Potential for volcanic activity in Salton Sea
By Keith Matheny, The (Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert Sun
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"Eventually, something is going to come to the surface in the Salton Sea area. But we're a long, long way from being able to make any predictions on that," said Patrick Muffler, a USGS geologist from Palo Alto who's spent more than four decades focused on geothermal energy, and whose studies include the Salton Buttes.
Muffler said he "would not anticipate" any sort of major eruption occurring at the Salton Buttes like the 2010 eruption in Iceland that left European air travel in chaos, or the 1980 eruption at Mount St. Helens in Washington state that killed 57 people.
"Would not anticipate," Muffler admits, is a "carefully crafted phrase."
"We didn't anticipate St. Helens, either," or the massive explosion out of the side of its cone, he said.
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"It's not like you'd have to run for your life to get out of the way" of another Salton Buttes eruption, Muffler said. "It's like a paste."
But as the 1989 USGS bulletin found, the dynamic of the Salton Sea nearby and a relatively shallow water table due in large part to human agricultural activities in the region could make any new eruption volatile, according to Perry.
"Steam-charged eruptions are very unpredictable and can be extremely dangerous, absolutely," he said.
Earthquake swarms -- hundreds of small earthquakes occurring over a period of a few days -- have occurred in the Obsidian Butte area several times in recent years, including last year and in 2009....
