Cataclysm

by Tim Washburn

  “Unknown, Ralph. All of these events could be a way to relieve pressure on the magma chamber. Or they could be a precursor to a much wider event. The rapid uplift at Mallard and Sour Creek domes is a major source of concern. But again, we’ve seen uplift at those locations before.”

  Barlow growls, then says, “So basically, Tucker, we don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on?”

  “There’s just no way to predict if the caldera is going to erupt. Let me get with Eric and Jeremy to see if we can get a better handle on what’s happening.”

  “You’ve got an hour, Tucker. I’m going to contact the highway patrol in all three states in hopes that we can have an orderly evacuation. It will take some time to get all of it set up. But I’m not going to have any more deaths on my watch.”

  “I understand, Ralph. I’ll call you back within the hour.” Tucker disconnects the call and turns to Rachael. “You’re the hydrology expert. You think these hydrothermal explosions could be acting as relief valves?”

  Rachael gnaws on her bottom lip as she stares into the distance. “I just don’t know, Tucker.” She turns to look at him. “As far as I know, there hasn’t been an explosion around the Midway Geyser Basin since the Excelsior Geyser erupted in the mid-1980s. But with this eruption and the one at the lake earlier, plus the erratic activity of Old Faithful, I think we would be naive to think all this is normal. That said, I have a really hard time believing the caldera is on the verge of eruption.”

  Tucker remains silent as he turns and starts walking. Rachael falls in line with him. He hands her the sat phone. “See if you can get Eric and Jeremy on a conference call. I’m going to check on my brother.”

  Tucker enters through the employee entrance and ducks into the office. Ron is working on Matt’s leg while Jess sits huddled against the wall, Mason and Maddie huddled on either side of her. Tucker summons Jessica with a nod. She stands, and he leads her toward the far corner of the office.

  “The helicopter crashed, killing everyone aboard.”

  Jess’s hands go to her mouth.

  “There’s more. A hydrothermal explosion at the Midway Geyser area killed fifteen people, with many more injured.”

  “Oh God, Tucker. Is all of this the result of the earthquakes?”

  Tucker shrugs. “I don’t think so. I’m scared, Jess. Scared of what could happen. As soon as Ron is finished with Matt, I want you to load up everyone and get the hell out of the park. Don’t even bother getting your luggage from the room. I’ll pick it up and throw it in the back of my pickup. Just get in the car and start driving. Don’t stop until you’re at least a hundred and fifty miles away.”

  Jess puts a hand on his chest. “We’re not leaving without you. I left once . . .”

  Tucker’s face flushes with anger as he grasps Jess by the elbow. When he speaks, his voice is low, urgent. “You will leave. Do you want your children incinerated by a pyroclastic flow traveling at hurricane speeds? A pyroclastic flow so hot that it will boil the water from a human body and vaporize everything in its path? Getting the hell out is the only option.”

  Jess’s cheeks turn crimson. “And how do you think they’ll feel knowing their uncle could have chosen to come with us and didn’t?”

  Tucker releases her arm. “I’m not sacrificing myself. There are things I need to take care of. Please, Jess. Please, just load up and go.”

  CHAPTER 21

  51.3 miles east of the park boundary, near Cody, Wyoming

  Air hisses as Eldon Harjo takes his foot off the brake pedal of his eighteen-wheeler. Attached to his tractor truck is a muddy tanker trailer with 8,500 gallons of fracking fluid sloshing around with each jerk of the truck. Eldon is next up in a line of six tanker rigs waiting to dispose of the chemicals and briny water from a gas well near his home at the Wind River Indian Reservation. The reservation, covering nearly 3,500 square miles, is home to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Native American tribes. Eldon falls into the first category, with a heavy brow, high, well-defined cheekbones, and a long broad nose with a slight hook at the end. His dark hair is shot through with gray and hangs well below his shoulders.

  The driver in front eases away from the disposal well, and Eldon slips the clutch, moving his truck into position. He climbs from the cab and spots Quincy, a Cajun redneck who recently migrated up from Louisiana, headed his way.

  “What’s up, Chief?”

