I always wondered about the many earthquakes at clear lake its the only volcano in the united states that have so many earthquakes. is it at risk of erupting ?
@@DutchFR1908 they are a result of injecting fluids into the geysers hydrothermal system. shortly after starting that field, they ran out of steam underground. so later it was decided that they should pump sewer effluent into the ground to produce the steam they needed to run the plant, I know right...kind of gross. earthquakes ensued and continue to this day.
Nice! That is awesome! So you were right! I really hope your channel continues to grow and become more and more popular. You’ve definitely saved lives with your warnings on volcanoes
The volcanic field extends to 4 counties: Lake, Napa, Sonoma, and Marin (this last one being the vent mentioned that's near Novato). I used to live in the area (Sonoma Valley, to be specific). There's a fair number of hot springs (some have resorts), geysers ("Old Faithful of California" by Calistoga, and the ones giving name to the village of Geyserville, which are now used for geothermal power), and there is a fair amount of obsidian that can be found in the surround hills/short mountains. Also of geologic interest is a petrified forest (by Calistoga close to Old Faithful) and the usual Californian faults and earthquakes.
The vent mentioned is shown to be near Sonoma Raceway which is in Sonoma County as you know. (Yeah, Novato is the closest city to it but I need my pedantry badge here. 😅) I am glad you mentioned the hot springs (and resorts) and geysers. Nothing like a mud bath in Calistoga.
I grew up in Novato, so the minute it was mentioned I had to pause the video and go back and listen again. I was going to ask where that vent was, then I saw the other comment saying it was near the Sears Point Raceway (sorry, it will always be Sears Point to me, lol). I need to see a map that shows this volcanic field more! Ever since I started watching this channel I've been trying to identify the ancient maars and cinder cones everywhere, lol.
Lake County Diamonds are locally famous. These volcanic silica diamonds can be found literally everywhere in Lake County. And there are lava bombs 6ft (2m) in diameter around the lake shore and as far away as Lower Lake, 5+ miles down Morgan Valley Rd.
Just wish more of my friends in Clearlake could appreciate the science and anthropology behind this. The article on which this video is based is a really fascinating read!
@@russellhobbs4945 Not funny. That's about the rudest thing a perfect stranger could say about me. Personally you don't know me nor any of my friends, all of whom are college educated (just in different subjects) and none of whom partake in illicit drugs. In fact the only people who make jokes like that about Clearlake, resemble their remarks.
Where in the hell were you and your friends when I lived there? I'm telling you half the people I knew in Lake County couldn't read much less if you one of these videos and all their big words
@@funkycongaface2134 Sorry to hear that. And I've heard it before. I've certainly met some interesting people in passing over the years. But that was never my sphere. We were all working, going to college, starting businesses, raising kids and using the appropriate vocabulary to discuss various sciences and philosophies, news, etc.
@@sariahmarier42 ya got me! I used talk to text and of course it came out wrong. Get your kids the hell out of Lake County and if your business is still alive I'd get it out of there too
Dang, much more recent than previously thought. With that sort of activity, the people living there may have little to no warning if there is an eruption. The beauty and danger living near an active site.
I live at the edge of Clear Lake. This area reminds me of a giant salad bowl...and if that Mt. K. ever goes off, oooops....here comes the 'red spicy salad dressing'. Meanwhile, I have a great view from North Shore.
Climbed Mt. Konocti yesterday! I cant believe how many people live right on-top of where there cpuld be future erputions! Nice mountain to be on though even if its not as epic as Lassen or Shasta, there's just something up high and cozy about it.
this is no surprise to the locals, there are huge obsidian deposits to the east of the lake not to mention Sulphur banks roads complete with a terrible stink. the entire area looks kind of wasteland like.
Good, it's nice to see more USGS work being done on various volcanoes to learn its more history. It would be nice if Mt Jefferson would get full analysis done, as it's history is bit murky as there is rare Holocene eruptions like one at 950 AD by red cinder cone near Jefferson, I think.
fracking on Cobb is the most common cause. I live 1/2 mile from Konocti and it's not the source. It's even been a while, like a few years since we've had any Sulphur odors around here.
problem is ice age was different for many volcanoes, the weight of ice sheet, the level of sea 150m lower, all lake and river existing, sub glacier erup^tion.
That must be a Native American word then? I have Croatian ancestry and I always find it fascinating how some of their words sound similar to the ones of my people.
I used to live there in clearlake oaks and they used to fish that lake quite a bit and that little Bay just west of the volcano if you go there there's a rock piles and you will see bubbles and steam coming up out of the water I mean it's active that place has been alive for a long time. And you can feel the vibration in the water
I just heard on the CBC that there's increasing activity on a volcano in the Nass River area of northwest BC (an area populated by literally dozens of people) near the border with the Alaska Panhandle.
