Since mountains move at a geological pace, are geologists ever in much of a rush? Maybe that depends on the scientist. Out of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, modern volcanology was born. Governments provided funding to develop forecasts for eruptions. Igneous petrology, the specialization focused on rock that began as molten lava, was about to come to a boil.
Big pockets of magma churn up close to a thin spot in the Earth’s crust, resulting in an occasional leak or blowout of lava and gases. Samples of igneous rock have tiny pockets of those gases, which can be examined through a variety of techniques, analyzed, and compared so that geoscientists can form models for forecasting hotspot activity.
In 2022, Berkeley’s Department of Earth & Planetary Science (EPS) welcomed an igneous petrology expert, Assistant Professor Penny Wieser. In her EPS 80 class, Wieser demystifies the processes in the Earth that shape our environment. “Everyone,” she warned, “should be aware of what is going on” under our feet. If current students aren’t aware that the Hayward fault runs right through Memorial Stadium, how can they be informed citizens?
Wieser’s future took shape when she saw the movie “Dante’s Peak,” starring Pierce Brosnan as a volcanologist. The possibility of “doing volcanoes as a job”? Wieser was off and running. She dove into the earth sciences major at Oxford and has barely paused for breath since. At Cambridge for graduate school, she kept up a fast pace. “Being on the university sailing team meant I was constantly taking time off my studies for fun stuff!”
