor at Penn State University in the

[00:05:21] Dr. Jesse Reimink: geoscience department. That's right. And you're Chris Bull Heis, nationally recognized earth science teacher. You teach earth science geology, field geology, [00:05:30] astronomy. You teach tons of stuff. Coach bun, tons of stuff. You've been at it for, uh, a long time, I think. And, uh, we've been friends for a while now at basically, ever since I kind of got on the latter side of college. And this is Planet Geo where we talk about geoscience stuff, interesting geoscience stuff and why it [00:05:45] matters. So we're talking. Classifying volcanoes or how to describe or talk about volcanoes or different volcano types on earth, right? I mean, that's kind of the, the thing we're gonna get into a little bit, right?

[00:05:57] Chris Bolhuis: We're gonna begin with that with the [00:06:00] typical like the three category classification system and, and I've got some just thoughts on why that doesn't really work and why that's probably not the best way to do things. And then we're just gonna get into talking about all of the other types of volcanoes that we have [00:06:15] on this.

[00:06:16] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, so that's really interesting, you know, that you've changed, I guess, your approach since I was in class, which is a while ago now. So maybe, you know, things change in 15 years, I suppose. But I think the reason that they change, that's an interesting one. So your [00:06:30] sense is that it's too simple or it's not. Actually a great classification scheme. Is that right? Yeah,

[00:06:36] Chris Bolhuis: I think, you know, I get it. We have this need to, you know, as humans, it's kind of human nature to put things in categories and, you know, put 'em in a [00:06:45] box and you know, so this is this kind of volcano and, and this is this kind of volcano based on the geomorphology and the, the chemical composition and um, the way that it's kind of personality with the way that it erupts and so on. But [00:07:00] it's just, Intro level text. Basically has three ways of classifying volcanoes, but there are so many exceptions that it leads to [00:07:15]

[00:07:15] Dr. Jesse Reimink: confusion. Sure. And this is a, a problem I think in probably most fields of. Science, and I mean, as you said, all of human life, but it's particularly sort of rife in geology or geoscience because you know, every river is slightly different [00:07:30] even though there are broad classifications for river types and river morphologies and how they behave. And so I like this and it kind of highlights another thing for me that when I was going to graduate school, you sort of start to realize how the textbook. [00:07:45] Maybe not wrong, but as an oversimplification of the real world, you know, your, your textbook. You sort of are taught this is right, this is the source of what's right. And it's actually a, a sort of a very simplified version of the real world. And the real world is [00:08:00] pretty complicated out there. So I, I'm excited about this Chris. And I think, you know, it brings up another thing. When we interviewed Dr. Diana Roman, uh, a long time ago, who's a volcano seismologist studies. Sort of the voices of volcanoes or the sound waves they give off. She said that volcanoes are [00:08:15] like snowflakes and each one is unique, and I think we're gonna kind of highlight that point a little bit here in this episode.

[00:08:21] Chris Bolhuis: And I think too, you know, you touched on the part about the textbook and how they're maybe not wrong, but just, um, not as [00:08:30] thorough as they could be in any given topic. Right. With this three category system of classifying volcanoes, it's okay. That we do that. But I think that it needs to be, as an addendum stated that not everything [00:08:45] fits into this neat little system that we've devised here. I think just that students need to know that, that it's not as simple as that.

[00:08:53] Dr. Jesse Reimink: So that's what we're gonna kind of dive into today. And so, Chris, what are the three categories that you taught me that you no longer teach in class? [00:09:00]

[00:09:00] Chris Bolhuis: So there are shield volcano. And they're called that based on their geomorphology or how they look. Okay. They look like a Warrior Shield line flat.

[00:09:08] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Let's describe that a little bit more cuz that's not something people typically associate with volcanoes. Like, you know, we think of [00:09:15] volcanoes, the point, you know, the, the, the sort of peak and we, that's how we envision volcanoes. But shield volcanoes are the one that people don't often sort of recognize as volcanoes. But this is like Hawaii, right? It's this really broad rounded hill. Very gentle slopes. [00:09:30] Very gentle absorbs. Very broad, big hill, basically mountain really? That gets built up. Um, and you said it looks like a Warrior's Shield turned upside down, right.

[00:09:40] Chris Bolhuis: Or not upside down, lying flat

[00:09:42] Dr. Jesse Reimink: like Captain America's shield [00:09:45] like turned upside down.

[00:09:46] Chris Bolhuis: Perfect. Yep. We'll go through each one of these. They're gonna be in the systems that we're gonna talk about as we go through this

[00:09:52] Dr. Jesse Reimink: episode two. Okay. So you, what you teach now is the three plus more. Basically,

[00:09:56] Chris Bolhuis: yes. So then you have what are called strato [00:10:00] volcanoes, or they're often referred to as composite volcanoes. And these are the ones that we have in the Pacific Northwest, you know, Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and up into Canada. Um, these classic,

[00:10:12] Dr. Jesse Reimink: yeah, these are the ones that if, if you are thinking [00:10:15] of a volcano, this is what you're picturing, right? This is Mount Fuji. This is Mount St. Helens, you know, Mount Rainier, all those.

[00:10:22] Chris Bolhuis: Absolutely. And then you have cinder cones, and that's the last of the three categories. And cinder cones are usually, they're [00:10:30] made up of what we call pyroclastic material, which pyro means fire and plastic means fragments. You know, these are, you know, um, I don't know how to, how to say it. Like you can feel free to jump in and rescue me here at any

[00:10:42] Dr. Jesse Reimink: moment, but I zoned out [00:10:45] looking at your bald head. . Pyroclastic. Is that what we were, is that we talking about?

[00:10:50] Chris Bolhuis: Yeah,

[00:10:50] Chris Bolhuis: we were talking about, yeah. Yeah. So cinder cones are made of pyroclastic material. These are fragments and so they're, yes, a little bit more explosive than the lava eruptions that you get with [00:11:00] shield volcanoes and so on. We'll get into. Details here, but

[00:11:03] Dr. Jesse Reimink: they're not big. They're, they're not voluminous eruptions, they're little pulses spitting stuff in the air, and then it kind of falls down. Yeah. And they're, and

[00:11:09] Chris Bolhuis: so they're not very big. They tend to be, you know, less than a thousand feet usually, [00:11:15] um, in height. And they tend to occur as like, they're almost like parasites. They occur on the flanks of larger volcanoes.

