Sacred Volcano in North Korea May Be Waiting to Blow

National Geographic ^ | 4/15/2016 | Nadia Drake

[JimSEA]

An enigmatic and dangerous giant sleeps on the border between China and North Korea.

It’s quiet now, but a millennium ago, the volcano called Mount Paektu exploded with a fury rivaling the largest eruptions in recorded human history, hurling crackling rocks and ash as far away as Japan

Despite that violent outburst, Mount Paektu—or Changbai, as it’s called in Chinese—remains fundamentally mysterious. Few outside the region are even aware it exists. And no one knows if, or when, the 9,000-foot-tall (2,740-meter-tall) peak might erupt again.

Now, armed with an array of seismometers and almost unprecedented access to North Korea, an international team of scientists is working to peer beneath Mount Paektu. Inscribed in those shifting layers of Earth are crucial clues about the possibility of future eruptions.

“Is there magma down there? Is there melt that could potentially lead to an eruption? All the stuff that’s driving volcanic eruptions lives in the subsurface,” says Kayla Iacovino of the U.S. Geological Survey, coauthor of a study appearing today in Science Advances that describes Mount Paektu’s subsurface anatomy.

Restless Giant

Unlike most volcanoes on Earth, Mount Paektu isn’t located where tectonic plates collide. It’s parked in the middle of a plate, at least 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) away from the massive subduction zone that created the Japanese islands. Simply put, Mount Paektu shouldn’t really be there.

[JimSEA]

"The data Hammond and his team have collected are solid, says seismologist George Zandt of the University of Arizona. And the results, though not particularly surprising, are nonetheless informative: Beneath Mount Paektu is a layer of partially melted rock—a mushy mixture of liquid, gas, crystals, and rock."

[JimSEA]

beautiful lake but that would just add to the disaster and destruction. This really, really isn't a good way to eliminate Kim Jong Un.

[Gay State Conservative]

Fantastic....huge eruption...massive damage...people hungrier than ever...and that fat psychopath tries to distract the population by making *bigger* threats and launching *more* missiles

[Samwell Tarly]

Why couldn’t Mecca have been built on top of a sacred volcano?

[SkyDancer]

If it does, Kim-Jun-Whatever will have it executed.

[Ozark Tom]

Underground tests could wake the beast.

[Mike Darancette]

When the crater lake disappears, run.

[Mike Darancette]

Pikachu don't look so scary to me.

[dp0622]

lol

[StormEye]

"Sacred Volcano in North Korea May Be Waiting To Blow"

Good!
I hope the "Sacred Volcano" causes much sacred death and destruction.

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

That’s “brow”

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

North Korea is beyond saving.