18 volcanoes in the USA are classified as “very high threat”, many are in the Pacific Northwest.
The United States has 161 young, active volcanoes within its borders. Since 1980, there have been 120 eruptions and 52 episodes of notable volcanic unrest at 44 U.S. volcanoes.
The U.S. Geological Survey systematically assesses U.S. volcanoes considered to be active or potentially active, and publishes a volcanic threat assessment that ranks the volcanoes based on 24 hazard and exposure factors. Last published in 2005, this 2018 update considers (1) field and laboratory research that adds or removes volcanoes from the list of potentially active volcanoes, and (2) updates the hazard and exposure factors used to produce a relative threat ranking of volcanoes.
The 2018 update of the 2005 assessment adds or raises the threat level for 12 volcanoes and reduces or removes threat level status from 20 volcanoes. The threat ranking is not an indication of which volcano will erupt next. Rather, it is an indicator of the potential severity of impacts that could result from future eruptions at any given volcano.
The volcanic threat assessment is used by the USGS to help guide and prioritize risk mitigation efforts at U.S. volcanoes through volcano research, hazard assessment, emergency planning and preparation and monitoring efforts with federal, state and local government partners. The prioritization of risk mitigation efforts is a cornerstone in the development of the National Volcano Early Warning System.
The 2018 Update to the U.S. Geological Survey National Volcanic Threat Assessment is available online.
This revised threat assessment includes 18 very high threat, 39 high threat, 49 moderate threat, 34 low threat, and 21 very low threat volcanoes. The total of 161 volcanoes is a decrease of 8 from the total reported by Ewert and others (2005)
Volcano Early Warning System.
Here is a table of the top threats:
The list of 18 very high threat volcanoes determined by Ewert and others (2005) remains the same; 11 of the 18 volcanoes are located in Washington, Oregon, or California, where explosive and often snow- and ice-covered edifices can project hazards long distances to densely populated and highly
developed areas. Five of the 18 very high threat volcanoes are in Alaska near important population centers, economic infrastructure, or below busy air traffic corridors. The remaining two very high threat volcanoes are on the Island of Hawaiʻi, where densely populated and highly developed areas now exist on the flanks of highly active volcanoes. The high- and moderate-threat categories are dominated by Alaskan volcanoes.
1 Kīlauea HI 48 263 19.425 -155.292
2 Mount St. Helens WA 59 235 46.2 -122.18
3 Mount Rainier WA 37 203 46.87 -121.758
4 Redoubt Volcano AK 48 201 60.485 -152.742
5 Mount Shasta CA 39 178 41.42 -122.2
6 Mount Hood OR 30 178 45.374 -121.694
7 Three Sisters OR 30 165 44.133 -121.767
8 Akutan Island AK 47 161 54.134 -165.986
9 Makushin Volcano AK 47 161 53.891 -166.923
10 Mount Spurr AK 48 160 61.299 -152.251
11 Lassen volcanic center CA 32 153 40.492 -121.508
12 Augustine Volcano AK 48 151 59.363 -153.43
13 Newberry Volcano OR 30 146 43.722 -121.229
14 Mount Baker WA 15 139 48.777 -121.813
15 Glacier Peak WA 37 135 48.112 -121.113
16 Mauna Loa HI 4 131 19.475 -155.608
17 Crater Lake OR 37 129 42.93 -122.12
18 Long Valley Caldera CA 29 129 37.7 -118.87
Cascades (WA, OR, CA): 10
Alaska: 5
Hawaii: 2
Non-Cascade CA: 1
Remarkable that Yellowstone isn’t on the VHT list. Maybe because its next eruption is not expected any time soon, but criteria include proximity to population, as well. Yellowstone is remote, but its ejecta would cover a vast area.
Notice that they didn’t even need to include any part of the US East of the Mississippi — no volcanoes over here where I sit.
Alaska alone accounts for more than half of the volcanoes (86 out of 161). Almost all in the Pacific and on the Pacific Rim.
Yup. Typical of Earth in general. Onshore volcanoes are concentrated near subduction and rift zones. Much like earthquakes, although there are some big seismic areas in the middle of apparently stable regions, such as New Madrid, MO.
