Trial by Fire

This is a repost of a story I removed from the site some time ago. If you have read it, there is no need to reread, vote or comment. Many have asked me to post it again, so I am.

*****

Chapter One

The eporeodon was exhausted. She staggered toward the stream, her urge to drink compelling her trembling legs. Her zebra like stripes were stained with clay where she had fallen. The ancient relative of pigs and camels was confused and fearful. The shaking of the earth had disoriented and disturbed her habits until she was ready to collapse. She had been unable to grasp more than a mouthful of grass here and there. She had run in terror as the first rumble shook the ground under her feet and the terror had continued without pause for three days. She could no longer run. Her strength was gone and even the drive of her extreme thirst could muster no more than a shuffling walk.

As she neared the edge of the water, a particularly violent rumble shook her from her unsteady feet and she tumbled into the stream. It was scalding hot and her feeble cries of pain were drowned in the blast that shook the foundations of the stream. It was the last sound she would hear.

Far below, 300 miles within the earth, the impact of the Farallon and North American tectonic plates had been changing. Orthogonal compression had changed to oblique strike slip and the Farallon plate began to melt in the mantle as it subducted beneath the North American plate.

The water-rich clay and sediment at the top of the Farallon plate produced large quantities of water as the basalt rocks were transformed into eclogite and the pressure and heat began to rise. At temperatures of more than 700 degrees F and pressures of more than 3500 psi, the water passed its critical point and formed super-critical fluids, blurring the distinction between liquids and gasses.

The fluid sought release and began to dissolve the overriding plate. The magma, forced into the cavities left by the ascending fluids exploded upward under the tremendous pressures. The rock of the plate began to melt and the boundary between the plates became an inferno.

At the surface, the seismic activity reached a crescendo and the single loudest noise in history split the heavens. The titanic explosion made little notice of the death of one small eporeodon.

****

The giant had slumbered for 30 million years. Its heart thudded slowly and the weight of batholithic tons rested upon its eyelids. Something stirred in the depths and a shudder moved through sluggish nerves. The giant sensed an intolerable weight resting upon its shoulders. Its feet reached down and found purchase. Sensing the crystallized coldness of its prison, it raised its visage toward the freedom of heaven and roared. Above, the ancient walls of its prison began to flow, and heat, born up through the slow bloodstreams began to flow. The giant was awake, and its fury, so long imprisoned, was ready to be unleashed. It shrugged its shoulders.

Near Parkfield, California, in the creeping section of the San Andreas Fault, tension had been building to intolerable levels. A sudden slip along the margin of the Pacific Plate set seismic vibrations rumbling along the fault. It was not a large quake, 4.2 on the scale, but those living along the fault definitely felt it. The unfelt portions were the most dramatic. Deep beneath the surface, the remnants of the Farallon Slab known as the Isabella Anomaly had lain sleeping beneath the Great Valley. An irregularity in the bottom surface of the crust had caused it to break off the primary slab and it had been frozen it time for millennia, creeping a few inches in a thousand years. The vibration of the seismic event caused a tear along the irregularity and it was free. The subduction interface, dormant for millennia slipped and began to move eastward. As it moved eastward and downward into the mantle, it began to melt. Magma was on the move, seeking the ancient channels and thrusting its way toward the surface and freedom. The lower crust, already very thin in the plate gap began to melt.

Chapter Two

Jason Kilwreath raised the tube he was dissolving the piece of dacite in and shook it a little in impatience. This looked to be a sample of the later extrusion but something looked a little odd, so he had picked it up. His thesis on plate-gap theory was nearly ready and he just needed a few more rock chemistry tables to really make it pop.

He looked around. Above him rose one of the eerie and eroded formations that made the Fish Canyon Tuff look like an alien landscape. All around him lay scattered the evidence of the largest explosion in the history of the world.

That's what brought him to Colorado in the first place. His parents had taken him to Yellowstone when he was 8-years-old and the story told by a Park Ranger of the reason for the steams, geysers and hot springs had awoken his imagination. This was the first time he had heard the term "super-volcano," and he was fascinated. He couldn't wait to get back to internet territory so he could look it up on the web.

