Wednesday, November 4, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
Volcanoes,
volcanoes, and
more volcanoes!
E d i t o r 9s n o t e : J i m
Anderson is all settled in
in Eugene 4 and missing his
readers. So& he submitted his
first post-retirement column.
Well, here we are in
Eugene preparing to move
into a little <mother-in-law
house= my son Caleb is going
to build onto his garage for
my wife, Sue, and me. We
don9t have a Pilot Butte on
the skyline, but a Skinner
Butte, and one armed with
telescopes so we can see
what9s going on out in Mars.
But right now, I want to
chinwag about the volcanoes
in our front yards.
The first thought I had
when I saw the magnificent
Three Sisters volcanoes,
<Faith, Hope, and Charity,=
aka South, Middle, and
North Sister when I was roll-
ing into Bend on my Harley
in late September of 1951,
was, <Wow!= and then the
thought hit me, <When will
they erupt again?=
Here it is, almost 70 years
later and those same thoughts
go through my mind at least
once a day.
I can recall the time
my wife, Sue, and I were
headed home one night
from Portland in a sweet,
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old single-engine Piper
Comanche on a full-moon-lit
night, and I about drove the
FAA controller in Seattle up
a wall.
<Piper Comanche 69
Pop, say you can see Mt.
Jefferson,= the controller
kept repeating as we flew
closer and closer to the bright
moonlit peak of the old vol-
cano. There was a brisk wind
blowing a plume of ice and
snow off the peak of the
mountain that looked 4 to
me 4 so much like steam; I
just had to be sure& As we
flew past the peak we could
see the <steam= wasn9t, but
just ice and snow that fooled
me.
In the past 12,000 years,
several eruptions have
taken place on vents near
the Cascade crest all around
Jefferson, building glacial
valleys, including Forked
Butte and North Cinder Peak.
While the most recent erup-
tion from Jefferson was also
from a cinder cone on the
flank of South Cinder Peak,
with a lava flow that reached
Lake Marion to the west.
You just never know when
the old volcano is going
to wake up 4 like Mt. St.
Helens did on May 18, 1980,
at 8:32 a.m. After spewing
steam for weeks, warning
everyone to duck, the top
blew off the old volcano.
Mt. Jefferson is the sec-
ond-highest mountain in
Oregon, named by Lewis
and Clark to honor the presi-
dent who had sponsored their
expedition.
Although it is deeply
eroded and has probably not
erupted for at least 1,000
years, it is still considered
active, and I was hoping that
plume was steam, not ice and
snow.
It9s safe to say that when
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Connie Boyle
541-508-1500
Box 615 Sisters, OR 97759
PHOTO BY JIM ANDERSON
The Three Sisters, just three of the many, many volcanoes in our front — and back — yards.
old Jefferson blows its top
again it9s going to be one
pretty powerful show, and as
I flew by the summit I was
hoping I could report the
beginning of that show.
But I guess we9ll have
to wait for <The Big One.=
Ahhh, yes! The big one!
That9s what9s coming,
good people. Oregon State
University seismology scien-
tists say the big one is com-
ing to the Pacific Northwest
in the form of a massive
earthquake that will cause
buildings and bridges to col-
lapse and unleash a tsunami
that will devastate the coast.
And, just to make life even
more interesting, maybe it9ll
trigger one or two of our
sleeping volcanoes to wake
up and put on a show no one
will ever forget.
If you want to read an
excellent preview of the big
one, go to www.newyorker.
com/magazine/2015/07/20/
the-really-big-one, and then
start getting your emergency
supplies stored up.
North Sister is the gla-
cially eroded remnant of
an andesitic-dacitic strato-
volcano, exposing the vol-
cano9s central plug. Middle
Sister volcano is located less
than a mile to the south. It is
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basaltic-to-rhyolitic in com-
position and less eroded than
North Sister, but there are no
known eruptions in the past
10,000 years.
And then there9s the
sleeping giant, South Sister.
Not too many years back,
space agencies in Europe
sent a message to USGS stat-
ing they could see a hot spot
rising beneath the southwest
side of South Sister. That got
Larry Chitwood, geologist
for the Deschutes National
Forest, to head out to Snow
Creek and see if he could
identify any gases rising
from the hot spot.
Larry found basaltic gases
coming up from beneath the
creek and invited me to join
him when the lava reached
the surface.
<We can sit in our lawn
chairs on top of Bachelor and
watch the lava roll past us on
its way to Bend,= he said.
Larry9s gone out among
the stars, so he and I will
have to share that when I see
him soon in that other place
we call home.
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