Yeah, rub it in for me, here at the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. The New Madrid zone has been theorized to be on a 200 year cycle. Hopefully the last release was abnormally high. I do see billboards while driving through the region which give earthquake instructions and have noticed that Walmart has held drills in these areas in conjunction with local/regional first responders.
https://www.intellihub.com/wal-mart-preparing-major-earthquake-new-madrid-fault/
At least they can’t blame CO2 on volcanos.
Anything can be blamed on Co2 !
I saw a tv show yesterday on the Science Chanel that claimed that the Mississippi River was a failed rift zone. The continent tried to split apart along the path of the river and then for some unknown reason, the pulling apart stopped and the rift progressed no farther.
“HOOEY”, ….. t’was no “rifting” involved in the creation of the Mississippi River channel.
The Mississippi River is the remnant of the Western Interior Seaway, also called the North American Inland Sea, to wit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interior_Seaway
But on the contrary, the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River is the result of a rifting “rift zone”.
““HOOEY”, ….. t’was no “rifting” involved in the creation of the Mississippi River channel.”
Well, someone should tell the producers of the science program NOVA. They had a program on volcanoes the other day, and at one point it was stated flatly that the Mississippi River started out as a rift zone. They were comparing it to the East African rift zone and speculating whether the East African rift zone would stop spreading like the Mississippi rift did.
I admit that’s the first time I have ever heard that said about the Mississippi river, which is the reason I posted it, to find out what others thought about it.
T’wouldn’t do any good, NOVA just produces sciency programs based on what they think their viewers want to see/hear. They don’t do the science, they choose the science.
To wit:
Subduction and uplift, but not rifting. The area was already, per se rifted, at 2,500+ feet deep prior to 66+ mya.
There is a SF story called The Great Nebraska Sea, by Allan Danzig, that I read a long time ago. Now it can be found online. It was a great bit of geological science fiction and fascinated me at the first reading. As the story goes, the Nebraska Sea returns when the middle of the country subsides and the Mississippi River flows backwards to fill the depression from the Gulf. Millions are killed, more millions are displaced and chaos rules for a while. But then the waters clear and the fishing is fantastic, the climate ameliorates thanks to the new sea and things are pretty good again in the middle.
In respectful regard to Samuel’s comment, the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway was further to the west than the Mississippi Embayment.
Subsurface studies continue to add to the volume of information and interpretations do change over time.
Unless it has changed, one interpretation of how the Mid-Continent failed-rift influenced the Mississippi Valley was that the rift progressed far enough to produce some oceanic crust (much denser than the adjacent continental crust) and within the New Madrid Fault Zone, that denser oceanic crust is trying to sink back into the mantle. (As the area is protected from collisions along the continental margins, it hasn’t been appreciably “mashed” or otherwise laterally-distorted since the failed rifting.)
That “crustal sagging” has affected the Mississippi Embayment since at least the Cretaceous, perhaps during the preceding Jurassic, too. IOW, the Embayment has been there much longer than the river.
As for the Grand Canyon being rift-related, where did that notion come from?
(I received my M.S. in Geology from UT El Paso in 1990 and have been visiting/studying about/working in the western U.S. since 1973.)
ontherocks – October 27, 2018 at 6:58 am
Ontherocks, exactly correct you are, …… and of course the Mississippi Embayment had been there a WEE BIT longer than the Mississippi River. And “YES”, right again, the Western Interior Seaway was further to the west than the Mississippi Embayment.
“DUH”, when the Western Interior Seaway existed ….. there was no frigging reason in the Paleozoic world for the Mississippi River to even exist, ….. let alone a Mississippi Embayment area. Any water (rain, snow melt or artesian) in the later defined/designated Mississippi Embayment locale would have drained/flowed into the Western Interior Seaway.
And “DUH, DUH”, the Mississippi Embayment area and the Mississippi River didn’t, couldn’t have, come into existence until AFTER the Western Interior Seaway began its lopsided “uplifting” with its western edge rising the most. Even to this day, it is a fairly steady “uphill” climb from Saint Louis, MO, to the Colorado Plateau in Colorado and/or New Mexico. And it was the lopsided “uplifting” that created the Mississippi watershed.
ontherocks – October 27, 2018 at 6:58 am
Well, it came from me and several other “original thinkers” via their use of their common sense, logical reasoning and intelligent deduction.
There is absolutely no way in hell that the erosive force of the Colorado River could be responsible for “carving out” the Grand Canyon. And likewise, there is absolutely no way in hell that the erosive force of a HORRENDOUS “flash flood” could be responsible for “carving out” the Grand Canyon.
