Image of Volcanic Plumbing From Mount Rainer Released

Jul 18, 2014 06:37 PM EDT | Matt Mercuro

Researchers from the University of Utah have developed an image of deep volcanic plumbing, as well as partly molten rock of Mount Rainer, which is expected to erupt again someday.

The image was developed after measuring the Earth's power to conduct electricity and seismic waves, according to a press release issued by the University of Utah.

"This is the most direct image yet capturing the melting process that feeds magma into a crustal reservoir that eventually is tapped for eruptions," Geophysicist Phil Wannamaker said, according to a press release.

Wannamaker is professor at the Energy & Geoscience Institute and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the university.

Findings of the study were published this week in the journal Nature.

"But it does not provide any information on the timing of future eruptions from Mount Rainier or other Cascade Range volcanoes," Wannamaker said.

Research was carried out by Wannamaker and senior geophysicists from the College of New Jersey, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts as well as the University of Bergen, Norway.

The experiment was mainly funded by the Earthscope program of the National Science Foundation

Mount Rainier is a massive stratovolcano which has the tallest peak in the Cascades. It can be found 54 miles southeast of Seattle in Washington.

"Mount Rainier is an active volcano that is believed to be erupting again," says the US Geological Survey.

The image seemed to show that at least part of the molten magma servitor can be found approximately 6 to 10 miles northwest of the 14,410 volcano.

The top of the magma reservoir, shown in the image, is about "5 miles underground and around 5 to 10 miles thick, and 5 to 10 miles wide in east-west extent," Wannamaker said.

"We can't really describe the north-south extent because it's a slice view," he added.

The reservoir is approximately 30 percent molten.

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