VANCOUVER — The eclectic mix of scientists, educators, emergency managers, geology nerds, parents and children rumbled through the Cascades Volcano Observatory open house Saturday with the din of engaged scientific conversations — but one room was distinctively louder and more bursting with energy than the rest.
Tucked in a corner room with a “Who Wants to be a Volcanologist” video game were the GeoGirls — an excited group of teenage girls who participate in a program that pairs junior high school girls with female geologic scientists. The program, which started in 2015, brings 25 girls from Oregon and Washington to Mount St. Helens for five days and four nights,exposing them to a variety of women experts and mentors.
“My eighth grade science teacher was super into geology and she said I should apply,” said Marquesa Calderon, 16, of Tigard, Ore., who participated in the program a few years ago. “I fell in love being around women scientists. Now I get to help the program out as a senior.”
Through her time in the program, Calderon said she learned quite a bit about the range of jobs available in science. She plans to pursue a geology career of her own once she graduates, she added.
“I wasn’t even aware of how many different jobs there are in geology,” Calderon said. “Seeing powerful women in all those fields really pushed me toward science. I want to focus on geology and ecology and where those go together.”
The GeoGirls were a small part of the larger open house, which contained dozens of displays on volcanoes,hydrology, sedimentology, hot spots and lab work done by the U.S. Geologic Survey at the observatory, which was founded in 1982 in reaction to the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption.
The observatory holds the open house every few years, depending on timing and workload, said Carolyn Driedger, hydrologist and outreach coordinator.
“It takes a lot of work to pull these off right at a time when everyone is getting ready for summer fieldwork,” Driedger said, noting that geologists often go out into the field to study the Earth during summers. “The reason we do this is because we know how fascinated people are with volcanoes.”
Visitors snaked their way through displays on volcano hazards, ash flows, lahars, the Ring of Fire, Cascadia volcanoes, the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program, displays of igneous rock and even a “trashcano” experiment. The experiment used a trash can, water balloons, a soda bottle and liquid nitrogen to show how a pyroclastic volcano like Mount St. Helens spreads debris (which in this case was mimicked by the water balloons bursting out of the trash can).
Perhaps the hottest topic of conversation throughout the event was the recent volcanic eruption in Hawaii, and the Cascades Volcano Observatory is involved in studying that topic as well.
The Vancouver observatory is part of a network of five volcano observatories in the United States and is the main core of those five, although the Hawaiian observatory is the oldest, built in 1912. When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, scientists from the Hawaiian observatory came to Vancouver to help study the event. Now, with the eruption in Hawaii, at least two scientists from the Cascades Observatory have traveled to that state to help.
“All these observatories work together,” said Seth Moran, a seismologist and scientist in charge at the event. “You can see that in Hawaii right now. … Every time there’s a crisis that can harm people, no observatory can cover the whole thing.”
The Hawaiian volcano is very different from Cascade Range volcanoes. Hawaii is part of a volcanic hot spot in the middle of the ocean, and the basaltic flows tend to be more slow and creeping. Mount St. Helens and other Cascade volcanoes are more volatile and explosive, typically releasing a superheated cloud of gas and debris during an eruption.
Overall, there are 160 volcanoes in the United States, Moran added.
Studying that range of volcanoes and volcanic events requires a mix of scientists beyond just volcanologists. The Cascades Observatory includes hydrologists, seismologists, geochemists and computer programmers, among other experts.
“They’re very complex systems,” Moran said. “You can’t just use one tool to study them.”
In the Cascades, there have been about 25 volcanic eruptions in the last 12,000 years. Eight of those volcanoes, including Mount St. Helens, are considered very likely to erupt again. Mount St. Helens, in fact, is the most likely to erupt again, Moran said.
All that knowledge is like catnip to the GeoGirls, who eagerly talked to visitors and encouraged children and other young people visiting the observatory to try their video game and learn about science.
Violet Hopkins, 16, of Monroe said working with other teenage girls interested in science has turned the group into a tight family, and all the girls in the program are eager to pass on what they’ve learned to the future generations.
“I really like geology,” Hopkins said. “My grandma was a geologist and she got me into it. I learned a lot about Mount St. Helens. With this program, we all kind of hang out. We’re just a big family.”
Cheyenne Hewitt of Renton said she had a fun day interacting with other kids at the event.
“I’ve had a lot of fun with the kids coming through,” she said. “I’m also excited to reconnect with people here that I haven’t seen since we were all at GeoGirls.”
That program runs from July 29 to August 2 this year, and is fully funded through grants and donations for the participants. It’s managed by the Mount St. Helens Institute and the Cascades Observatory. More information about the program is available online at http://www.mshinstitute.org/learn/for-parents/geogirls.html.
“The program is still pretty fresh,but it’s so cool to have a few years down,” said Sonja Melander, science education coordinator with the Mount St. Helens Institute.”We have some people in college now that are studying geology. One student is even working on the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network.”
The girls said they were especially thrilled to see so many other women and girls pop by the open house.
“In our textbooks we learn a lot about the males and their accomplishments, but almost nothing about the women,” Calderon said. “It’s really important that there are women helping other women to do this.”
