Ash Thursday

Is it just me, or does the Earth’s crust seem awfully fidgety these days? There have been earthquakes all over the place lately, it seems, and now air travel throughout Europe has been paralyzed by ashfall from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano.

It might be getting worse. Apparently, as bad as the current eruption is, the real threat comes from Katla, another volcano nearby. According to this item in USA Today, should Katla let loose the cataclysm “would likely send the world, including the USA, into an extended deep freeze.”

(That would be bad, I guess, by most people’s lights, though with another New York City summer staring me in the face (see, for example, here, here, here, and here), it sounds to me like a pretty sweet deal.)

Meanwhile, if you’re starting up an End Of Days seismic-catastrophe pool at the office, I think the smart money is on the Cascadia Subduction Zone up in the Pacific Northwest. We’ve had a lot of action all around the eastern Pacific lately, and my sources tell me that sucker’s ready to rip.

6 Comments

  1. Good thing I had a chance to walk through much of the Pacific Northwest, then. I’ll be sorry to see all those bike paths disappear.

    Meantime… 2012 is coming!! Jerry Bruckheimer and John Cusack have given us our first warning! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!

    Posted April 15, 2010 at 11:30 pm | Permalink
  2. JK says

    Neat pictures here:
    http://www2.norvol.hi.is/

    Not forgetting Cascadia though:
    http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/

    Posted April 16, 2010 at 7:10 pm | Permalink
  3. JK says

    Normally, I’d never be one to suggest such a thing, actually I’d never even considered such an idea. I’m certain my friend David Duff’ll be all over me for even considering such a barbarity. Except…

    (And this should also help us in the Third World.)

    But glaciers are melting big-time, airplanes can’t fly, and it looks like if this heating keeps up, global temperatures will drop due to all the heating of the atmosphere caused by … well you see where my policymakers have brought me?

    I admit, the guy probably wouldn’t fit the qualifications of an Aztec virgin (Google – “Tipper Gore” and “Phillip Morris”) but dadgum, even HIS jets are grounded. Dedicated as Al is, hell he’ll probabably volunteer to save the world from all the heat and CO2 EyjafjallajÁ¶kulls putting out

    David Duff? If you’re reading this, suggest us a “European Green Leader” with helicoptering skills and I, like you, will appreciate their sacrifice getting dropped into the volcano and stopping “in it’s tracks” Global Warming.

    Then we can all sit back and watch the sunsets.

    Posted April 17, 2010 at 12:07 am | Permalink
  4. the one eyed man says

    I pass by the San Andreas fault pretty much every day, and I try to throw a quarter in whenever I do, so I can be generous to a fault.

    Posted April 17, 2010 at 10:25 am | Permalink
  5. That’s faulty reasoning.

    Jeffery Hodges

    * * *

    Posted April 19, 2010 at 2:19 pm | Permalink
  6. Malcolm says

    Oooh, that was a nasty crack, Jeffery.

    Posted April 19, 2010 at 2:34 pm | Permalink

Post a Comment

Your email is never shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*