  “Fucker,” Eldon mutters as he drags the four-inch hose off the trailer and clamps it to the out-feed line. He attaches the other end of the hose to the wellhead, where the slurry is injected deep underground at pressures reaching 14,000 PSI. The contents of the tanker include: briny water; sand or ceramics, which are prop-pants used to keep the fractured rock from closing up; and a mix of acids and other chemicals, such as friction reducers, biocides, scale inhibitors, gelling agents, or gel breakers. All of it a chemical soup used to force the shale to release the oil and natural gas that the rock’s been clinging to for millions of years.

  Eldon clamps down the last connection and turns to find Quincy leaning against the trailer, a lit cigarette dangling from the corner of his bearded mouth. Quincy exhales a stream of smoke as he speaks. “Hey, Chief, you ever wonder what all this is doing to the land beneath the rez?”

  “My name’s not Chief, you coon ass. What’s it to you, anyway?”

  Quincy barks out a hacking laugh. “Okay, El . . . don, you got me there. But you ain’t never wondered what all this shit is doing to mother earth? I thought all you Injuns were land lovers. Like, it’s all sacred ground or some shit.”

  “Jobs are scarce and I’ve got a family to feed.” Eldon turns away and walks toward the pump shed, but then stops and turns back. Quincy had hit a nerve. “I don’t like it. But at least it’s not as bad as what you Cajuns did to the Gulf Coast. Fuckin’ oil spewing into the ocean for weeks on end.” Eldon turns to resume his journey, his mind spinning, again, about the possible side effects of all the drilling going on around the reservation.

  Quincy shouts after him, “It’s only a matter of time, Chief, until somethin’ up here gets fucked up. You wait and see.”

  Eldon shoots Quincy the finger and ducks into the shed. He powers on the massive pump that injects the wastewater deep underground, and exits. As he approaches his rig, the ground begins to shift beneath his feet. The tremor races up his legs, forcing Eldon to grab for the side of the trailer. In moments the tremor passes and Eldon turns to look back at the pump shed, wondering if that might be the cause for the earthquake. “Just a coincidence,” he mutters as he double-checks the connections.

  Quincy tosses his cigarette butt to the ground and squashes it with a muddy boot. “What’d I tell you, Chief? Only a matter of time.” Quincy laughs as he turns and makes his way back to his truck.

  Eldon watches Quincy’s departure as a seed of concern forms in the pit of his stomach.

  CHAPTER 22

  University Seismic Observation Lab

  Josh taps on the doorframe and steps into the office. “Professor Snider, I finally got in touch with a ranger station. My parents and sister are camped in the Grant Village area. They still won’t answer their cell phones, so if it’s okay with you, I’m going to drive up there.”

  Snider takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose. “It may not be safe, Josh. Did you ask if they could relay a message to your parents?”

  “I did. But I think the rangers have their hands full. The lady on the phone sounded harried.”

  Snider replaces his glasses and leans forward in his chair. “It’s a real shitstorm up there right now. They’ve suffered considerable earthquake damage and several people were killed in a hydrothermal explosion.”

  Josh sags against the wall. “Anything happen in the Grant Village area?”

  “No. At least not yet, but it’s not out of the realm of possibilities. If you’re going, you need to leave now. Drive straight through. Get in and out. You should have time.” He opens a desk
drawer, removes a phone, and slides it across the desk. “Take this satellite phone. I want you to call me every hour or so to give me an update or if you see anything unusual. You’re going to be another set of eyes on the ground.”

  Josh picks up the phone and slides it into his pocket.

  “What kind of car do you drive?”

  “An ancient Civic. Why?”

  Snider digs through his pocket and pulls out a set of keys and hands them to Josh. “Take my pickup. It’s four-wheel drive. Things could get dicey up there.”

  Josh pockets the keys. “I’ll take good care of it.”

  “I don’t care about the truck. Take care of yourself.”

  Josh says good-bye and leaves the office. With a growing sense of trepidation, Snider watches Josh retreat down the hall. The phone rings and he glances at the caller ID before snatching up the handset. “Tucker, what the hell is going on up there?”