His surprise in discovering that Yellowstone wasn't even the largest super-volcano in America was disappointing, but he discovered the name "La Garita," and he was hooked. He was now standing near the edge of the ancient caldera. Erosion had done its slow work and it was difficult to tell just where the caldera ended, but an explosion that sent 5000 cubic kilometers of ash and lava 30 miles into the atmosphere left traces even after millions of years.

Jason suddenly noticed that he smelled the distinct odor of rotten eggs. "Must be a sulfur deposit close," he told himself. Odd, that he hadn't noticed it before.

Now that his rock had dissolved, he quickly put his field kit away and began the hike back to his truck. Feeling thirsty, he knelt beside a small spring basin. The sulfur smell was even stronger as he dipped his hand in the water. He drew it back with a yelp of pain and it flew to his mouth. That water was hot! What in the world was going on? He had stopped earlier in the day to soak his feet in that spring and it was so cold that it made his bones ache.

Jason had heard stories of springs becoming warm on Mt. St. Helens just before it erupted, but that could hardly be the case here. La Garita had been extinct for 30 million years! He quickly took a water sample and headed for his truck.

Back at the motel, he ordered Chinese takeout and jumped in the shower. As the water cascaded over his head he leaned back and enjoyed the hot water running over his face. A wave of vertigo washed over him and he clutched the bar on the wall. He had experienced something like that before when he had an ear infection, but he felt fine. He noticed a rumbling sound and discovered that the source of his vertigo did not lie inside his own head, but that the floor of the tub was shaking. "Earthquake," he thought.

It was not unheard of in Colorado, but it was peculiar. Then it was gone. Towel draped over his shoulders, he put the tube of water in the analyzer and opened his shrimp fried rice. He turned on the local news and listened with half an ear as he ate while checking his mail on his laptop.

His attention was caught by the local anchor. "An earthquake measuring 3.2 on the scale rocked residents of southeast Colorado just 10 minutes ago, according to reports. It was centered outside the town of Creed and shook residents for a moment."

"Weird," Jason thought to himself.

The timer on the water analysis went off and he absently scanned the graph. The oddly high presence of carbon dioxide dissolved in the water caught his eye. Things just weren't adding up. He did the chemistry analysis on the rock sample. It was just about what he had expected. plagioclase, sanidine, quartz, biotite, hornblende, sphene, apatite and zircon in the usual quantities. It was a piece of the La Garita eruption. He charted it on his table and turned in for the night.

****

The doe drank silently, a ghost in the night, at the small stream. Her head shot up suddenly; the huge, spoon like ears swiveling as she detected something unusual. She was already nervous from the strange shaking of the ground she had experienced some hours before and was quick to take alarm. Her senses detected no threats in the vicinity and she lowered her head to drink. A peculiar odor rose from the stream and she hesitated. The odor quickly grew stronger as the doe collapsed to the bank; flanks heaving as she struggled to breathe. Her struggles quickly ceased and only a passing breeze ruffled the hair of her tail.

Jason discovered her carcass at 9:30 on the way back to the spring he had sampled the previous day. He had a larger pack today as he intended to plant some seismic and GPS sensors. He knelt for a minute to examine the carcass. He found no sign of what might have killed the deer. Somewhat disturbed, and keeping an eye out for poachers or predators, he placed his sensors, took another water sample and headed for town. His concern was growing. Every spring he found had reached nearly 70 degrees F, and fish and other water creatures seemed to be dying like flies. Now the doe was dead, from no discernible cause, and there had been an earthquake and Jason was alarmed. He would have to wait until his data from the sensors began coming in to know for sure, but he knew something was wrong.

Over the next 24 hours, Jason collected and analyzed his data. Over the first eight hours, according to his GPS sensors, the ground in the caldera had risen nearly two feet. It had subsided nine inches, then began rising until at the end of the 24 hours it had risen nearly four feet. He checked the historical data and discovered that the floor of the caldera had risen almost nine feet from historic levels.

Not only that, but in 24 hours there had been 113 earthquakes with a magnitude greater than two. Something was happening in Fish Canyon! Jason didn't know quite what to do, but he decided to give Dr. Fielding a call.