The clearlake is the oldest lake in North America thanks to the seismic activity. Normally a lake gradually fills in overtime, but the lakebed keeps dropping preventing that. While gassed venting into the lake make for a natural hit spring at the base of Mt. Konocti, the high sulphur content create a drowning hazard as the gas displaces oxygen. People had built up a wall over a vent to enhance the hot tub effect but after a drowning, the Park Service from Clearlake State Park went out and tore the wall down to allow fresh air to dilute the gassed bubbling out of the lake and prevent future drownings
We used to go to the baths often. I know who the fatality was, the father of a coworker at the time....he was drunk. The local residents there just wanted to lock out others which, with our old boy network here, they succeeded. Too bad.
I've been to clear lake once last summer, driving back from norcal to socal. Very nice place to stop on a road trip break. Made the mistake of jumping off the dock onto a mud layer though, i sank knee deep and almost lost my shoe lol. Didn't realize how much volcanic activity there was there!
I also worry about the salton buttes too. Clear lake is just another california one keep an eye on and now added to my list of USA volcanoes to keep an eye on for increased major activity now, thx.
The Salton Sea/Imperial Valley is located in an area where there is a tremendous amount of heat rising up through the shallow Crust. The Crust is weak and highly fractured in this area..in general terms, the Gulf of California is moving north as the zipper continues to move north too. It is an exciting geologic area with active mud volcanoes, CO2 vents, 600°F salty water call brine just a few 1000 feet at depth being tapped for geothermal energy..and a big prize...Lithium!!!!
@@seanhagerty3562 It's probably then qay under estimated in size and volume. It also must be the starting plume area for the east Pacific rise, thus can be way more catastrophic if goes off than even origionally thought. They say its just a mini caldera, eh, don't underestimate that one's girth and spew amount, especially since a huge plume feeds it.
The geology of the Mendocino Highlands is so fascinating because of the different layers of geologic activity that it shows. Just a little northeastvof Konocti is Snow Mountain, which is accreted oceanic material from the prior subduction activity there. A little southwest is Mount Saint Helena, which is made of welded debris from a larger volcano that used to be there. It's also wild to realize that the most recent eruptions of Konocti were during a time period where the indigenous peoples of the area were living there.
"Consider the earth’s history as the old measure of the English yard, the distance from the king’s nose to the tip of his outstretched hand. One stroke of a nail file on his middle finger erases human history." - John McPhee.
Do you think land around some of these would be cheaper? People live in areas that have hurricane every year. Living near a volcano that MAY erupt in the next few thousand yrs doesn't sound bad at all
Elemental mercury and mercury sulphides (cinnabar) are not very dangerous. Just don't burn and inhale the oxides. Heck, you could swallow some elemental mercury, if you really wanted to. But pooping liquid metal would be weird. It does not interact very much with biology. It's a problem when it combines with carbon. Methylmercury is nasty, bioaccumulative stuff.
@@cacogenicist the lake is surrounded by mercury mines. In fact, the tailings of one mine literally extends into the lake. There’s a warning on eating the fish out of the lake because of it. Methyl mercury is formed in the algae layer at the bottom of the lake. The heat that makes the geysers will “retort” the cinnabar making elemental mercury. It’s then made bioavailable by methylation.
About 20 years ago, a young man swam out to a tiny rock outcrop where there was a bubbling spring. Due to the CO2 level in the air surrounding the small spring, he succumbed to the absence of oxygen and died. I believe the isolated spring has been signed/maybe fenced to protect/warn the public
They actually removed the small retaining wall that allowed people to sit in the area, it was like a small jacuzzi. Supposedly it had healing powers. He went alone and succumbed to the air and they found him. @@seanhagerty3562
Have you ever done a video about the 5-6 extinct volcanoes on the west mesa of Albuquerque, NM? I've lived there on and off and don't know much about them, other than they sit there and they're a local landmark.
Since the end of the last glacial period when we entered the interglacial we call the Holocene. Earth right now is in an Ice Age and has been for the recent 3 million years. Somehow people think we live in a warm world when in fact those recent 3 million years have been the coldest in the last 200 million years including today.
Those dates suggest a much more regular period than its 9000ish year dormancy. Is this it winding down toward extinction, just it oversleeping, or typical of similar complexes?
Pretty typical, really. As was mentioned in the Fourpeaked video, volcanoes can go thousands or even tens of thousands of years between eruption cycles, and they all have their own patterns and personalities. Some like Stromboli have been almost constantly erupting throughout recorded history; others like the Cascade volcanoes may only have bursts of activity at long intervals. Every volcano is unique, and that's a big part of what makes them so fascinating.
it’s both humbling and refreshing that I have absolutely nothing to contribute to this comment section and most comments I can’t even understand … totally behind on all things volcano… except I researched a bunch of the farthest reaching explosions a few times. I was thinking about buying property there… one piece right on the lake in Nice. But, if anyone’s interested… I can talk about the algae blooms!
Mount St. Helens and Mount Pelee come to mind, which both had flank pressure releases and explosive eruptions. Surely, they were not exclusively phreatic in origin, but ground water flashing to steam certainly played a role.
Jamie is honestly more imformed than the mr geo who simply read some imformation and repeted it. I live in Kelseyville Propper. Next to Mt. Konocti. Yes she is active...