[00:11:22] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Right. And so these are all things. Represent a single volcano that you can see on the surface of the land. But there are [00:11:30] other things that are actually volcanoes that represent themselves differently on the surface of the earth, right? And so we're gonna talk about volcanoes as places where magma, which is liquid rock down on the earth, is being erupted out onto the surface, becoming lava, [00:11:45] where liquid rocks are being erupted out onto the surface of the earth. That's fundamentally what a volcano is. So we're gonna talk about the wide range of things. , do this process erupt liquid rock up onto the surface in some way? That's right. So, okay. All right. [00:12:00] Well, and so Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No. No, go ahead, . No, no, you go. No, you go.

[00:12:07] Chris Bolhuis: You're such an idiot. Why do I do this with you? Honestly, can you please tell me?

[00:12:13] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Beggars can't be choosers as it were. [00:12:15] So why is this three category system shield, volcanoes, composite cones, and cinder cones? Why is that not quite, uh, descriptive enough or not quite useful enough?

[00:12:24] Chris Bolhuis: Well, you know, because it's not inclusive. There are so many volcanoes [00:12:30] that don't fit into this. Like I said, you know, to students that can be confusing. They're like, well what? What does Yellowstone fit into when they realize that Yellowstone's a volcano? What about Yellowstone? Where? Which one is that? Well, it doesn't fit. It's none of 'em. What about these [00:12:45] massive flood basalts you and I went out to when we were in Oregon a number of years ago, we went out to the Columbia River flood basalts, and. And, um, you know, had a great time. But, you know, that's a, that's volcanic and it doesn't, it's not a shield [00:13:00] volcano, you know. And then what, what about mid ocean ridges? You know, these are the most extensive volcanic systems in the world, and they don't fit into this category.

[00:13:09] Dr. Jesse Reimink: These are the underwater volcanic systems that are in the middle of most ocean basins and are forming new oceanic crust. Yes. [00:13:15] So, uh, okay, so these things, it's not inclusive enough. The, the three category system doesn't describe all volcanoes. Well enough doesn't include all volcano. Okay. I would say, Chris, let's, um, let's get into it, shall we? [00:13:30] Let's go through the, the categories. Let's describe these volcanoes, and then let's add some addendums to different volcano types that, that we actually have on earth.

[00:13:38] Chris Bolhuis: Right? Let's go. But even with what we're doing, This is a rabbit hole. I mean, you can keep going and going and going. And [00:13:45] Diana Roman. I mean, it was a perfect statement because it's so true

[00:13:50] Dr. Jesse Reimink: and it's also useful to understand various categories to understand how things are similar and also how things are different from one another. So let's dive in. So,

[00:13:59] Chris Bolhuis: Jesse, let's [00:14:00] jump into talking about the expanded category list of volcanoes that we get on this planet. So let's talk about what do they look like? What's their geomorphology, why do they look that way? Okay. And then we'll talk about, you know, what their [00:14:15] personality is, the nature of their eruptions. Are they violent? Are they quiet or they somewhere in between? And then from a geoscience perspective, where do they tend to. . And then finally we'll talk about some examples.

[00:14:28] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Perfect. All right, so we got five things. We're [00:14:30] gonna go through a bunch of different categories here. The first one, Chris, we're gonna start with shield volcanoes, and these are the Warrior's Shield, or Captain America's Shield, lying on the ground, they're very gently sloping edges, and these volcanoes [00:14:45] are massive. These things can be giant. So just as one example, the Hawaiian Volcanoes Man Loa. 13,000 feet above sea level, over 13,000 feet above sea level. But that volcano actually extends from the [00:15:00] bottom of the ocean floor. And that volcano has been built up for 20,000 feet to even reach sea level, and then another 14,000 feet above sea level. So these things are enormous. I mean, the volcano size is a giant. That's the way [00:15:15] they look, is this shield. And so Chris, why do they look?

[00:15:18] Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, the the reason why they look the way they look is because they're made of the rock. Basalt basalt's, an igneous rock. It's black, it's fine grained, which means that the lava cooled on the surface [00:15:30] of the earth rather fast. Basalt is very fluid. In geology, we call this low viscosity, and I kind of like, I use the analogy of pancake batter. Okay? If you take pancake batter and pour it onto a hot skillet, you can get different [00:15:45] shaped pancakes dependent upon how fluid you make the batter.

[00:15:48] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Right. And I just want to clarify here that we're talking about the lava that comes out and it is liquid rock and it is sort of basaltic lava that crystallizes to form basalt the rock. So we're kind of using these terms here just to keep [00:16:00] everybody on the same page. We're talking about the liquid rock that comes out that then crystallizes into rock. All right, great pancake analogy. Crystal. Let's hit

[00:16:06] Chris Bolhuis: it. Okay. So that lava, you can think of it as pancake batter. If you make a batter really thin and runny, you add a lot of water to it, for instance, or a lot of milk to it [00:16:15] poured on the skillet, it's gonna form. Flat, broad shaped pancake, right? Because it's not, you pour it out, it's gonna run like a flood, okay? If you take thick batter, it'll tend to mound up and not flow well. This, these shields are made up of really, [00:16:30] really runny lava. . And so that's why it shaped the way it is. It has everything to do with viscosity, the resistance to flow that the lava has. That also speaks to its eruptive personality too, [00:16:45]

[00:16:45] Dr. Jesse Reimink: right, Jesse? Yeah, that's right. And because this lava is so runny, it also means that it doesn't get really clogged up in the volcanic plumbing system very much so You can basically erupt a large volume of [00:17:00] Basaltic la. very quietly, if that makes sense. I mean, on the human scale, no volcanic eruption is really quiet. I mean, it's all very traumatic on the human scale, but compared to other volcanoes, this is relatively quiet. You can push a lot of [00:17:15] volume of stuff up very sort of passively.

[00:17:18] Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. You said before that these things are massive volcanoes and so you can think of shield volcanoes as gentle giants.

[00:17:26] Dr. Jesse Reimink: All right. There you go. That's a good one. I like that one. Gentle giants. Yeah. There we

[00:17:29] Chris Bolhuis: go. Yeah, they [00:17:30] have very quiet kind of eruptions, at least from a volcanic perspective, right?

