Avatar Contest

[Ashrunner]

Sorry Colonel...not a lahar. And thanks 8v)

Gil, not pumice in my hands...though technically speaking, what I am standing on is composed of some pumice...but that's not what it is called.

[cdavenport]

I hate when you guys do this because I waste time enlarging the photo and find details that baffle me. Drives me crazy, but I can't resist!

1. What year was the photo taken?
2. How many stripes?
3. What patch is on the right breast pocket? It reminds me of ESC.
4. Was this photo taken in performance of your duties or did you just find something interesting?

The stuff you are holding looks like calcium or potash and may be the same material as the small rises in the background.

Frankly, I thought the Pinatubo guess was good. So, I'll try the pyroclastic flow from Mt. St Helens.

[Gil]

The name you're probably looking for is "tuff". Your standing on it indicates that it was hot enough to weld together so that would make it "welded tuff".

+Gil

[CharlieC]

I think the geological term for a welded pyroclastic flow is "ignimbrite" - the North Island of New Zealand is covered in sheets of this stuff. I wonder if the white rocks are chunks of rhyolite? - it doesn't look right to be pumice.

Regards,

Charlie

[dansls1]

So you are standing on an 'ignimbrite' and holding 'tuffs'?

[B-Manic]

Tephra?

Thanks I now know more than volcanoes I than I will ever have any use for. Wait a minute, I live in the Pacific North West, more data please. I'm watching 'Volcanoes of the World' on Discovery HD right now, hopefully I'll learn something.

[Ashrunner]

Originally Posted by cdavenport

I hate when you guys do this because I waste time enlarging the photo and find details that baffle me. Drives me crazy, but I can't resist!

1. What year was the photo taken?
2. How many stripes?
3. What patch is on the right breast pocket? It reminds me of ESC.
4. Was this photo taken in performance of your duties or did you just find something interesting?

The stuff you are holding looks like calcium or potash and may be the same material as the small rises in the background.

Frankly, I thought the Pinatubo guess was good. So, I'll try the pyroclastic flow from Mt. St Helens.

To answer your questions...

1 - Photo was taken in 1991...around the mid part of July
2 - Five Stripes
3 - Right breast pocket patch is the subdued version of the Pacific Air Forces patch. On the left pocket (barely seen) is the subdued 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing patch, now the major unit at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska.
4 - Photo was taken during a "look-see" of the aftermath of the eruption of Mt Pinatubo.

For Gil, welded tuff is a close guess, but that is generally cooled material containing small fragments compacted together.

However, CharlieC has provided the proper terms...contact me via PM with the type of models you like to build, and I'll send you a list to choose from.

I am standing on a pyroclastic flow from Mt. Pinatubo. About a week before the photo was taken, one of the volcanologists accompanying me on a media tour of the aftermath, measured the temperature at close to 625 degrees celsius...close to 1200 degrees fahrenheit. Information on pyroclastic flows is found here. Included on the page is video of a secondary flow weeks after the main eruption. The flow I am standing on, occured at the time of the main blast and followed a river valley to less than 100 feet from the base.

The rocks I am holding, are lava stones, similar to Aa lava, which is a blocky form of lava. I had asked one of the volcanologists if the lava was basalt and he sort of cringed a little and said, "No...more like rhyolite." One thing I do remember was the stones were hot even while I was holding them. One of the volcanologist I was talking to, told me the stones I had were formed from magma. When I asked him how he knew, he showed me another rock nearby which was a lot grayer in color. The grayer the rock, the older it was in regards to previous Pinatubo eruptions.

I brought a couple of the rocks, both old and new, back with me and they eventually became part of a Pentagon display of the final days of Clark AB. What happened to them after that, I don't know.

Clark AB and the Navy base at Subic Bay were inundated with anywhere from six to 18 inches of ash from the eruption. Clark was also hit by a number of lahars which destroyed the new car lot, the commissary, the NCO Club, the base exchange and many other buildings on base, leaving lahar deposits up to 12 feet deep in some areas of the base.

Ash accumulation, combined with the rain fall from Typhoon Yunya which hit an hour or so after the mountain erupted, caused the collapse more than 100 buildings on Clark, and many at Subic Bay, including a gymnasium housing evacuees from Clark. Subic Bay actually received more ash fall from the eruption than Clark due to the circulation of the winds from the typhoon. Three Americans died as a direct result of the eruption at Subic Bay.

In regards to pumice from Pinatubo, I have here a stone about two inches in diameter. It hit me on my forehead at the 'bug-out' site for those of us left behind after the main evacuation of Clark. That site was on the slopes of an extinct volcano about 25 miles from Mt Pinatubo. I picked the stone up, shook my head, put it in my pocket and found a covered spot large enough to shield me from the ash fall (I thought), laid down. put a 'sling cloth' over my head and went to sleep. I woke an hour or so later gasping for air, as the cloth over my face had about a quarter of an inch of ash on it.

Fun times I'd love experience again. 8v)

[cdavenport]

Great story! I had no idea there were so many designations for the stuff that comes out of volcanoes though it isn't surprising. Science loves to name everything seen and unseen!

Thanks for sharing that Ashrunner. And, congratulations on the anniversary!

Proud to have served. Lucky to have survived.