I've lived in Lake county most of my life. Us locals have noticed what seems like a high rate of cancers in guys who worked for decades up at the geysers and the guys always smell like sulfer. It's there a known health risk (aside from eruptions) to working in volcanic fields? Also, how far away from the eruption is lava flow likely to travel? Hidden valley? P.S. it's pronounced more like "kuh-NAHK-tī".
There has been a >5 earthquake a few hundred kilometres of the Californian cost where no quakes have ever been recorded. It happened about 2 weeks ago. Could you find out some further details please.
Magnitude-5 earthquakes would not be considered unusual for any part of California, particularly the coastal regions. They happen several times a year when the state is taken as a whole. Every so often, one goes off in a previously undetected fault-line. It mostly just means instrumentation wasn't in place or precise enough to have previously made such detections. There's usually a Magnitude-6 or better once or twice per decade. Those ones can be felt a long distance away from their epicenters, so most Californians are not terribly surprised to feel a quake every now and then.
Is this related to Yellowstone? Since the McDermit caldera, an earlier caldera of Yellowstone located in northern Nevada befote the plate moved past it, lines up directly with Clearlake. And many of not most geologist believe the earlier Calderas of Yellowstone continue all the way through California into the pacific. But are now ghost volcanos. It would be a remarkable coincidence that Clearlake volcanic field lines up directly with Yellowstone & it's previous calderas in, Pocatello, Twin Falls & McDermit.
@@adamc1966 I've watched a lot of videos by professor Nick Zentner of Central Washington University who does a series on RU-vid called "Nick on the Rocks". He stated the calderas continue past McDermit caldera in Nevada all the way to the pacific & beyond. But now they are "ghost volcanoes" i.e too old and eroded by geological forces to be found. I believe that's in his "ghost volcanoes of the pacific northwest" lecture. I find it inconceivable that clear lake lining up nearly perfectly with McDermit, twin falls, Pocatello & Yellowstone calderas is just coincidence.
Good Old Lake County where pot growers go to fold up and die and we're drug addicts go to fold up and die Pleasant little place. Just don't get involved with the law enforcement or the low life which means complete solitude I hope you have enough money to live on the lakefront I did but I still involved myself with both. Now I live in desert with nothing. Poverty never seems so sweet as it does now
It's the complacentcy. Familuraity Breeds Obstinance. Every one here is used to the steam when it rains and dying trees. There are so many femor wholes we do not get small quakes.
I do believe they mined out 3 million ounces of flour gold from Mt.Konocti. ("Ko-Noc-Ti") between 1980-2000$. It ran out eventually, of course. They've never run out of Tweekers, Burglers, and Parolees in Lake County. (thank gawd!! 😊)
The lake itself is extremely shallow... A fact that many do not know. By shallow, we are talking like 36 feet deep on average. So should a heating event or eruption take place, with the magma chamber being so close to the surface already.. Much of that water would flash to steam. Which is actually sort of more dangerous. Because steam expands and takes up more volume than condensed water. Under pressure that steam has no where to escape..this becomes explosive and sending whatever debris up and outward.
Wondering if you might have some sources for information about Pu'u Olai on Maui... some sources seem to indicate a 1790 eruption. it does looks like a relatively new cone. What are the odds that a future Haleakala eruption could be in the form of an explosive rift zone cone?
@@maxpower19711 Just because there's a large magma chamber doesn't mean a major eruption is going to happen. Not much of the magma chamber's content is liquid and ready to erupt.
It's away from a subduction zone, so it's not being constantly fed new magma. I could be wrong, but I think that would reduce or eliminate the possibility of a major erruption.
@@jessikamiranda2306 yeah but we're not talking about ready-to-erupt magma erupting nowhere near to our life times. I'm talking about it eventually producing a supereruption someday. For example, yellowstone has a massive magma chamber, most of it not molten nor ready to erupt and it will certainly produce another super eruption in the future
Wait until you find out about the rugby stadium in Auckland that was literally built on top of a plowed over cinder cone. Thankfully its a monogenetic field, so very low chances of an eruption in that particular spot again (though occasionally monogenetic fields can erupt multiple times out of the same vent and nearby Rangitoto island has erupted multiple times iirc, so perhaps the Auckland volcanic field is capable of such things), but still pretty crazy to think about
"I love how you keep politics away from this fascinating subject!" - a bit of an odd take, at least to me. Are there pro-volcano and anti-volcano factions fighting each other?
@@TheDanEdwards I would imagine that there are people or factions who would either downplay or overstate certain dangers, as well as cut/increase funding towards geologic threats. I mean pretty much everything can be politicized, though thankfully geology seems to have remained relatively unscathed and certain government volcano monitoring programs are notoriously reliable.
@@kehenabeach4418 I presume it is because every time the word California appears on the Internet it kick starts the California haters to start spewing.
@@danielcarroll3358 Maybe… It’s just refreshing to here information without some Left/Right bias that everyone seems to want throw out there. I just appreciate the way this channel presents information.
Clear lake is the murkiest lake you will ever see. And there is something about Lake County that is malevolent. Bad things happen there for no reason. Or so I have observed.