[00:17:35] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Like you said. Yes. , from our perspective, everything looks very, very traumatic, but um, okay. Chris, where do these, where do shield volcanoes often occur?

[00:17:44] Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, they're [00:17:45] often found associated with hotspots and hot. These are hotspots that are below oceanic plates. Okay. And if you go back to our plate tectonics episode, we talked about the different types of crust and so on. That's often where they're found. But we [00:18:00] can get some shield volcanoes that are associated with subduction zones, where one oceanic plate is diving below another plate and so on. So it's usually hotspot, but not always.

[00:18:11] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, and basically you need to have a large supply of [00:18:15] basaltic lava, so places where you generate that, you get a shield. Volcano and hotspots are a very good place. Generate a lot of basaltic lava. And a couple examples. We've mentioned Hawaii already.

[00:18:27] Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. But hey, you went to the Galapagos Islands, [00:18:30] uh uh, when you were a student.

[00:18:31] Dr. Jesse Reimink: I did, yeah. That's another great example. Did you see Fernandina then? Yes, we saw Fernandina. Um, and we actually saw the, that was the youngest lava flow I've ever seen. I think it was like a hundred years old, and I've never been to Hawaii to. Things [00:18:45] younger than that, I believe. Well, how old is crater of the moon, Chris? I don't actually

[00:18:49] Chris Bolhuis: know that Craters of the moon, the, I think the last eruption was about 1400 years. Okay. Yeah. So it's

[00:18:53] Dr. Jesse Reimink: recent, but not that recent. Not that recent. Yeah. So there's some very recent interruptions there. Um, and yeah, it, it looks, you know, when [00:19:00] you're, we are staying in this boat, you know, there's like 12 students and, and a couple crew people sleeping on this boat throughout the whole trip. And when you're like, anchored offshore, it is, it looks just like a shield. I mean, it's a perfect name for these volcanoes. So the gloop goes islands is another, uh, another [00:19:15] great example of shield volcanoes. Well, good deal. Shall

[00:19:17] Chris Bolhuis: move on to the next

[00:19:18] Dr. Jesse Reimink: type. Let's do it. What's next?

[00:19:21] Chris Bolhuis: The next category is called strato volcanoes or composite cones or composite volcanoes. I prefer the term strato because it says a lot about. [00:19:30] You know their

[00:19:31] Dr. Jesse Reimink: geomorphology. Yeah. It's just a better word than composite volcano. I like strato volcano. It sounds cool.

[00:19:37] Chris Bolhuis: Yep, me too. Um, so strato volcanoes, these are the ones that you typically think of when you think of a volcano. You think of a typical looking volcano. It's a [00:19:45] strato volcano. These are to me, I, I'm in love with them. I, I can't get enough of them. You know,

[00:19:51] Dr. Jesse Reimink: you really are in love with these volcano sets. , you are. Some would say

[00:19:55] Chris Bolhuis: obsessed. So gets me going. I'm, I'm gonna own it. They can be very [00:20:00] tall, very grand looking, right? They're

[00:20:02] Dr. Jesse Reimink: steep, they're often snow capped, you know, cuz they're really tall, so they got some snow on the top. They're really beautiful, picturesque volcano. I mean, if you're thinking of Lee, look up volcano image on Google. Uh, that's what you're [00:20:15] getting.

[00:20:15] Chris Bolhuis: That's right. That's right. So these volcanoes, why do they look very different from shield volcanoes? It, it has to do with the magma that makes 'em up. Okay. Shields are very runny. Magma vis basaltic, kind of lava straddle. Volcanoes are made up [00:20:30] of thicker, more viscous magma typically, and the rocks that are associated with straddle are usually anoc. , which is intermediate in composition, so it's not like rich in [00:20:45] fsic or silica material. It's not deplete in silica material. It's kind of in between. And what this does, this is so important because it forms then. This magma that's stickier and thicker, and it's like a, a [00:21:00] thicker

[00:21:00] Dr. Jesse Reimink: pancake batter. So you make a thicker pancake batter and it, it can pile up a little bit more. And so you get these steeper sides to the volcano, although they look huge. We look at them and think, wow, that's a massive volcano. They're not, they're not even close to the [00:21:15] size of shield volcanoes typically in mass, in volume because they don't have this really wide sides to them. So sort of the amount of lava coming out of these individual volcanoes is smaller, much smaller than a shield volcano, even though they're very [00:21:30] beautiful and picturesque and, and lots of magma can come out of them. Um, compared to shoe volcanoes, they're.

[00:21:35] Chris Bolhuis: They have a much lower supply of magma than shield volcanoes do. And you know, to that point, right, that. Strato volcanoes, they tend to [00:21:45] erupt more violently or at least they have the potential to do this. And uh, you know, basically the more infrequent eruptions are with the volcano, the more violent it is. And so shield volcanoes, they erupt often. You know, you talked about fernandina and having this [00:22:00] really recent lava flow and kill away is doing that right now. It's very active right now. Bet all over the news because it erupts so frequent. It's nonviolent. It's rather gentle and straddle. Volcanoes are the opposite. They erupt infrequently, and when they do, they [00:22:15] tend to be more

[00:22:15] Dr. Jesse Reimink: violent. Yeah, I would say they're not quite the opposite. They're like the intermediate. Again, it goes to intermediate composition. They're intermediate in this eruption style. So typically a a strato volcano will erupt a bunch of lava. It'll. Build itself up. And then every once in a while it'll blow itself apart, [00:22:30] like Mount St. Helen's has, it'll blow off the top of the volcano in a big eruption, and then it'll kind of build up with this, these smaller eruptions, these small sticky eruptions that build it up more and then it'll blow itself up again and build up, uh, more and more and more. And it repeats this cycle. So it [00:22:45] tends

[00:22:45] Chris Bolhuis: to alternate its eruptive style, right? It's it's explosive in nature and violent in nature. And then once it's used up the gas in the chamber, and the throat is clear, it tends to just erupt this, [00:23:00] the very

[00:23:00] Dr. Jesse Reimink: thick lava. So that right there, Chris, what you just said is sticks in my head from when you were teaching me this in class this is the throat clearing analogy and that's exactly what's going on. You sort of build up a big cough and then you. Cough [00:23:15] it out and you really get that thing out and then your throat is clear and you can sort of cough more and more. I mean, you, it's sort of the phlegm can come out a little bit easier basically. So that throat clearing analogy is a really great one because it basically costs really hard and it gets that sticky plug [00:23:30] out so the other LABA can kind of flow behind it. So we get this alternating sequence and it, it builds up in this alternating sequence of rock