Dr. Fielding wasn't really an expert on Mid-Tertiary ignimbrite flare-ups, but he was an expert in all kinds of geology and might know someone that was an expert. Jason dialed the number on his cell phone and got the Dr.'s machine. He explained what he wanted and asked Fielding to call him back as soon as possible.

Another 24 hours passed before Fielding called.

"Jason, good to hear from you," Fielding said. "What in the hell is going on out there? What's all this crazy data you've been collecting?"

"Hey Doc," Jason replied. "I don't know what's going on. I've never seen anything like this before. If I didn't know that La Garita has been extinct for 30 million years, I'd say it was getting ready to erupt."

"That's impossible," Fielding said. "The geology just isn't there anymore. You know that ignimbrite flare-up was caused by the plate subduction and continued downward motion through the mantle."

"That's just the point, Doc," Jason said. "I don't know anything of the sort. I have never believed the evidence could support magma being that high in the crust for any extended period. You know I think there was a thermal plume here even before the Farallon plate subducted. I don't think any downward motion of the plate caused it either. I think I can prove that the plate quickly melted and that's what caused a partial melting of the crust when the San Juan field erupted the first time. The plates stretched apart and that crystal mush in the chamber was re-melted and I think it's happening again."

"Now Jason," Fielding said. "We've had this discussion before and you know I think you're wrong about this. What in the world makes you think it's re-melting?"

"I've got sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, ground swell from the magma chamber, hot springs that were cold last week, hundreds of small earthquakes and I think I have seen an animal killed by hydrogen sulfide gas."

"Jason, Jason; think what you're saying," Fielding chided. "You're saying that a volcano that everyone who knows anything believes has been extinct for more than 25 million years, that no volcanologist in the world believes will ever erupt again, that has given absolutely no evidence of waking up, has been discovered by a graduate student from the University of Missouri to be about to erupt? It's insane!"

"Listen, Doc; I know you think I'm crazy, but let me send you this data," Jason said. "You know Dr. Carter, up at Cal, right? Just let him take a look at this. Send it to him and have him give me a call, okay?"

"I'll tell you what, Jason," Fielding said. "You send me the data, I'll take a look at it and if I think it's worth it, I'll send it to Carter. I'm not about to look like an idiot by sending this up to him without checking it out. There must be some mistake. You're not looking at the data right or something. Send it to me and I'll take a look."

"Okay, Doc. I've already sent it and you can take a look. Call me back anyway and let me know what you think, okay?"

"Yes, yes, Jason. I'll call you. Now don't do anything stupid like sending this to anyone else. This could ruin you academically if you make a big deal out of this. I've got it. Just give me a couple of days to run the data."

It was three days before Jason heard back from Fielding. He had now recorded more than 200 shocks; one with a magnitude of 4.2 and the caldera floor had risen more than 10 feet.

Fielding didn't call: he sent an e-mail. "This data means nothing. Your seismographic sensors must be faulty or someone is blasting in the area. Listen, Jason. You need to let this go. There is no way I will send this to Carter. He would think you're a fool and I'm an even bigger fool to listen to you. Come back here and finish your thesis and forget about this. I'm going to do you a big favor and forget about it. I won't mention it to the committee, and if you have any sense, you won't either."

Jason knew better. By now his suspicions had become a certainty. La Garita was getting ready to blow its lid. He had left messages and sent his data to everyone in government he could think of. "Thanks son. Now bug off," had been the reply. He had tried to warn the maid, the motel owner and everyone he could talk to in town and they had all become convinced he was insane. The sheriff even threatened to arrest him if he didn't quit "disturbing the peace."

"Time to go," Jason said to himself. He packed his gear and headed for Columbia.

Chapter Three

The giant reached fingers, now losing their stiffness, toward the surface. He rumbled, clearing his throat, and shouted.

On the surface, the loudest sound ever heard on earth accompanied an explosion of titanic proportions. In one blast, 6000 cubic kilometers of rock, ash and lava blew into the air. The blast that blew apart Mt. St. Helens in 1980 produced 1 cubic kilometer of ash and debris; caused 2.88 billion in property damage; killed 57 people and deposited ash in 11 states and five Canadian provinces. This blast was 6000 times larger. The Krakatoa eruption in 1883 ejected 21 cubic kilometers of rock and ash. The explosion was heard 3000 miles away on the island of Rodrigues. Krakatoa destroyed 165 villages and towns and seriously damaged 132 more. 36,417 people died. The shockwaves traveled around the world seven times. La Garita flexed its muscles on orders of magnitude never before known.

