Only a few weeks ago, I put a spotlight on the, at the time, 5 volcano observatories managed by the USGS - the Yellowstone, Cascade, Hawaii, Alaska and Long Valley observatories. Since then, we've found out about the CNMI "observatory" based out of AVO and now we can get another big change. This time, it is a whole new observatory! The USGS announced on Thursday the founding of the California Volcano Observatory, CalVO* for short. CalVO is tasked with monitoring a wide swath of U.S. territory that covers California and Nevada, all being run out of the USGS office in Menlo Park. This means that the Long Valley Observatory is no more and a number of Cascade volcanoes in Northern California get taken up by CalVO and away from CVO (which is now officially in charge of volcanoes in Oregon, Washington and Idaho) - think of CVO and CalVO like the Saruman and Sauron of volcano observatories (or, technically, as Eruptions reader Jim points out, Orthanc and Barad-dûr). This reorganization is born out of the National Volcano Early Warning System (NVEWS) that hopes to unify volcano monitoring response across the country. If you're unfamiliar with the volcanic activity in California, you might think CalVO won't have much to do - but remember, beyond the well-known volcanoes like Shasta, Lassen Peak and Long Valley, California has a bevy of volcanic fields and dome complexes, including the Coso Volcanic Field, Clear Lake Volcanic Field, the Mono-Inyo Craters and real obscure places like Lavic Lake Volcanic Field and Brushy Butte (amongst others). The first monthly status update from CalVO has the volcanoes of California green across the boards, but if we start to hear about any rumblings in the Golden State, we have a new observatory to manage the response and research the volcanoes. * With CVO (Cascade Volcano Observatory) already taken, I suppose they could have called it CaVO, but Cascades starts with "Ca" as well, so CalVO it is. Maybe they could have gone with GSVO for "Golden State Volcano Observatory."
Image: Mt. Shasta, California - D.H. Parks / Flickr