[00:23:36] Chris Bolhuis: types and which is why it's called a straddle. right? It's, it's kind of layered like this where you get roughly equal amounts of [00:23:45] lava flow coming out of this stuff. But it's a really thick lava that doesn't run laterally like a, like a shield volcano will. It kind of forms this steep sided dome instead. Then it'll stop because the magma will. Gets stuck in its own throat, you [00:24:00] know, it'll cool and, and it, it forms this kind of plug, right? And so then it goes back to being quiet. When it erupts again, it'll erupt explosively. Cause it's gonna, this thick magmas gonna trap the gases. And so then it'll erupt this ash in other pyroclastic [00:24:15] material. And so now you get this kind of alternating lava ash, lava ash, and that's why it's called a strato. It's

[00:24:23] Dr. Jesse Reimink: layered. So these occur. Chris, where do these things occur? Straddle volcanoes. These

[00:24:29] Chris Bolhuis: are [00:24:30] almost always subduction zone related. And so you think of the West coast, the northwest coast of the United States, you know, Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and so on. The Cascade volcanoes, they are subduction [00:24:45] related volcanoes. And you just this kind. This geology lends to creating a, a stickier

[00:24:53] Dr. Jesse Reimink: type of magma. That's right. It happens all down the South American coastline as well. Western South America. It's [00:25:00] all one big subduction zone that Andes are, uh, a series of volcanoes that are almost all these sort of strata volcanoes. Very common. Um, Type here. And you know, there's something interesting here. The Andy's

[00:25:10] Chris Bolhuis: Mountains, the Andes Mountains, the rock Andesite is the most [00:25:15] common rock that exists there. And so that's why the Rock is called Andesite. It's named after the mountains, the

[00:25:21] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Andes Mountains. That's right. And that rock type is actually a very, if we look at Continental crust, the continental crust on average is, and [00:25:30] a. And so this is a very common way to make Continental crust or to add new stuff to the continental crust in these subduction zones. So a couple examples would be Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier, uh, epoxy and Mount Fuji is probably another very famous one, or [00:25:45] Fuji son. These volcanoes that everybody, we kind of all can picture a strato volcano. It's what we think of when we think of a.

[00:25:54] Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, I, I'm in love with them. I, I spent a fair amount of my summer on them [00:26:00] this summer, climbing Mount St. Helen's and Mount Shasta. Mount Shasta is my favorite volcano. I just, yeah.

[00:26:06] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Your, uh, straddle volcano obsessed. I think I am, would be fair to say, you

[00:26:11] Chris Bolhuis: and I, You and I have banged around in, uh, on Mount Saint Mount St. [00:26:15] Helens.

[00:26:15] Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's right. We talked about that last. Aren't you short? We, uh, we focused on Mount St. Helens and yeah, we had a, we had some good times there. That's right. All right. That's right. Next one, Chris. Let's not get too hung up on strato volcanoes here. You, I'm

[00:26:25] Chris Bolhuis: sorry. I'm sorry. All right, . Well, yeah, because you know, we're gonna jump into another type of volcano [00:26:30] that I'm very much in love with as well. These are the kinds of volcanoes. Now we start to get a little bit more, I.

[00:26:36] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Those two previous types were two of the three that are typically taught in textbooks. And now we're moving outside of the sort of typical three, uh, three categories

[00:26:44] Chris Bolhuis: [00:26:45] here. You know? Hey, should we skip to cinder cones a second and just

[00:26:48] Dr. Jesse Reimink: do that? Yeah, let's do that to, to round off the first three. Let's, let's round off the

[00:26:52] Chris Bolhuis: three. . Um, in fact, I don't even

[00:26:54] Dr. Jesse Reimink: see it on my list. No, you didn't put cinder cones on your list. You're big dummy. Okay. But we can, that is [00:27:00] really dumb. Cinder cones are fairly small. Typically they're rubbery. They look like they've got a whole bunch of rubble on the sides of them. They, you know, they look like a little pebbles and they're, they're sort of small volcanoes that kind of just spit out lava. They spit out lava, a little [00:27:15] small, sometimes violent, but short bursts of stuff. They kind of spit lava into the air and then it falls. around the vent, around where the lava's

[00:27:24] Chris Bolhuis: coming out, which is why they're so steep sided because the stuff gets, you know, burped out of the volcano. It [00:27:30] often will cool in the air this, these lava fragments, you know, they'll cool in the air and they'll land as this kind of soft, but mostly solidified rock at that point. And so it's unconsolidated, it's not protected by lava

[00:27:42] Dr. Jesse Reimink: flows. It's hard to. Because it's [00:27:45] just boulder pebbles of rock, you know, that erupted and cooled in the air. And Chris, that, you know, that gets to the point of why do they look the way they look is because there's, it's not lava flowing. It's not liquid rock flowing along the surface. It's actually stuff getting erupted in the air and [00:28:00] then just cooling and falling down as rock for the most part.

[00:28:03] Chris Bolhuis: Yep. And, and so what are they made of? Well, this is the thing. Cinder cones don't fit nicely into a, into a box either, because cinder cones can be made up of basically any [00:28:15] kind of material, any kind of pyroclastic material. They can be basaltic, they can be an acidic, they can be lytic, very different compositionally, and so you can't really fit them into a

[00:28:26] Dr. Jesse Reimink: box. They also occur everywhere. For the most part. They often [00:28:30] occur as, I think you said it earlier, parasitic uh, volcanoes, they're little volcanoes on the edges of bigger volcanoes, and so they occur in a lot of different tectonic settings on the shoulders of a lot of different other types of volcanoes as well. Right. So

[00:28:44] Chris Bolhuis: basically [00:28:45] wherever you have volcanism, you have the potential to have cinder cones as well.

[00:28:49] Dr. Jesse Reimink: They'll form relatively short periods of time. It's just stuff getting chucked up into the air coming down. They forms a pile that'll get wiped out by some big eruption later on. And then another little cinder cone will kind of [00:29:00] form there, uh, again. So, um, they're little baby, baby volcanoes that kind of get wiped out pretty quickly.

