3/19/09

The two-faced Greek god Janus is often invoked to symbolize the dualistic nature of things.  Volcanoes,  Janus-like, are fearsome destroyers of cities, but also bring renewal, fertility and life.
Volcanoes are unpredictable.  Sometimes they are only bluffing.  Sometimes they are big trouble.  But where would we be without them?


Chile’s Chaiten Volcano has been erupting again, forcing the relocation of the entire town.  Recently, about 150 people resisted evacuation.
Such situations raise some interesting issues.  Should people be allowed to place themselves in harm’s way?  What about their children?  Is there a duty to rescue those who have ignored warnings?

In Japan, the Sakurajima Volcano which has been frequently active since 1955, had been showing increased seismic activity for some time, and last week erupted as predicted, throwing debris up to 2 km away.  Though it is located adjacent to the city of Kagoshima, no damage was reported.  Spectacular footage of the eruption was circulated widely on the web

Meanwhile, in Alaska, the Redoubt Volcano, which was threatening to blow its top so convincingly that the Alaska Volcano Observatory was predicting an imminent eruption for the first two months of this year, prompting residents of Anchorage to store up on emergency supplies, has apparently begun to settle down without any dramatic outburst, and “threat levels have been reduced” .

Prediction of such complex, chaotic beasts will always be an inexact science.  But without the volcano monitoring funded by enlightened modern nations the loss of life and property would surely be much higher.

Volcanoes seem sometimes to be literally the gates of Hell, portals to a subterranean realm of fiery death.  (Janus is also the goddess of gates, which is why his visage adorns the doorways of so many temples) 
The sulfuric smell of volcanoes is probably responsible for the longtime association of hell with the element sulfur (brimstone is actually an ancient word for sulfur)  Volcanoes are a conduit to Earth’s interior, releasing trapped heat and recycling chemicals essential for maintaining Earth’s climate and for life itself.
Beautiful yellow sulfur deposits are often seen around the rims of volcanic vents. If you’ve ever gotten too close to such a vent (I have), the coughing, watery eyes and headaches may have reminded you how volatile and reactive sulfur is.  Sulfur burns and stinks because it is so chemically promiscuous, and that is also what makes it one of the “biogenic elements”, the essential elements of life, part of every molecule of the protein molecules in every organism on Earth.  Volcanoes also pump out lots of CO2, water vapor and methane, each of which, in various ways, helps make Earth a living planet.

The energy and chemical fertility of volcanic vents also make them a likely site for the origin of life on Earth.  In fact there is new evidence, from reanalysis of a long-forgotten experiment, that supports the idea that volcanoes may have been key players in the formation of the complex organic molecules that fueled (and became) the first life:

In 1953, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey performed the famous “Miller Urey experiment” which demonstrated that the building blocks of life can be made from gases common in primitive atmospheres when subjected to simulated lightning sparks.  (The actual original apparatus used for this landmark experiment is on display in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science!)   Urey was a already a Nobel Laureate and he indulged Miller by letting him try the experiment, which Urey didn’t think would work.  Apparently Miller, (who BTW is my "academic uncle", since Urey was thesis advisor to both Miller and my advisor John Lewis) also ran some experiments simulating chemistry in the more steam-rich environs of primitive volcanoes.  He thought these yielded no useful results and shelved the vial of reaction products.  But last year Jeffrey Bada, a former student of Miller (who died in 2007) found an old box in his office labeled “1953-1954 experiments”.  In it was the residue from Miller’s volcano chemistry simulation.  Using modern analytic tools, which were unavailable to Miller when he performed these experiments, Bada found that the vial of goo actually contained a rich mixture of biologcially important amino acids.  Although Miller never new it, the volcanic version of his experiment may have been much more promising as a clue to the origin of life than the originally published “Miller Urey experiment”.  The volcanic environment itself may even have provided the flash of lightning needed (think Frankenstein’s lab…) to spark life, as since many volcanic ash plumes also create dramatic lightning, as seen last year at Chaiten volcano .

Also making recent science news was the discovery of life in an Andean Volcano at nearly 20,000 feet – the highest altitude bacterial colony ever discovered.
It seems that volcanic gases are providing the carbon and the energy to allow life in these extreme conditions. 

Its not a coincidence that the other planets in the universe that seem most promising for life to exist are also those planets that show signs of volcanic activity…