10 October 2011
Evil Geologist Volcano Lairs: Location is key
Posted by Jessica Ball
A little while back, the Geological Society of London Blog posted about the best volcanoes for evil scientist lairs. Erik Klemetti didn’t like the top 5 choices, and decided to reveal his own: Mount Erebus. I have to admit, having evil (penguin) minions and an isolated location is pretty good for a mad scientist. And lava lakes are cool (and hot). But if I’m going to be spending all my time in my evil scientist lair, the climate had darn well better be warm, because I spend enough of my time dealing with below-freezing temperatures here in Buffalo. No Antarctica for me!
So my lair is going to be in the South Pacific on Pagan Island. Never heard of it? Here’s why it would be an awesome evil geologist hangout:
North Pagan stratovolcano. Photo by Norm Banks, 1983 (U.S. Geological Survey)
- No one lives there – there are two pesky stratovolcanoes which apparently make it unattractive real estate. But, when the people left, they also left behind buildings, WWII bunkers, and an air strip. All I need to do is plop some well-camouflaged facilities in the crater of South Pagan (North Pagan has a tendency to erupt), sink a few geothermal wells and set up my cabana on the beach. Even if the US Navy does drop in (they’re the only ones who seem to get out there anymore), I’m sure I can arrange with my Navy connections to have anything unusual “overlooked”.
- Close proximity of shark-infested waters. Shark hunting is banned in the Northern Mariana Islands. Remember Thunderball? Worked for a Bond villain, works for me. (The sharks will not be kept in the lair, by the way. Too easy to get chucked in myself.)
- North Pagan has explosive eruptions. If I’m testing a doomsday weapon, what better way to hide it than disguising it as an eruption plume? This might prove to be tricky for a death ray, but I’m sure it could be passed off as volcanic lighting.
Pagan as seen from the International Space Station. Astronaut photograph ISS014-E-11872 was acquired January 11, 2007; NASA EOS
- Since the people who evacuated from Pagan had to leave their animals behind, there are now feral cows, goats, and pigs roaming the island. Ever tried to stare down a cow? Or been charged by a pig? Penguins have pretty snappy uniforms, but a cow makes for a slightly more threatening minion. Plus, goats make good lawnmowers.
Would you want to face this down?
- Three words: Commercial grade pozzolan. 65 million metric tons of it. I won’t even need to rob anyone to fund my super evil activities. Financial independence, that’s key.
- It will not be necessary to wear multiple layers of clothing over my evil geologist gear.
Can't do this in Antarctica!
Once is a tryout, twice is a repeat, and three times is a meme – so I’m issuing the challenge. What’s your evil geologist volcano lair of choice?
Jessica Ball is a graduate student in the Department of Geology at State University of New York at Buffalo, where she is learning how to safely and productively play with very hot rocks. Her PhD research focuses on the interaction of water and lava domes, and involves both field investigations and modeling applications. Her blogging covers a range of topics, from life as a grad student to geoscience outreach to (of course!) her field and lab work in volcanology.
David said on 10 October 2011
Best post ever. I personally wouldn’t shoot for an earthly volcano for two reasons:
1. Its what one would expect, being both a volcano and being on earth, its the first place I’d look for an evil scientist, its too close to the do gooders and easy to identify.
2. Earthly volcanoes are too active for establishment of future generations of your evil domain, always think about the future!
Honestly I’d go with deep within Olympous Mons. If the lair is deep enough oxygen and carbon dioxide would be in a stable gasous form year round at the pressures, the gravity would be more comfortable, as well as increased temperature as a result of the pressure. As for your minions, if you want to say there are no martians, okay, cloning is always a good option and an army of prairie dog clones tunneling throughout Olympous Mons would certainly be a good security measure. Prairie dogs are best because they not only are rodents making them formitable minions due to being agressive and having teeth but they also tunnel and have an alert system for when someone is too close to the lair. Besides, don’t you love prairie dogs, their adorable, and nothing is better than taking down your enemies with something seemingly cute and cuddley.
Financially, no matter what mars has for resourses, there is almost certainly plenty of it that is also untouched. Large amounts of slow cooled magma deep within the planet would surely be all one needed to establish your domain.
Other advantages: invaders would have to cope with gruelling sandstorms and rough martian winters, playing hell with their electronic and mechanical devises.
Though my love of the red planet may make me bias.
Simon said on 11 October 2011
Thanks for this great post (especially, since I just watched Despicable Me).
And David: If you plan to rule the world from Mars, this will result in a galactic At&T-invoice for sending out your evil messages.
Better to stay on Earth. I would choose Ferdinandea as lair. Never heard from Ferdinandea? It is a a submerged volcanic island south-west of Sicily. And here is why I would choose this up-to-now-unknown Island:
1. The food is great in Italy, so I can foster my evil geologists torso.
2. It is a submarine environment – and have you ever seen more scary critters than the ones living in our oceans? Great minions (not as good as the yellow minions from Gur, but better than cows for sure).
3. When last erupted in 1831, Ferdinandea already nearly started a major war between Italy, France, the UK and most parts of the Mediterranean costal sovereigns. Ferdinandea rose above sea level, thus leading to territorial disputes. But prior to the first shot, Ferdinandea disappeared beneath the waves again in early 1832. Hence, Ferdinandea is the natural source for evil forces.
4. I already installed my evil geologists lair on Ferdinandea, thus leading to an uprise of the island in 2006. Fortunate for my conquer-the-world-plans, the island stayed undetected. It remained 6 meters below sea level – still concealing the super-villain facilities and high-tech laboratory.
5. This is the official version of an incident in 1986: US warplanes bombed Ferdinandea because they mistook the shoal for a Libyan submarine. And this is what happened in reality: Yes, we tested the first doomsday high-tech lights-flickering weapon – the tectonic-speed-up convector to increase the velocity of plate-movement.
Alexis said on 18 May 2012
Unfortunately, you’re not going to be able to use it for an evil lair. The Japanese are renting it to mine and store tsunami trash.
http://savepaganisland.org/
Jessica Ball said on 18 May 2012
That could be a downside. (Also, I believe it’s erupting at the moment, which would make both constructing an evil lair and trash storage a bit difficult.)