Volcanologist Question:

Download Questions PDF

A lot of things seem funnier in retrospect than they did when they were happening. I remember being caught in a cloud of steam and sulfur dioxide on the rim of Pu`u `O`o crater with another geologist. We couldn't see more than a few feet in front of us, and the fume was terrible, even wearing gas masks. We were stumbling around and arguing about which way we should go which is hard to do wearing a gas mask because it’s like trying to talk with someone’s hand across your mouth. Then I heard this muffled shriek from my partner, who had almost stepped off the rim into the crater. We finally found our way out of the whiteout, but if anyone could have seen us in our identical flight suits and gas masks feeling our way through a cloud of gas you would have thought it was a scene from The Three Stooges--except that there were only two of us, because you were somewhere else that day.