The topography of the GC, with it “mile high” straight faced cliffs or rock walls, ….. its width in some places of up to 10 miles wide from brim to brim …….. and its numerous deep, dead ended, side channels …… is pretty much scientific confirmation that “rifting” is the only possible cause of its creation.
Like this view of the Grand Canyon apply demonstrates the result of said “rifting”. Or more like “ripping”, ….. jaggedly ripping the Colorado Plateau apart during the “uplifting”.
Cheers, Sam C, …… AB, Biological and Physical Science, ….. GSC 63’, ….. original thinker, inventor, logician and computer designing dinosaur. 😊 😊
And ps, …. iffen you were awarded an M.S. in Geology from UT El Paso in 1990 ……. then you HAD TO believe what they were teaching you or they would have “failed” you and thus no MS degree.
Jackson Volcano, Doorpoint Volcano, A Jurassic era volcanic field south of Mobile Alabama. Several plutonic emplacements in and around the Reel-foot Rift, Yep, nothing east of the Mississippi to worry about.
We’re probably OK on Mesozoic volcanoes.
I think the last really serious, rip up the countryside, vulcanism in Eastern North America was the Great Meteor Hotspot. It left a trail of volcanoes from Montreal across New England. It moved off into the Atlantic in the Mid to Upper Cretaceous. It has since passed under the Mid Atlantic Ridge — leaving a trail of seamounts behind it and is currently under the Great Meteor Seamounts off the coast of Africa.
There are some Eocene extrusives and intrusives in the Virginia Valley & Ridge Province, not sure what the most up-to-date interpretation is. If memory serves me correctly, they were only discovered within the last 15 years or so. I think they are older than the Chesapeake Bolide impact.
Hidden beneath the soil and vegetation of the remainder of the Appalachians, I wonder if there are more igneous surprises yet to be found? In a few places in the north Georgia mountains, tiny diamonds have been found, but thus far, no apparent source rock(s). I wonder if these diamonds suggest post-orogenic igneous activity? (The Prairie Lake diatreme – which hosts the Arkansas diamonds – is of Cretaceous age.)
Yellowstone Caldera is number 21 on the list
Small point but Long Valley Caldera is in the Sierra not the Cascades.
Honestly, you wouldn’t believe what the UK wouldn’t give for an active volcano for people to visit.
In The North, Scotland, or Wales, of course.
Most people in the US and Canada have to travel far to visit one, most of the time. Our currently erupting volcanoes are in Hawaii and Alaska. The last eruption in CONUS was Mt. St. Helens in 2008, IIRC, which I might not.
Kilauea has been erupting continuously since 1983.
The UK is closer to Mt. Etna, Sicily than are most Americans to AK and HI, or even Oregon and Washington.
For we Canadians it’s quite convenient that they stop at the border. Tempting sometimes to put our toes over the border into the”danger zone” as we like to call the U.S. Lol!
You have your own danger zones. Canada is blessed or cursed with more than 200 potentially active volcanoes, 49 of which have erupted in the past 10,000 years. Forty-six of the eruptions were effusive and three explosive.
But granted, your stretch of the Cascades has been less active than WA, OR and northern CA.
Just imagine how much tax Trudeau could collect of one of those mountains if it blows its top! We’d all be rich. Of course he’d spend it right away, but not on getting re-elected. NO way! Not Justin!
John,
Right.
Your zone of maximum danger is in Ottawa.
It’s not quite as detailed a list as the USGS, but here’s Canada’s volcano assessment:
http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/simply-science/21282
“The last time a volcano erupted in Canada was 150 years ago. But it will happen again.
When the Lava Fork volcano in northwest British Columbia erupted, a 22-kilometre lava flow crossed into Alaska, damming the Blue River and creating many small lakes. Since then, Canada has witnessed minimal volcanic activity.”
True, but it’s still nice to have a ‘local’ one in your country.
When I lived in Seattle the conversation (in the College Inn) would occasionally turn to the prospects of Mount Rainier turning troppo.
The best the UK can manage is a little warm water leaking out of the ground in Bath. No wonder the Romans gave up and went home.
How many of them moved to Pompeii?