[00:29:06] Chris Bolhuis: Some examples of these, um, craters of the moon in Idaho has some spectacular looking center cones. They're awesome. Cinner cones are [00:29:15] beautiful. I mean, because. They're also very typical looking volcanoes, where they're usually a well-developed crater at the top of it and so on that you can walk down into. I mean, they're, they're great. I love these things.

[00:29:25] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yep. There's, uh, a few, uh, around the Grand Canyon in Arizona on [00:29:30] the southern side of the Grand Canyon Southern side. Yeah. Southern side of the Grand Canyon. Sunset Crater is a, is one that people might've have gone to, but you kind of see them all over the place. They're, they're little. Did you visit Sunset Crater when you. We, not recently, but I did, uh, in a, a field trip. [00:29:45] Oh, okay. In college, so, yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're beautiful. They're really stunning and they make a really cool landscape. They're like little cones sitting around, you know, that are small, relatively small little features, but they're, they're pretty, they make for very pretty landscape.

[00:29:57] Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, they are. Perine is another [00:30:00] example in Mexico where this thing just started erupting in the 1940s. I think it erupted. Nine years or eight years, something like that.

[00:30:06] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, just in some farmers and then just went dormant . Yeah. Oh, great. I had the farm field. Now I have a cinder cone in my yard. That'd be my dream, actually. That's that. That would be, [00:30:15] wouldn't that be great? Gonna have to move outta Michigan to get that. But

[00:30:18] Chris Bolhuis: yeah. So now one other thing I wanna say before we move on, just to jump back a second to their nature. So they usually, when they begin erupting, because they have a lot of gas in the magma, You know, they kind of burp the stuff [00:30:30] up and spatter the stuff up, right? And as the gas gets used up, sometimes the eruption can turn into a lava flow then after this. And, and so, you know, that's, that's been fairly common. Um, with their eruptive nature. They're not hugely explosive cuz they're not [00:30:45] big, they're not as big as straddle volcanoes, but they start rather violently and then they, as they use up the gas, they go back into being kind of this quiet, uh, lava effusive

[00:30:56] Dr. Jesse Reimink: kind of. All right, let's move on now. So what do [00:31:00] we got next, Kristen? Now we're moving outside of the, the classic three, uh, definitions. Yeah. Now we're gonna be

[00:31:05] Chris Bolhuis: more inclusive. Yeah. Um, so we're gonna, let's, let's talk about rite calera complexes. Okay. Okay. Which, [00:31:15] um, I guess maybe. In layman's terms, we're gonna talk about super volcanoes then, right? That's what these are often referred to as is Rite. Caldera complexes are supervolcanoes, and

[00:31:25] Dr. Jesse Reimink: some people don't like the term supervolcano, but these are big, big volcanoes. [00:31:30] And they're big volcanoes that don't erupt much. But when they do, they go big. They're the big, they're the go big or go home volcanoes. Right?

[00:31:36] Chris Bolhuis: So to keep it with the theme, right? What do they look like? Well, these. Hard to recognize as volcanoes, right? Because they're [00:31:45] so

[00:31:45] Dr. Jesse Reimink: freaking big. They're so big, and it's not entirely clear that unless you look at the rock types, it's not entirely clear that there's a volcano there. So it's definitely not what you think of what you have in your head when you think of a volcano or when you Google a volcano. [00:32:00] This does not come up readily.

[00:32:02] Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. I mean, I don't know if, if I, you, if I was alive a hundred years ago standing in the middle of Yellowstone, I don't think I would know that. Wow. I'm in a volcano. Yes. You know? Right, right. I [00:32:15] just, I don't know if I give myself enough credit, you know, or. I just don't know if I'd recognize it. It's so big

[00:32:20] Dr. Jesse Reimink: you can't see. Yeah, that's right. And so, well, the way they look is it's basically this huge, what's called a Caldera. It's this basically low area with some mountains on [00:32:30] the edges or some small hills even on the edges. And it's that way because they're not. Building up the lava's, not building up a volcano in the way that the previous volcanoes we've talked about. Cinder Cohen shoe volcanoes, strato volcanoes, those are all lava. Building up this feature that we see [00:32:45] a Rite Calera complex is actually blows all the service material out and then it sinks down into that empty magma chamber. So it empties this huge amount of magma. Blows up all the surface [00:33:00] features and then sinks down in, so it's actually a depression, a big depression instead of this thing that's been built up by volcanic eruptions. Yeah. Anything

[00:33:07] Chris Bolhuis: that would've been built up would be destroyed by these kinds of massive eruptions. So it either, if it doesn't get destroyed, it gets [00:33:15] swallowed in the Caldera after the eruption, in this evacuated magma chamber. You know, it's

[00:33:20] Dr. Jesse Reimink: just a, so, Chris, why do they look this?

[00:33:24] Chris Bolhuis: Well, it's because of the type of magma that's involved, which is the theme that we've been, you know, hitting [00:33:30] with this. And so this is now the stickiest of the sticky in terms of lava magma, actually, to be precise, it's called magma. So because it's not out yet, it's it's lytic in nature. And rite is an igneous rock that [00:33:45] is extremely silica. . And so this is, this stuff does not flow easily at all. It's the thickest pancake batter you can imagine, and if you pour this out [00:34:00] onto a hot skillet, it's just gonna mound

[00:34:03] Dr. Jesse Reimink: up. You're gonna make a biscuit instead of an actual pancake. Yeah,

[00:34:06] Chris Bolhuis: exactly. Exactly. And so this kind of magma. Traps gases, and it gets stuck beneath the [00:34:15] surface, and so it, it erupts very, very infrequently. In fact, no eruption of this nature has ever been witnessed by

[00:34:25] Dr. Jesse Reimink: mankind. Yeah, that's an interesting fact. When was the la when was the most [00:34:30] recent eruption of this kind? Oh,

[00:34:32] Chris Bolhuis: it was 83 a d.

