Originally Posted: December 9, 2014
Scientists will study unique exposure of “plumbing,” which can reveal critical understanding of how today’s volcanoes erupt
There’s nothing subtle about the story told by the rocks in northern Italy’s Sesia Valley. Evidence of ancient volcanic activity is all around, says geologist and volcanologist James Quick, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
But the full story is much less obvious, Quick notes.
Quick led an international team that in 2009 announced they had discovered a 282-million-year-old fossil supervolcano in Sesia Valley. The find was the result of nearly two decades of geological research in the valley and its surrounding mountains.
The discovery has attracted scientific attention worldwide for its unprecedented view of a supervolcano’s internal plumbing to a depth of 15.5 miles.
But that’s not the end of the story — rather the beginning, says Quick, a professor in SMU’s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences in Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences. READ MORE