Mount St. Helens Eruption Baffles Scientists

jurt1235 writes "Mount St. Helens, which started erupting 15 months ago, is still erupting. The weird part is, by now every 3 seconds 10 cubic yards of lava is coming out of the volcano but scientists cannot determine from where it is coming anymore. From the article: 'The volume is greater than anything that could be standing in a narrow 3-mile pipe. That suggests resupply from greater depths, which normally would generate certain gases and deep earthquakes. Neither is being detected.'"

Re:Be aware of the facts, always.

[fmobus]

I study oil and gold extraction (I blog about gold mines, too) and I am amazed at how often scientists are proven wrong. I know that it is heretical to say that on slashdot (I was blasted about it earlier this morning on this very forum), but we as a society seem to have too much faith in scientific research finding facts that turn out to be just plain wrong.

Part of the scientific method is proving that other scientist are wrong.

Nice troll, got modded up too

[Flying pig]

I liked the anonymous reference to Velikovsky and the attack on publicly funded science. And the mixed metaphor (try shining a spotlight on a fallacy coming out of someone's mouth). On the basis of a supposed quote from an unidentifiable professor we are supposed to believe that all that research is rubbish? Yes, surely. Because an anecdotal unidentifiable urban legend is just so much more reliable than peer-reviewed scientists who put their reputations on the line when they go public with research based on reproducible experimentation or measurements. Which are falsifiable. Which happens to be a major component of scientific progress.

Re:Be aware of the facts, always.

[Rakishi]

Science is the process by which we make better theories and disprove current ones (and find better ones). We will almost never be perfectly right, although this process does lead in general to better models of the world. Also theories don't need to be always right to be usable, see Newton. I'm sure people in hurricane prone areas would love if you told them to stop listening to the hurricane warning because we can't perfectly predict where the storm will go.

We don't know everything, we base our decisions on what we do know and hope it works out correctly. There is little else we can do.

Pretty much every drug you have ever taken is the result of public funding of scientific research. It does suck at making finished products, and companies suck at doing the basic research.

Your tax dollars don't pay for perfect results, they pay for incremental improvements which will lead to better theories.

Re:10 cubic yards every 3 seconds? That comes to..

[cluckshot]

Doesn't everyone here love math! Thanks for the calculations.

Now how about getting just a few oddities and throwing them into the mix. (1) A volcano's magma does not force its way up and out... The Archimedes Principal clearly shows eruptions to be displacement reactions. This means that there is a sinking going on. Unless something crazy is going on like the earth is expanding or something like that. (2) Plasma Physics of the rest of the Universe indicates that we really aught to be measuring electrical energy flows in the area. (www.thunderbolts.info) We could be looking at inductive heating etc. (3) What about Subduction and Plate Techtonics here? Does this indicate we really don't know what is going on? Check this out! (www.nealadams.com/nmu.html)

This isn't troll -- It was added just to spice up the thinking so mods if you don't like it -- GET OVER IT!

Re:Be aware of the facts, always.

[WryCoder]

If you had any scientific knowledge you would know oil is not renewable because it is made of decomposed "fossils" (hence "fossil fuels"). There are not unlimited "fossils" on this planet. Your speaking gibberish to make a very invalid point.

And if you had a scientific attitude you would be less dogamatic in your statements. It's unlikely that the vast quantities of petroleum came from rotting vegetation. Rather, it's primordial, derived from methane and similar hydrocarbons dating back to the formation of the earth. Check out "The Deep, Hot Biosphere" by Thomas Gold.

Re:Science

[Anonymous Coward]

For the last time, theories that are fact don't get upgraded to laws. That's why putting a sticker saying "evolution is just a theory" in southern schools is so effective, because they don't know what theory means.