Susan, I’m not sure I should take responsibility for where this thread is going, but at least one, apparently.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=up+pompeii&&view=detail&mid=D080BBAA6959BD60E7FAD080BBAA6959BD60E7FA&&FORM=VRDGAR
The original full length movie is probably about as far as it should have gone.
The Romans in Britain in AD 79 were probably happy to be there rather than in Pompeii and Herculaneum.
The UK had some pretty impressive volcanoes in the past.
It could indeed be a bad day when Rainier next pops off. There should be some warning for people downstream and downwind to evacuate.
I was in Portland when our perfectly conical, Fuji-like neighbor across the river committed seppuku. Shortly after the eruption, I flew in a WA Army National Guard Chinook around the ash-covered scenes of devastation, to include steam falls, if fall is the right word for a water vapor outpouring.
The most recently active volcanoes in the UK were in the Paleogene Period, ie Paleocene, Eocene and Oligocene Epochs of our current Cenozoic Era:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volcanoes_in_the_United_Kingdom
The period formerly known as the Tertiary.
I used to travel to Seattle on business, back in the 1980s and 1990s. A couple of times, I flew in over what was left of Mt. St. Helens. It was awe-inspiring. Then, one crystal clear day, I got a good look at Mt. Rainier. It was positively terrifying. I don’t know why anyone would put down roots anywhere near that beast.
Despite having lived most of my life on the right coast and now in Europe, I am familiar with all the Cascade volcanoes. I’ve tramped around on the old lava fields in the area of the Three Sisters, visited Crater Lake several times, explored Lassen Volcanic Center, and Mt. St. Helens.
Mt. Shasta, Mt. Baker, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. Hood are prominent peaks and highly visible when driving in their vicinity. I’m also familiar with the other volcano park is Oregon with a cinder cone as one of its main attractions and a vast obsidian flow within the park. Most of these spots are scenic areas and popular with tourists. But, there are also hot springs throughout the Cascades and to the east in Washington and Oregon, sure indication that something can happen at any time in that subduction zone.
When I was a kid, we had a cabin on the Umatilla River near a hot spring, which was just one of many in the Blue Mountains, far from the Cascades and geologically distinct. There’s a lot cooking under the northwestern USA, from the WA Cascades to Yellowstone in the Rockies.
Yellowstone is like Hawaii, except that continental crust is traveling over the hot spot, rather than oceanic. Back in the Miocene, during the Columbia Basin flood basalt eruptions, the hot spot was in SE Oregon and SW Idaho.
Parts of the UK are closer to icelandic eruptions.
Decline of the Earth’s Magnetic Field Intensity in the central USA has reached what might be considered to be an alarming rate
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/USA-MF.htm
At the current rate the field will loose 50% of its strength in about 160 years time, equalling current strength in the central area of the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly.
The latest data I have is the decline in the earth’s magnetic field is at the rate of 10% per decade which means it would lose 50% of its strength in 50 years.
Hekla, Iceland
Further evidence to support the cold sun hypothesis and associated global cooling? I’ve notice what seems to be an uptick in notifications popping up from my quake watch app as well. Just curious as to what others think as I’m not well versed (yet) in that particular theory and how it could affect volcanic and earthquake activity.
An awful lot of red on the left coast.
Is that from heads exploding?
That, and plate tectonics.
The two most active Pacific Ring of Fire zones in North America are Alaska and Mesoamerica, with the west coasts of Canada and the continental US less so.
no….CO2 causing everything!
No, unfortunately.
Gunga Din
if that were the case there would be red in DC, NY, NJ, and MA.
True.
As John Tillman pointed out, plate tectonics and not political tectonics.
For we Canadians it’s quite convenient that they stop at the border. Tempting sometimes to put our toes over the border into the”danger zone” as we like to call the U.S. Lol!
Sorry, Not sure how I managed to double up my post. Maybe too much CO2!
What with winter coming here sooner or later I am thinking of gathering up some friends and migrating southward. Be at the border in a week or two if that’s ok. Just passing through on our way to Guatemala or somewhere down there.
You’re a funny boy, john!
Are you really planning on visiting there? Seems like an awful lot of people are passing through on their way to the land of free things. Like… they have little to offer. Maybe just not enough free things.
Is the US really more socialistic than other Central American countries?
Only our “free-thinking” judges. They forget somebody has to pay for their largess!