[00:34:37] Dr. Jesse Reimink: In New Zealand. This is in New Zealand On New Zealand's North Island. Yeah, I,

[00:34:41] Chris Bolhuis: yeah. 2000

[00:34:43] Dr. Jesse Reimink: years ago. But these are, [00:34:45] these are events when these things erupt, these are, they're often referred to as super volcanoes because they affect all of the, they can affect the globe. These things, they can change climate for a little while. These put so much volume of material into the air that they [00:35:00] really do change the globe. It's a game changing event. Yep. Yeah. Yep. And so they occur in a couple different geologic settings. They can occur in hots. Like Hawaii, except you can't have the hotspot underneath of the ocean or oceanic crust, you [00:35:15] gotta put it underneath of a continent. So Yellowstone is one example of this that's a hotspot sitting beneath a continent because you need to generate that really thick, gooey, sticky magma. Called lytic magma. And that only happens [00:35:30] beneath the continent or beneath a continent. Um, these types of volcanoes can occur in subduction zones as well. And again, you gotta have the ability to generate this really thick, sticky stuff. You gotta generate the stickiness to it so the throat gets [00:35:45] clogged really, really aggressively. So it's gotta cough really, really hard to punch it out. Yeah.

[00:35:50] Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. So example. Yellowstone obviously is an example of this kind of volcano. Um, Toba in Indonesia is [00:36:00] an example of this, and Tao we just talked about in New Zealand are just, these are three examples of them, and two of them are subduction related, and one of them is hotspot related. Yellowstone's hotspot related.

[00:36:11] Dr. Jesse Reimink: So, yes, that's right. Yeah,

[00:36:13] Chris Bolhuis: they're awesome. Okay. They're huge. They're, [00:36:15] these are the things that change the planet when.

[00:36:18] Dr. Jesse Reimink: All right, next one. Monogenetic Field, Chris. Yeah, and these ones are weird. Again, they're in the theme of they don't really look like volcanoes. They're hard to figure out that it's a volcano. Yeah.

[00:36:28] Chris Bolhuis: They don't look like volcanoes at [00:36:30] all, actually. Um, okay. In almost all of the volcanoes we've talked about, they have this plumbing system where the magma is, has a path to

[00:36:39] Dr. Jesse Reimink: the surface. And the plumbing system we're talking about here is how the liquid. How the liquid rock gets up onto the [00:36:45] surface. So how its source is somewhere, it's formed somewhere deep down in the earth, various places, various depth, but it has to get out somehow. And that plumbing system is this complicated network of, of paths that it uses to get out to the surface.

[00:36:57] Chris Bolhuis: Right, and in this case, these [00:37:00] volcanoes, these monogenetic fields we call 'em, because we're not really gonna call 'em a volcano because it's like this laterally big, huge area that has so many vents and pathways leading to the surface here that the lava has come out, [00:37:15] that it just. Leads to this. I don't know how to describe, like, what do you say? It leads to this

[00:37:21] Dr. Jesse Reimink: kind of, it's not one central volcano. It's basically like making one huge pancake on the skillet. You're sort of not pouring it from one [00:37:30] bowl onto the skillet. You're pouring it from a bunch of different little places all onto the skillet and it's, it's really. Not a central vent or a central plumbing system that's bringing it out. It's too disaggregated. So it's kind of random stuff happening over the place, but it builds up actually a [00:37:45] volcano or or, or a volcanic field rather. So monogenetic field has lots of little sources of magma that build up this kind of thick blanket of igneous rocks. The

[00:37:55] Chris Bolhuis: supply of magma is so low in these situations. It doesn't allow [00:38:00] for its plumbing system to like fully. There's no clear path to the surface. So each back batch of magma that comes out doesn't have this pre-existing pathway to the surface.

[00:38:13] Dr. Jesse Reimink: And a couple examples here are the San [00:38:15] Francisco volcanic field and on the Seward Peninsula in Alaska.

[00:38:18] Chris Bolhuis: All right, well hey, let's talk about one that we've been to.

[00:38:20] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yes. Okay. And this might be my favorite type of volcano, really. I that's, I think I find these things fascinating. Absolutely. They

[00:38:29] Chris Bolhuis: are [00:38:30] fascinating. But they're certainly not my favorite. You're nuts. No way. How can this beat out the cascades? How? I don't like. Okay, well

[00:38:37] Dr. Jesse Reimink: let's get into it. Let's get into it. Let's get into it here. All right, so we're talking about flood basalts, and there's no real flood [00:38:45] basalts forming on earth right now, so we don't have an active. Version of this really. But what we have is a fossilized version of these effectively fossilized volcanoes, fossilized volcano. They're not fossilized in the way that we think of fossils forming, but it's an [00:39:00] ancient volcanic eruption that we see the lava from. We see the, the, the rocks as a

[00:39:05] Chris Bolhuis: result of them. Definitely. So what kind of rock are they usually made of? Well, first of all, okay, Jesse, what do they look like? What do flood ba salts look like? These

[00:39:13] Dr. Jesse Reimink: things are. [00:39:15] Packages of Basaltic rock, they're layers upon layers upon layers of basaltic rock that are piled up on top of one another. And you can see these things as discrete lava flows. Sometimes the lava flows are so thick that they cool down and they crack in these sort of [00:39:30] hexagons like giants Causeway, or like the Columbia River flood basalts, what we call colomb jointing in basalts. So they, from these really spectacular features in the way that they Cool. I'm a huge

[00:39:41] Chris Bolhuis: fan of colo

[00:39:42] Dr. Jesse Reimink: joints, by the way. I think they're just, [00:39:45] they're totally cool. Yeah, these like hexagons, right, of big, big columns of, of rock that are vertical. Typically we saw some ones that weren't vertical Chris, but because they

[00:39:55] Chris Bolhuis: form perpendicular to the cooling surface and the cooling surface doesn't [00:40:00] necessarily have to be it. The cooling surface can be cold rock. And so you can get joints that are

[00:40:07] Dr. Jesse Reimink: not vertical, but what do they look like? They look like just a huge sequence of basalt that's sitting on top of one another, and

[00:40:14] Chris Bolhuis: it's [00:40:15] flow. It's a lava flow that cooled and hardened and top of flow on top of flow. On top of flow. So that's how they build up this kind of vertical massive accumulation, which like you said, you can often see it may look like re just [00:40:30] really thick layers of sedimentary rock, but it's basalt usually and it's , you know, so it's not sediment, it's not layered that way, but it's a layer upon layer upon layer of basaltic lava flows.