  “Eric, this is Rachael. Tucker will be back in a sec. Can you conference in Jeremy?”

  Snider, owner of three degrees, two of them advanced, stares at the phone console with a bewildered expression on his face. “I’m not sure I know how to do that.”

  Rachael sighs. “Go find a student to set it up for us.”

  “Okay. Be back in a sec.”

  Snider returns with a student, who spends less than ten seconds setting up the conference call. In the interim, Tucker rejoined Rachael, and now the three leaders of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory are interlinked—Dr. Eric Snider, chief seismologist, Dr. Jeremy Lyndsey, scientist-in-charge of YVO, and Dr. Tucker Mayfield, scientist-in-charge on park grounds.

  “Gentlemen, I’ve been on the ground here at Old Faithful most of the morning,” Tucker says. “Things are escalating quickly—multiple hydrothermal explosions and earthquakes of increasing intensity. I’m proposing we raise the aviation volcanic threat level to orange and upgrade ground conditions to a watch.”

  Lyndsey responds first. “Tucker, do you really believe an eruption is imminent?”

  “Superintendent Barlow is giving us an hour to figure that out. He wants to issue a parkwide evacuation order. Eric, what’s the latest data suggesting?”

  Snider picks up a rubber band and stretches it across his fingers. “Nothing good. The GPS units are showing ground deformation at unseen rates. There’s considerable uplift at the two domes and general uplift all along Lake Yellowstone as well as the Norris area. The seismometers are in nearly constant flux and the borehole tiltmeters and strainmeters indicate a pattern of extreme unrest. I’m trying to get NASA to shoot some thermal images but they’re in the middle of a software update.”

  “Any indications of a harmonic tremor?” Lyndsey asks.

  Snider shoots the rubber band across the room before wiggling his computer mouse to wake the screen. “The surface instruments are so susceptible to wind that I’m not sure we’d ever spot a harmonic tremor. I’ve got eyes watching all of the borehole seismometers, but no indication yet.”

  “I don’t think we should be banking on a harmonic tremor becoming our canary in the coal mine,” Tucker says. “I think there’s a good portion of magma already moving toward the surface, and that’s causing all the seismic activity. Rachael agrees. She believes magma movement may be pushing the surface water upward, creating these hydrothermal explosions.”

  “Okay, Tucker. I’m on board with raising the aviat-ing threat level to orange. It’ll take a while for the change to work through the system. But I’m not sure a parkwide evacuation is warranted.”

  “Says the man sitting six hundred miles away,” Tucker says with a tinge of heat in his voice. “Ralph will be the one to make that call, and right now he’s leaning toward an evacuation. And, frankly, I can’t disagree with him. I’m here on the ground and I’m telling you something’s off. Too many unexplained events.”

  “But what if we’re wrong?” Lyndsey asks.

  “Better that than the alternative,” Tucker says.

  Camp 5–Panama City, Florida

  Interview: Mary from Menlo Park, CA—staff geologist, USGS

  “It was a helpless feeling being so far removed the park. But we were so busy studying the data that we didn’t really have time to discuss it. We were in constant communication with the seismology lab and with geologists on the ground in Yellowstone. We were burning up the phone lines, trying to gather all the information we could. Although thoughts of what might occur were in the back of our minds, we were on the cusp of witnessing something no human had ever witnessed. All the data indicated extreme unrest, but no one thought . . . you know . . . but sometimes Mother Nature has a mind of her own.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Seattle, Washington

  Downsized when the major airline he worked for went belly-up, Captain Neil Lockhart takes a half-hearted glance at the preflight checklist while he sips his third cup of coffee of the morning. Once having flown triple-7s into exotic locations such as Bangkok, Tokyo, and Paris, Captain Lockhart is now flying thirty-year-old 737s into less glamorous places such as El Paso and Newark.

  He tosses the checklist onto the co-captain’s seat and leans back in his too-small seat. Six months from the mandatory retirement age of sixty-five, Neil Lockhart is carrying forty extra pounds, evidenced by his heavy jowls and protruding belly. With a ruddy complexion and a scalp encircled by a single band of hair, he has a brusque manner that’s sometimes mistaken for rudeness.