“Seems like an awful lot of people are passing through on their way to the land of free things”
No doubt those marchers have visions of welfare checks, and free medical care and housing and all sorts of things in their heads right now. Dreaming big! And no doubt many of them will get just what they are dreaming of because our immigration laws make it almost impossible to deport them back to their own country immediately if they are “other than Mexican”.
We need to get our immigration laws changed, otherwise the whole world is going to be “pooring” across our border.
There is a theory that was popular in the ’80s that tectonic activity cycles anti-clockwise round the Pacific Ocean. Thus it is now the Eastern side of the Pacific’s turn to be hit by activity.
But I never did know how Kilauea fitted in.
It’s not part of the Ring of Fire. It’s caused by the Pacific Plate passing over the Hawaiian Hot Spot, which has been responsible for all the Hawaiian Islands and the Emperor Seamounts.
The Ring of Fire, by contrast, owes to the subduction of oceanic plates under continental plates.
But what is the Hawaiian Hotspot It doesn’t fit in.
-Is it the peak of a crack in the mantle?
-Or is it where the eddies on the mantle cause a bulge into the crust?
-Or are the eddies a circular motion in the mantle with the centre adjacent to the Hawaiian Hotspot and the edges meeting the surface at the edge of the Pacific?
It doesn’t fit in. Which is interesting.
Hot spots are often associated with tectonic boundaries, but some are just randomly located around both continental and oceanic plates.
Some scientists think that at least certain spots are caused by large ET impacts, which punch through the crust. Oceanic crust is thinner, hence more vulnerable to such penetration.
Here are the locations of several:
https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/world_map.html
Here’s another Pacific hotspot, with a cartoon of the standard model of how they work. In the past 20 years, some have questioned whether they all remain stationary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoa_hotspot
The most famous hotspot in the Indian Ocean is probably that currently under Reunion Island, east of Madagascar. The Deccan Traps are attributed to the passage of the Indian Plate over this hotspot on its high-speed (geologically speaking) trip across the IO from Antarctica to collide with the Eurasian Plate, piling up the Himalayas. The Deccan Traps flood basalt eruptions occurred around the end of the Cretaceous and beginning of the Paleogene Periods, so some have blamed volcanism for the mass extinction event then, rather than or in addition to the Yucatan bolide impact.
Interesting .
Thanks.
People always seem to be surprised when I tell them that the Mono-Inyo Craters (#24 on the list) erupted as recently as 500 years ago. They present a current danger through the release of carbon dioxide and other volcanic gasses on and around Mammoth Mountain. In 2006 three Mammoth Mountain ski patrol members were killed by the toxic gas released by a fumarole after becoming trapped when snow they were standing on above the fumarole collapsed.
For anyone else with an interest in geology and an addiction to Excel…
I converted the table to an Excel spreadsheet and built a “bubble map” plot:
https://debunkhouse.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/usgs-volcanic-threat-assessment.xlsx
The USGS should have included the volcanic chain that continues into Western Canada right up to Alaska.
The table should have distinguished the difference between shield volcanoes that drool and the subduction ones that do very big bangs.
I’m in a high-rise condo as far west in Vancouver as one can get. Facing south and west the view is, at times, incredible.
To the south-west at some 80 miles is Mount Baker, which is one of those that can go bang.
On a clear day it can be readily seen.
Any troubles and let y’all know.
Oops–the martini
The view to Baker is to the South-East
Bob,
Shortly before Mt. St. Helens blew, there were more warnings for Baker.
It’s a hyperactive volcano.
Envy your view.
Oh Yeah. Mt. St. Helens
I was living on Point Grey Road, right on the ocean facing north.
I had to look up the date and it was a Sunday morning, nice day and I heard a modest boom.
But enough for me to go to the window, the curtains were always open, to see if one of the ships in the harbour had a problem.
Couldn’t see anything unusual and it wasn’t until a few hours later when driving the car with the radio on that I heard the news.
If it had blown straight up I might not have heard anything, but the north-facing slope failed and a lot of the energy headed north.
When I was recently graduated I had a job checking out a gold property up the Nass River from Terrace, B. C.
Parts of the valley floor were still showing lava that had flowed some 250 years ago. Rather ugly stuff.
I was in North Vancouver City when Mt St Helen’s blew up. It shook the house slightly it was so loud. That whole area is dangerous!