[00:40:40] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yes, that's right. The thing about these things and why they're called flood basalts is [00:40:45] you can think of this as lava flooding out onto the surface. The volumes and the rate of lava erupting is absolutely massive. We can put a ton of lava out onto the surface in a very, very short period of time. And [00:41:00] these things are different from our shield volcano style because of that rate of lava eruption rate of, of extrusion, of lava onto the surface, they do. Eruption that there's a debate about whether when these blood basals erupted, whether they [00:41:15] changed the climate of the earth enough to, for instance, kill the dinosaurs or cause mass extinction events. So that's, to me how they're fascinating is cuz they're so big and so voluminous that they can really alter the climate of earth enough to do things like, [00:41:30] Cause an extinction

[00:41:31] Chris Bolhuis: event. Well, okay. I feel like you need to explain that just a little bit here. Like how would these kinds of eruptions change the climate? Just real quick.

[00:41:39] Dr. Jesse Reimink: So because they're putting so much, there's so much lava coming out on the surface, there's always gas associated with the [00:41:45] lava. And so because the volcano erupts gas as well, those volcanic gases can go up into the atmosphere and change the climatic conditions. Either by putting a lot of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere or a lot of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can really. Uh, change [00:42:00] the climatic conditions of the whole Earth, uh, because they're putting, they're doing that so rapidly.

[00:42:05] Chris Bolhuis: All right. I, I get it now. I, I'm, I take back a little bit what I said, . Okay. They're very, they are really, really interesting. I love them when I'm out in Oregon and Washington. [00:42:15] Um, you can't avoid these, these massive flood basalts. I find them

[00:42:18] Dr. Jesse Reimink: really beautiful. You know, the, uh, Columbia River flowing through these big layers of basalt, they're really pretty. I, I find, I don't know, I find the, the, the landscape kind of beautiful in a way. Anyway, so that's how they [00:42:30] form and it's not clear. what drives their formation, that we need a huge supply of magma. Yeah. And it has to erupt really quickly. So it's not your normal mantle plume. It could be some different model of a mantle plume. We, it's not, um, [00:42:45] a super clear, it's not super clear how these things actually formed. Just

[00:42:49] Chris Bolhuis: curious, uh, just popped into my head. Have. You've not ever dated any of these rocks in the Columbia River basalts,

[00:42:57] Dr. Jesse Reimink: or No, I have not. I've got colleagues who work on [00:43:00] this and basically all they do is date they, they take rocks from the bottom of the laflow of the middle and the top, and then they determine the ages of when these rocks formed, and then they put together a time series of how rapidly these things, um, were erupted, and it's, it's really [00:43:15] crazy how quick they go.

[00:43:16] Chris Bolhuis: Okay. All right. Well, hey, let's talk about the next one then. Mid Ocean Ridge

[00:43:20] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Systems. Mid Ocean Ridge systems. These are the underdogs, I would say, the important ones that don't get any air. Right. And

[00:43:29] Chris Bolhuis: it's crazy [00:43:30] to me, Jesse, when I think about this, how important mid Ocean Ridge systems are in terms of like oars and, and you know, it's the biggest volcanic system that we have on the planet.

[00:43:39] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. And the reason they don't get any airways is because we rarely see 'em. They're underneath the ocean almost all the time. There's [00:43:45] only one spot on earth where we actually see this kind of thing. And it's in Iceland where the Mid-Ocean Ridge system is exposed up on land where you can kinda walk around on it. So all. , they're really important. I agree completely with you. They're very important for mineral systems. They're important for climate, [00:44:00] ocean chemistry, all the stuff. What's going on here? What do they look like?

[00:44:05] Chris Bolhuis: Okay. So to me, imagine a, a shield volcano. Okay. But it's not a circular shield. [00:44:15] It is a linear shield, like an incredibly long, okay. But it's gentle

[00:44:22] Dr. Jesse Reimink: sloping. That's a. Description right there. It's not a point source. It's a line source. It is

[00:44:28] Chris Bolhuis: a line source for sure. [00:44:30] So that's, to me, kind of what they look like. They're very, very gentle. Just like shield volcanoes are. If you take your back to the batter and hot skillet. Yep. You take the batter and you just pour it on across the [00:44:45] entire skillet in a line and it's gotta be runny batter and that's gonna form what looks like a mid ocean ridge.

[00:44:51] Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's right. And they look this way because there's a lot of magma often, very often basaltic magma coming up from the mantle. [00:45:00] And this is actually where new oceanic crust is forming. So all oceanic crust is formed at base at a mid ocean ridge system. And so the crust is pulling away there. There's lava coming up to fill that space. And it's actually. Forming new [00:45:15] rocks and forming like seven kilometers thick oceanic cross with all new lava coming out. So it's a lot of eruption going on, a lot, a lot, a lot eruption. And it's kind of, as the name implies, in the middle of many oceans, it's runs right down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in the [00:45:30] Pacific. It's not right down the middle, but it's all around the edges. And so Chris, why do they look this way? Like a shield volcano? I.

[00:45:37] Chris Bolhuis: Well, because it's made up of basalt and it's the same principle, it's very, very fluid, and so it tends to [00:45:45] pour easily and and not mound up. So you get this very gentle sloping volcanic feature.

[00:45:52] Dr. Jesse Reimink: And another part of the, the slope here is that as that new rock gets pulled away from the volcanic center, so it's [00:46:00] a line that's always constantly being pulled away from the center of the line. It cools down and as it cools down, it gets denser. And so it sinks down a little bit too. So we have that aspect going on a little bit as well. And you know, we don't see these erupting a lot. You know, their [00:46:15] character is, it varies a lot. Some mid-ocean ridges are erupting, a lot of lava very quickly. Some are erupting less, uh, more slowly, and it varies here. Uh, the speed of which the plates are separating kind of determines how much lava's coming [00:46:30] up basically. So their character varies quite a bit, but they're more like shield volcanoes than like strato volcanoes for the most part.

[00:46:37] Chris Bolhuis: So to finish this part of it off mid Ocean Ridge systems, this is where. New ocean floors. This [00:46:45] is where it all

[00:46:45] Dr. Jesse Reimink: begins. Yes, that's right, exactly. So, alright, Chris, to kind of wrap up this thing, we went through a bunch of different volcanic types. We went through the classic three shield volcanoes, straddle volcanoes, and cinder cones, but those are not inclusive enough. So we went through Riunite, [00:47:00] Calera complexes, the big ones. We went through some monogenetic fields, flood basalts, my personal favorite in the Mid-Ocean Ridge system, but, We've got one example here that we kind of wanna highlight the complexity. We wanna drive home the point that all volcanoes are [00:47:15] snowflakes and they're all kind of unique here. So let's discuss, uh, the Newberry volcanic complex. And this is up in Oregon, right?

