Researchers call on British Columbians to share what they know about the risk from volcanoes | 24CA News
Many British Columbians are well-versed in earthquake drills and have seemingly weathered a couple of important storms and floods of their lifetime, however how conscious are they concerning the hazards posed by a attainable volcanic eruption?
This is the query researchers at Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Natural Hazards Research are attempting to reply via a web-based survey open to B.C. residents age 18 and older.
The 12-15 minute survey asks a sequence of inquiries to gauge how a lot individuals know concerning the location of volcanoes in B.C. and the dangers related to an eruption. The survey is open till March 31, 2023.
There are a number of stratovolcanoes — the sort recognized for his or her explosive eruptions — in southern B.C., together with Mount Garibaldi, the Mount Meager massif close to Pemberton, and the neighbouring Mount Cayley volcanic subject that stretches from the Pemberton Icefield to the Squamish River.
The purpose, says Melanie Kelman, a volcanologist with the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), is for SFU researchers to seek out the gaps in individuals’s data to tell future academic assets.
“We really want to know what they know so that we can give people the information that they need,” mentioned Kelman, talking to The Early Edition Tuesday.
The Early Edition5:59The explosive fact about volcanoes in BC
Volcanologist Melanie Kelman speaks with Gloria Macarenko about how the mountains are very lively across the province.
After centuries of inactivity, a volcano within the Alaskan panhandle, about 450 kilometres northwest of Prince Rupert, B.C., has lately woke up from dormancy.
Scientists have traced a swarm of minor earthquakes round Sitka, Alaska, in 2020 to magma exercise beneath Mount Edgecumbe (L’úx Shaa), round 450 kilometres northwest of Prince Rupert, B.C.
The City of Prince Rupert mentioned its emergency personnel had been made conscious of the regional volcanic exercise and has reviewed its emergency plans.
“At this point, there has been no local alert or hazard watch issued for our area,” mentioned town in a press release to 24CA News in November after a examine from the University of Alaska confirmed rising magma ranges beneath Mount Edgecumbe.
The knowledge-gathering work being carried out at SFU might be used to tell a bigger challenge being undertaken by Kelman and GSC to create a hazard evaluation map and data instruments.
A hazard evaluation, mentioned Kelman, should take into accounts lava circulate, volcanic ash protection, particles circulate and pyroclastic circulate, which is a fast-moving present of volcanic matter and scorching fuel that may attain speeds of a number of hundred kilometres per hour.
“The area where we have the most people close to volcanoes that pose a higher threat is in southwest B.C., but we do have volcanoes around the province, and they do threaten populations,” mentioned Kelman.
“We really want to know what [people] know so that we can give them the information that they need,” she added.
According to Natural Resources Canada (NRC), there have been not less than 49 volcanic eruptions in B.C. and the Yukon within the final 10,000 years. The most up-to-date eruption in Canada was in northwestern B.C. about 150 years in the past.
“The forces that produced these volcanoes are still active, and some of them will erupt again, although we don’t know when,” says the NRC on its web site.
