Can you drill into a supervolcano to relieve pressure? (2016)
<i>&quot;People who think a nuclear device is comparable to the energy released by a volcano just haven&#x27;t seen a restless volcano up close. They are a whole lot bigger than they seem to be in the films. Mount St Helens is a relatively small volcano, yet it still took me nearly 6 hours to walk out of the center crater.&quot;</i><p>I can well attest to that. A year or so after the major eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, I had business in both Portland and Seattle and on that occasion I drove from Portland to Seattle rather than fly, as I&#x27;d normally do. (I&#x27;d been to Tektronix to whinge about ongoing problems we&#x27;d been having with a PAL 625 TV sync pulse generator—an interesting story in itself but I&#x27;ll leave that for another time).<p>I live an ocean away—thousands of miles from Portland but I had an ulterior motive for renting a vehicle in Portland and driving to Seattle, as this time I wanted to visit and drive over the &#x27;renewed&#x27; Tacoma Narrows bridge which replaced the infamous <i>Galloping Gertie</i> that failed in 1940—of which I&#x27;d learned so much about years earlier in structures and physics. Having a vehicle made that possible.  Visiting Mt St Helens wasn&#x27;t on my agenda—and I&#x27;d already seen it post the 1980 eruption from a commercial SFO&#x2F;SEA flight although I did expect to see it in the distance to the east from the I5.<p>It was somewhat latish afternoon, 3:30–4:00 pm, when I arrived at my nearest point on the I5 to Mt St Helens and unexpectedly nearby there was a small airfield. Signs on the highway indicated that a company was offering joy flights to Mt St Helens, so on-the-spur-of-the-moment I decided to take the flight. Unfortunately, I was the only one wanting a flight at that time and the pilot told me that it was uneconomic to take only one person (two being the minimum) so I&#x27;d have to wait until additional sightseers turned up—and if that didn&#x27;t happen soon (within 15 or so minutes) then it&#x27;d be too late in the day to fly! Anyway, I struck a deal at somewhat less than the amount for two people and we were on our way.<p>I don&#x27;t need to describe this remarkable scene except to say it was spectacular—much more so than the somewhat limited view from the commercial jet; and anyone who&#x27;s interested will already be familiar with the wonderful photos in <i>National Geographic</i> and elsewhere. However, one point I must comment on is that for mile after mile in this desolate lunar-mud-like landscape the remaining trunks of the flattened pine trees were all facing radially away from the exit point of the explosion like the spokes of a bicycle wheel, it was one of the strangest sights I&#x27;ve ever seen. There was no doubt that this was an extremely huge explosion.<p>After doing the standard joy flight, the pilot suggested that seeing I&#x27;d paid much more than the normal fare would I like him to take me closer to the crater. Gleefully, I agreed and we not only got closer to the crater <i>but we actually flew around inside it</i> — right, the crater is truly huge when one&#x27;s actually inside it! When the author says it took him nearly <i>&#x27;six hours to walk out of the center of the crater&#x27;</i> he not exaggerating one iota.<p>&#x27;Tis a damn shame photos aren&#x27;t allowed on HN, otherwise I&#x27;d post some of my old slides taken from inside the crater (they&#x27;re truly spectacular).