The largest nuclear explosion was caused by the Russian hydrogen bomb AN 602, which was exploded in 1961. Its yield was 50 megatons. The fireball reached a height of 64 kilometers and was visible 1000 kilometers away. All buildings in a village located 55 kilometers away were destroyed. In districts hundreds of kilometers from ground zero, wooden houses were destroyed. Stone buildings lost their roofs. Windows, doors and radio communications were interrupted for almost one hour. It was equivalent to 1570 times the combined power of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It amounted to about one quarter the size of the Krakatoa explosion.

La Garita now exploded with more than 5000 times the energy of the nuclear device. It erupted with the force of 25,000 megatons of TNT.

More than half the state of Colorado was powdered in minutes. No one close enough to see the ash cloud erupt survived. Windows were broken in New York City and aerial damage occurred in the Caribbean.

Within an hour, the ash cloud reached more than 30,000 feet and began to sweep south and east with the jet stream. Lower levels spread north and west and power went out throughout the United States and Canada. The long volcanic winter was beginning.

Not only did La Garita erupt, but the vast traps of the San Juan volcanic field belched forth ash, steam, sulfur hydroxide and carbon dioxide. An extinction-level event was in progress.

****

A thousand miles away in Stockton, Missouri, Reagan Thayer stood by the shot put alley with his hands in his hoody pockets. It was still a little chilly. It had been an anemic spring. Rain and cold weather had plagued the early track season. The official running the event called out, "Thayer up, Thomas on deck and Becker in the hole." Lanston Thayer carefully entered the shot ring from the rear, cradling the heavy brass ball in between his hand and cheek. "Okay Lanston, explode into this," Reagan breathed in a quick prayer.

Lanston was an athletic giant of a kid, 6'4 inches and 280 pounds of muscle. He was amazingly quick for his size, and played defensive end on the football team. He had dark skin and eyes and his mop of curls and good looks made him look like a Greek god as he stepped into the ring.

Lanston struck the pose, held it for a moment, and exploded across the ring. It was a beautiful throw, high and far; easily past the 60-foot arc painted on the grass.

As the brass ball struck the ground, a massive sound wave broke over the small Missouri town. Everyone stood still in silence, shocked into immobility for a moment. One of the throwers broke the silence. "What the hell was that?"

"Sounded like something blew up," one of the spectators said.

"You have a fertilizer plant or a chemical factory in this town?" Reagan asked one of the locals.

"No, nothing like that," the man said. "Only thing here is a walnut hulling plant."

"Well, either that was a really heavy shot or something blew up," Reagan joked.

"Yeah, maybe it was the shot," Lanston said as he walked up. "Dad, I think something big blew up. Maybe it was a propane tank or something."

"Or something," Reagan said. "That was a great throw buddy. How far was it?"

"It took them a minute to measure," Lanston said. "It was 66' 2"."

"Hey, that's your best this year. Great throw," Reagan said.

"I think it's first place," Lanston said. "Let's go tell coach and get out of here."

Reagan's cell phone gave its alert sound. He pulled it from his pocket, noticing that Lanston was doing the same thing.

"I think it's mine, Buddy," Reagan said.

"Mine too," Lanston said.

"Service lost," said the message on Reagan's screen. People all along the shot alley were looking at their phones.

"I don't have a signal," Lanston said.

"Me either and it looks like a bunch of people have the same problem. I wonder if it has anything to do with that explosion? Maybe it knocked out the tower."

"Maybe so," Lanston mused. "I wonder what that was?"

"I have no idea," Reagan said, "but it was something huge."

They walked across the road to the track and met Shannon Parrington going back toward the throwing area.

"Hey, Lanston, hey, Mr. Thayer; how did you do Lanston?"

"Third in the discus, but I won shot," Lanston said.

"We're heading home. Good luck with the shot, Shannon."

"Oh, Shannon," Reagan called after her. "I got a letter for you from Oklahoma State. Drop by my office tomorrow and pick it up."