  The aircraft dips as someone steps aboard, and he turns to see his copilot entering the flight deck. Victoria Delgado, one of the first Hispanic females to graduate from the Air Force’s combat flight school, snatches up the preflight checklist and steps over the communication console to slide into her seat. Her skin is the color of raw sienna and she has a head full of dark hair cut in an asymmetrical bob. She tosses her hat onto the dash and wiggles in her seat to get comfortable. “So another tour of Kansas City and Scranton?”

  “That’s the plan. A visit to some of America’s finest cities.”

  “God, I hope they don’t put us up in another do-drop-inn for the night.”

  “Yeah, maybe they’ll upgrade us to a Motel 6.”

  Delgado smiles. “I can’t believe I left the Air Force for such a glamorous job.”

  Lockhart drains the rest of his coffee and looks around for somewhere to put the empty cup. “Why did you punch out?”

  “I was never going to make colonel. Too many captains pushing up the ladder. Plus my husband and I got tired of moving every couple of years. I put in fifteen and we relocated to Seattle.” She picks up the flight log and makes an entry. “How long before we push back?”

  “Thirty minutes or so. Should be a smooth flight. Weather looks good.”

  Delgado closes the book. “What are you going to do, Neil, when you hang up your flight jacket?”

  “Hell if I know. We have a couple of grandkids that live out near Jackson Hole. Might just sell everything we own and move to the mountains.”

  “I’m envious. But, I’ve got a long way to go. Sure is a beautiful area. We’ve driven over to Yellowstone a couple of times over the years. The scenery is spectacular. Speaking of which”—Delgado removes her smartphone and clicks on the Internet browser—“I always check the volcano threat level before taking off.”

  Lockhart chuckles. “We’d see St. Helens from here.”

  “I’m not too worried about Mount St. Helens.” She navigates to the U.S. Geological Survey’s hazards web page and clicks on the volcano alerts. “Everything’s green except for portions of Hawaii.”

  Lockhart’s chuckle turns to a laugh. “Which one you worried about? The alleged Yellowstone supervolcano?”

  Delgado glances up from the screen. “Nothing alleged about it. That’s one big mother. Plus, it’s right in our flight path.”

  Lockhart waves a hand of dismissal and laughs again. “I think we’re safe for today.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Old Faithful I
nn

  After the conference call, Tucker slips the phone into his pocket.

  “You’re not going to call Ralph?” Rachael asks.

  Tucker shakes his head. “Not yet. We still have some time before his deadline.”

  Rachael grabs Tucker by the elbow and pulls him to a stop. “Every minute we delay puts more lives at risk.”

  “Damn it, Rachael, I know that.” He takes a deep breath and releases it. “I don’t know what to do. You’re the one who suggested an evacuation could be a disaster. What if we evacuate and nothing happens? We’d be crucified for putting the tourists further at risk when there’s only a slim chance for an eruption. The damn thing hasn’t erupted in 640,000 years, and now it’s going to happen on our watch?”

  Rachael steps forward and places a hand on Tucker’s chest. “I’m not your enemy, Tucker. And I certainly don’t have all the answers. But what’s occurred this morning isn’t normal behavior for the park. Do we want to risk thousands of lives while pondering statistical improbabilities?”

  Tucker eases her hand off his chest. “You’re right. When word spreads about the change in aviation threat levels, the entire country will be in a panic. But if Ralph issues an evacuation order, there’s no putting the genie back into the bottle. Pandemonium might ensue.”

  Rachael rakes her fingers through her curls. “Better pandemonium than annihilation.”

  Dejected by the lack of alternatives, Tucker places a call to Barlow. After a brief discussion, he disconnects the call and turns to Rachael. “He wants us to return to Mammoth. He’s reaching out to the governor as we speak. The evacuation order will go out shortly, and he wants us there to help implement the plan.”

  “Lot of good that will do. Although we don’t have any other options, the plan will probably last all of about thirty seconds. Do you want me to measure gas readings around the geysers before we leave?”