[ExI] seattle and mt. rainier

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Apr 19, 2020, at 10:41 AM, spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 
> ...
> 
>> ...I know personally a civil engineer who I went to school with, who is a
> literal recent creationist.  Part of his job is to do core samples and map
> out historic mud flows in the Seattle area, so they know where are the best
> evacuation routes in case the mountain blows and dumps a wall of snow and
> mud on the towns north and west of there...spike
> 
> 
> By way of explaining that comment, since plenty of our ExI posters live in
> the Seattle area: that city is built on historic mud flows from Mount
> Rainier.  We saw what happened when Mount. St. Helens blew and we know that
> Mt. Rainier is an active volcano.  Sooner or later, good chance the same
> will happen there, but... if it does nearly everyone can survive, assuming
> they know exactly what to do.  
> 
> My friend lives a little less than 17 miles from the mountain as the crow
> flies.  There is an evacuation route and a reasonable estimated time before
> the mud gets there.  If a person is prepared and that person will moooooove
> her aaasssssss along the known route, she can escape and live.  But there is
> no time to lose.  
> 
> It's a cool thing, most worthwhile to be one who helps develop escape routes
> and procedures based on historic mud flows.  Deciding where to send the crew
> to collect an informative core sample then interpreting it after the fact
> with a microscope would be a career I would consider if I had it to do over
> again.

Minor correction: Seattle itself is not built on any recent volcanic mud flows (or lahars). Its hills are mostly the more recent work of glaciers.

No part of Seattle itself is within 17 miles (27 km) of Rainier. Mount Rainier is about 100 km away and the volcanic activity that did form some of Seattle's landforms were during the Oligocene according to my reading. Those volcanoes are long gone (mashed into the Cascades, no doubt.) Rainier is a relative baby and far away.

By the way, if you live near Rainier (or Baker, which is far to the north of Seattle), the evacuation routes are marked in many areas. I believe some of the schools do drills in that area. Personally, I wouldn't want to live in that area -- even though it's spectacular and I often hike through it. (I hike near Mt Rainier and Mt. Baker a few times a year.)

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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