The Eruption- Volume 1

The Eruption- Chapter 14

                                                                                       Chapter 14

That evening, we informed everyone at home of our fieldtrip, and that Yellowstone is priming itself to blow up. It's still very unclear when this is going to happen, but we know it's coming. However, no one in the house, except for Ally and I, seems to be concerned at all! It's like everyone is in denial, especially Allison's father. We came home that evening with real answers from a professional geologist. Mr. Peters re-assured to us that an eruption is coming, though it's not yet imminent, and probably not going to be catastrophic. However, those answers were already being questioned by the time we got home. Ally's seismograph began to show harmonic tremors, but not like the ones we have been seeing for the past month. This time, the tremor was continuous, and with every passing hour, it became stronger. We also installed the files from the flash drive Mr. Peters gave to us onto Ally's computer. It already shows more magma available, becoming shallower than before. Ally and I are getting ourselves ready for this. It's time to stop waiting around for the analysis and the expert's sounding of the warning bells. Now it's time to use common sense.

I got up out of bed the next morning. It was 5:30 AM. I think I've trained my body to get up early ever since I moved in here! There were vibrations being felt all around the house. It had this annoying, high=pitched squeal that came along with it. "What the hell is all this noise?!" I hear my mom shout from the other room. Yeah, what exactly is all this noise? Ally wasn't in her room, so I headed to the basement. Sure enough, I saw her sitting at the computer screen. Her seismograph was literally drawing all over the paper. "I figured I'd find you down here." I smiled. She turned and looked at me straight in the eyes. "Jake, you better get over here right away." She had a tone of fright in her voice as she said that. I walked over to her. "What is it?" I asked. "New VulCast images came out this morning. God, it's so close to the surface. So close! It's less than 500 meters deep now." My jaw dropped. "To be honest, I don't know why it hasn't come out yet." Allison said. "When is it supposed to come out?" "VulCast has revised its timeframe for the onset of the eruption to 2 weeks from now, but personally, I don't think that magma can be held down there for that long. I think it's going to start today, if not tomorrow." Allison said. "That's not good at all!" I exclaimed. "The bad thing is, we are under a Wind Advisory today, so if it were to erupt explosively today, it's going to drop ashfall right into Cody. It'll be chaos regardless of how small the eruption is." The high pitched noises around the house suddenly intensified. "That is seriously annoying! What is that?!" I exclaimed. "That noise? It's the harmonic tremor! The tremor is so strong now that it can actually be heard! We will be dealing with that noise all day. In fact, the tremor is so severe that my seismometer won't even pick up any other quake." Allison said. The VulCast image refreshed. "Oh yes, there's something I forgot to show you. Take a look at Norris. The magma intrusion there is now migrating towards the fracture zone." "So what does this mean then?" Allison paused for a moment. "It's a sign that the magma melts are undergoing batch assembly. This is where individual pockets of melt merge together to form massive melt pockets. At Yellowstone, that is what is believed to be the trigger for super-eruptions." She said. "I thought Mr. Peters said the two areas aren't related to each other?" I said. "I hate to say this because Mr. Peters and the USGS are a great team, but... what they have been saying is completely invalid. This situation is going to be more than just a little bang. Now with batch assembly underway... there's no doubt where we are headed." Allison sighed. "Are we going to do anything about it?" "We could forward a story to the media. That'll get the word out fast." "Ally that's dangerous!" "I don't care! I'm done waiting for the experts to say something! If people don't know about it now, it's going to be too late! These volcano experts need to get their heads out of their asses and get the warnings out!" Allison shouted at me. I didn't say anything back to her. Allison slammed her laptop shut and sat back in the chair, resting her head in the palm of her hand. I sat down next to her and placed my arm around her shoulders. "I'm sorry Jake I didn't mean to yell..." she trailed off. "Hey, it's okay. I get it. You're stressed out. So am I, and so is the guys at USGS. You have to understand we can't save the world. If it's going to happen, then it will. We can't do anything to stop it. You've said that yourself many times." Allison smiled at me weakly. "Yeah you're right, Jake." "And as a teenager who doesn't even have their geology degree yet, you are doing a great job." I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, out of impulse. My heart felt like it was going to pound out of my chest! An enormous smile spread across her face, the most beautiful smile I had ever seen before. "I feel better already! Let's go upstairs, Jake! It's time to get our minds off of this whole thing!" Allison grinned. "Sounds good to me!"