Science & Tech
A team of experts went on a mission to uncover the hazards of one of Canada’s northernmost volcanoes of the Cascade Arc
About 150 kilometres north of Vancouver, a series of jagged peaks bounded by glaciers form the Mount Meager volcanic complex. This massif’s forbidding history includes the largest eruption in Canada in the last 10,000 years. The Lil’wat people call it Qw̓̓elqw̓̓elústen, the “cooked face place.” If it erupted now, volcanic debris flows could reach the nearby town of Pemberton, and smoke and ash could be sent across Western Canada.
And yet, we know very little about it. In 2016, large cave openings were observed on Job Glacier, billowing steam. The long-dormant volcano, it seemed, had reawakened. This “glacio-volcanic cave” is one of few known in the world. To learn more meant going into a place that no human had ever entered, with hazards we barely comprehend and have no playbook for.
Last year, a multidisciplinary team of explorers, volcanologists, planetary scientists and robotics engineers headed up Qw̓̓elqw̓̓elústen. Their goals were ambitious and wide-ranging: attempting to determine what hazards the volcano poses to the thousands of people in surrounding communities, collecting samples to discover what incredible life can exist in such an extreme environment — and testing cutting-edge technologies that might one day help us to find life on other worlds.
This story is from the September/October 2023 Issue
Exploration
Something melted a hole through the glacier above the Mount Meager Volcano in 2016. A perilous expedition ventured deep inside the cave to find out, did the volcano wake up?
Exploration
On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens exploded in the largest volcanic disaster ever recorded in the United States. Forty years later, work continues to understand the eruption and its aftermath — with some surprising Canadian connections.
Wildlife
Penguin expert Pablo García Borboroglu and wildlife filmmaker Bertie Gregory share insights into the latest installment of National Geographic’s hit “Secrets of” franchise
Exploration
Take a step inside Mount Meager to learn all about this volcano that last erupted 2400 years ago, plus testing space probes that could be used in the search for life on one of Saturn’s moons