Bob and Crispin,
The Mt. St. Helens eruption was a prime example of what was known in the US (so-called) Civil War “acoustic shadow”.
We didn’t hear the eruption in Portland, close to it, but others closer and farther away did. It depended on the bounce off layers of the atmosphere. Watching from NW PDX, I could estimate the ash cloud height with hand over hand measurements, which proved ball park accurate.
Because the sound wave missed us, I wouldn’t even have known the volcano went off had I not been walking the child of the couple with whom I then roomed in NW PDX that morning.
PS: May 18, 1980 was a Sunday. Few were out and about at 8:32 AM.
My Seattle house got a “good” bounce. I thought a 747 had passed 50 feet above it. I went out to see where it had gone and noticed neighbors in two houses out on their porches like me. (We’d been reading or viewing warnings about the impending eruptions for months, but I don’t think any of us put two and two together in the immediate atermath.)
There is a definite link between a weakening geo magnetic field and the climate/volcanic activity if the geo magnetic field is weakening in sync with a weakening solar magnetic field .
Why? Because a weakening geo magnetic will compound given solar effects. When the solar magnetic field weakens one effect is an increase in galactic cosmic rays entering our atmosphere and some reaching the surface of the earth. The weakening geo magnetic field will compound this. This increase in galactic cosmic rays will result in an increase in global cloud coverage and an increase in major explosive volcanic activity and geological activity in general which will result in a cooling climate.
Evidence of this is already taken place with earth quake activity magnitude 4.0 or higher on the rise up over 20% over the last few months while global temperatures have been trending lower post year 2016.
What the f&ck these overpaid a$$holes been doing for 10 year! Are they union f&cks?!?!? Prosecute them for stealing our money!!!!!!!!
I see the researchers minimized Sunset Crater’s danger into a non-threat.
One would think that a young volcano would merit some serious study.
Then again, one would think that large cities in the path of major tsunami, volcanic lahars and pyroclastic flows would get moved to safer areas.
Nope!
Better to tell people to walk, not run, to a local high spot.
While doing some reading on volcanoes a few days ago, I ran across the interesting opinion that individual young, small volcanoes and their associated fissure zones don’t seem to show a propensity to easily “come back to life”, once “extinct”.
While I don’t recall the exact reasoning, it would seem that with the eruptive cessation of a small volcano, the smaller associated conduit(s) seal themselves more easily than the large conduits of large volcanoes. (This may not apply to Hawaiian volcanoes.)
Some examples, aside from Sunset Crater, might be the Mono-Inyo Craters (CA) and Little Black Peak (Carrizozo, NM, erupted ca. 5,000 years ago). That is not to say that the particular area associated with a particular volcano, i.e., the “volcanic field” is not susceptible, it is best to keep an open mind. Different Geologists will have different views on the possibility of future eruptions in established areas. Aside from Little Black Peak, there are numerous potentially active areas associated with the Rio Grande Rift, the San Francisco Volcanic Field (Flagstaff, AZ), and the Clayton-Raton Volcanic Field (NE New Mexico).
(Those NM and AZ volcanoes are the ones most familiar to me.)
Interesting how they ranked Mt. Hood. Local geologist consider it dormant and not an imminent threat followed up by “if” it did wake up it has the potential to wipe out Portland. Looks like this study mostly looked at the potential threat if it does wake up more than if it’s likely to become active any time soon.
How to weaponize a volcano, according to a Russian military expert, reported by RT.
Russia is able to produce nuclear weapons with a yield of more than 100 megatons.
“If “areas with critically dangerous geophysical conditions in the US (like the Yellowstone Supervolcano or the San Andreas Fault)” are targeted by those warheads, “such an attack guarantees the destruction of the US as a state and the entire transnational elite,” he said.”
https://www.rt.com/russia/442147-us-russia-nuclear-yellowstone-inf/
You can not weaponize a volcano.
Would be one helluva concealed carry piece!
Various scenarios: The Russian guy’s comment was sarcastic. The Russian guy is a left-over from the Cold War. The Russian guy accidentally let slip the plot of a future James Bond movie. The Russian guy is just bragging, to encourage disarmament. The Russian guy is planting a seed of doubt and worry and the next step will be to monetize the volcano. He will claim the volcano has already been hacked and everybody had better send a gazillion dollars to his BitCoin account, or else.