31 October 2014
Double, double, toil and trouble…
Posted by Jessica Ball
Sulfur Works mud pot at Lassen Volcanic National Park
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble…
Bubbles!
Fillet of a fenny snake, in the caldron boil and bake;
Pyrite-scummed hydrothermal pool at Bumpass Hell, Lassen Volcanic National Park
Eye of newt, and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
No newts, frogs, bats, or dogs allowed off the boardwalk!
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting, lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,
Fumaroles at Bumpass Hell (lots of nice, stinky hydrogen sulfide)
Fumaroles at Sulfur Works and montmorillonite-kaolinite steam-heated alteration.
For a charm of powerful trouble, like a hell-broth boil and bubble!
Happy Halloween!
(Boiling, bubbling, and hell-broths courtesy of Sulfur Works and Bumpass Hell at Lassen Volcanic National Park.)
Jessica Ball is a volcanologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, researching volcanic hydrothermal systems and stability, and doing science communication for the California Volcano Observatory. She previously worked at the Geological Society of America's Washington DC Policy Office, learning about the intersection of Earth science and legislative affairs. Her Mendenhall postdoc and PhD focused on how water affects the stability of volcanoes, and involved both field investigations and numerical modeling applications. Her blogging covers a range of topics, from her experiences in academic geosciences to science outreach and communication to her field and lab work in volcanology.