[00:47:21] Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. I've spent a lot of time around this area. Um, and it is just, I don't know how else to say it. It's weird. It doesn't fit [00:47:30] into any of these categories, you know? I don't know. There, there are some varying ideas on. Formed this thing. Some say it's a hotspot, but actually current research suggests that this is subduction related. The same kind [00:47:45] of the same subduction event that forms Mount St. Helen's and Mount Rainier and the

[00:47:49] Dr. Jesse Reimink: three sisters in Oregon. Yeah, it's kind of in that line of volcanoes, right? It's sort of on the Cascadia line, little bit off the axis, but mostly sort of associated with those types of volcanoes, but it [00:48:00] doesn't look like them right at all. Yeah, so it looks kind of like a shield volcano. It looks like what has been classified as some intermediate thing, a shield shaped composite volcano. So it's got this kind of blend, right?

[00:48:12] Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. It's so weird. You can't nail [00:48:15] down what it looks like. You can't nail down what it's made of. I mean, it's made of basalt, it has andesite, it has rite. It's like it's very differentiated

[00:48:24] Dr. Jesse Reimink: magma. a very cool place, . So go check it out and go [00:48:30] think about how weird volcanoes are and how unique they all are and how each one's different and you gotta go check 'em all out to figure it all out. Right. I actually

[00:48:38] Chris Bolhuis: think we should do a full episode on the Newberry complex. in itself

[00:48:42] Dr. Jesse Reimink: at some point. Okay. Well that sounds good. [00:48:45] And the other one that. Interesting in this space is actually one of the most famous composite cones out there, or one of the most famous strata volcanoes out there, which is Mount Fuji or Fuji san. And this is a weird one because it's actually mostly [00:49:00] basalt. It is erupted, mostly basalt and usually strato volcanoes are this and acidic composition. So you know, the one we think of when we think of strato volcanoes doesn't really fit the classification scheme too well. There's some discussions about [00:49:15] why it is so different. Uh, it has a very voluminous eruption rate or a fast eruption rate, so it's much faster, more lava's coming out per unit time than other volcanoes in that arc system and it's basalt. But it builds up this beautiful strato [00:49:30] cone or strato volcano as well.

[00:49:31] Chris Bolhuis: In fact, when we, uh, when we interviewed Dr. Diana Roman, we said, what is your favorite looking volcano? And she right away said Fuji Song.

[00:49:40] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yes, that's right. It's like the perfect round symmetrical volcano. It's amazing. [00:49:45] You know, one, one last thing I want to kind of highlight here with these volcanoes is that I. Rocks and studied the chemistry of the rocks that erupted out of some of these things are,

[00:49:54] Chris Bolhuis: are you gonna go long here or what are we gonna, no, I'll, I'll try. Am I gonna take a nap right here,

[00:49:58] Dr. Jesse Reimink: right now then? Is that Yeah, [00:50:00] you could probably, you could probably leave. Why don't you just take off and I'll, I'll, I'll wrap it up here in the next hour. No, I think you know the plumbing system we've been talking about, the plumbing system, a little bit of magma and how things get caught in the throat and all that stuff. The plumbing system's really fascinating for [00:50:15] volcanoes, and again, each one is unique and each one's different. But when we look at the rock types, each volcano at its central source has a different rock type, but as you go away from that source, like you know, hundreds of feet or thousands of feet or a mile away from that source, still in the same [00:50:30] volcanic area. The rock type changes a lot, so we can get a lot of different rock types coming up in the same region or the same actually pretty close area on the mountains, islands, volcano. Lots of different rock types can kind of come up in different areas. And that makes some [00:50:45] sense because the magma plumbing system is really complicated. I mean, imagine your house plumbing system that looks pretty complicated. A volcano is, you know, orders of magnitude more complicated than this, but actually, Composition of the magma is different and the [00:51:00] sources are actually different. So actually those plumbing systems can be very close together and they can go very, very deep and be totally separate pipes so we can get magma from different places. very, very deep, if that makes sense. I mean, yeah,

[00:51:13] Chris Bolhuis: we talked about this [00:51:15] in the geo short last week. Yeah. You know, with, with Mount St. Helens and how this is the thing, right? I mean, it doesn't fit into these neat categories the way we. You know, even with Mount St. Helen's, you get this amazing diversity of [00:51:30] rock there, which means you have this diversity in magma, right? And it's just, I, it's awesome. I love this stuff. How, how, you know, what did its path look like coming to the surface? Did it come up and out fast? Did it [00:51:45] come up a little bit and then have a long residency, you know, in the crust? And then it's gonna change, you know, it's gonna diversify there. And yeah, I. . I love thinking through this kind of stuff.

[00:51:57] Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. It's amazing to sit there and look at a [00:52:00] volcano. You look at Yellowstone as soon as you realize it's a volcano, or look at Mount St. Helen's or look at, you know, the lost in volcanic field or any of these things and think, how did that form, that's really a fun exercise. Very, very [00:52:15] cool. Even

[00:52:15] Chris Bolhuis: with, um, Yellowstone, you have ray light of, of course you have basalt, which is confusing. Right. And you have a lot of obs. All in inside of this Calera, you know,

[00:52:28] Dr. Jesse Reimink: just very, very cool stuff. [00:52:30] All right, Chris, I think that's probably a wrap, right? The classifications of volcanoes is complicated. They're different. Each one's a snowflake, . That's right. That's right. Hey, that's a wrap on our re-release here of all things volcanoes. Stay tuned next week for more [00:52:45] volcano content coming at you, you can always check out our Camp Geo conversational textbook. There we have a whole chapter on volcanoes. So if you really wanna learn about the basics with some visuals, check that out. We just uploaded volcanoes content there. And, uh, shoot us an email, planet geo cast [00:53:00] gmail.com. Visit our website, planet geo cast.com. There you can subscribe, follow us, see all episodes, see some transcripts, and follow us on social media's at Planet Geo Cast. Take. [00:53:15]