The Yellowstone Conundrum (2 page)

US Geological Survey

Geologic Hazards Science Center

Golden, Colorado 6:30 AM MST

  Dr. Nancy O’Brien pulled into her private parking space behind the US Geological Survey building; the space being a rare commodity on the campus of Colorado School of Mines.  Slim, petite and athletic, the 42-year old popped out of her fire engine red 2012 Mustang GTX, swiped her ID card at the rear entrance and soon found herself in her third floor office. She tossed her jacket onto an empty chair, inserted her laptop into the docking station and began to quickly assess overnight information. 

 
Nancy or “Miss Nancy” was a natural clothes horse, the kind of early middle-age beauty who looked good in everything; most often wearing soft-fabric pleated pants with a beautiful blouse, un-tucked at the waist, the fabric gently draping over her small breasts. It was a style that was natural for her, requiring no more effort than a brief whisk of a brush across her no-problem pixie haircut; sandy-colored without a hint of grey.

 
With a B.S. in Geological and Environmental Sciences, and an M.S. in Environmental Geology and Surface Processes both from Stanford and a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Engineering from Cal Tech; to go along with work experience at DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the National Energy Technology Lab in Pittsburgh, Dr. Nancy O’Brien was no empty suit as Chief Scientist of the USGS Geologic Hazards Science Center.

 
She began every day with a smile. 

 
Not only is the ugliest building I have ever worked in, it’s possibly the ugliest building I’ve ever seen.

 
In one of the most scenic backdrops to any work environment possible, she and the other one hundred twenty employees worked in one of the most depressing-looking office buildings in the state of Colorado, possibly the entire country; IBM punch card in style but with the look and feel of a penitentiary.

 
You didn’t get to be on the staff at Geologic Hazards Science Center by just being a pretty face. In fact, there were very few places in the United States that had a higher per/cubic/inch quotient of Ph.D. degrees. 

 
How are you doin’ darlin’?
  She thought. 

 
Her husband Robert was on his way from a regional meeting in Billings, Montana and then in the next few days onto a tour of the other dams on the Upper Great Plains region of the Western Area Power Administration; WAPA for short.   Robert was the undersecretary for the Bureau of Reclamation, home base in Washington, D.C.

 
Then he’d return to their tiny condo in Reston, Virginia, their home base by agreement; Reston was the HQ location for the US Geological Survey. 

 
Or simply the ‘love nest’ as he refered to it. He’d made the small apartment feel like it was a soft n’ sexy porn studio. Their relationship was beyond special. Their reunions were like attending a college football weekend; Every day was Homecoming and we’re going to Kappa Sig for the night. Even though at 52 he needed an occasional blue pill, he was plenty manly for her.

 
As Director of Operations, Nancy was in charge of the building. She supervised the four program areas which included special research areas; the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS), the Albuquerque Seismological Lab, magnetic observatories from Guam to Deadhorse, Yukon to San Juan, Puerto Rico; landslide hazards; and the National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC). Other projects included the study and timing of prehistoric earthquakes, high resolution seismic satellite imaging, wildfire debris patterns, and the production of a variety of seismic maps available to the public.

 
Her Spartan office was furnished with a standard GSA-approved desk, credenza, two filing cabinets, two side chairs (other managers get only one chair) a low end table with no magazines and a lamp; standard issue for her job classification.

 
On her screen came a quick survey of registration sites.

 
“What’s this?” 

 
The outburst was involuntary; no one was in the office to hear her. It would be another half hour before her I/T manager Herb Probst would arrive, followed shortly by scientists Amy Bridges and Albert Frohming, normally within five minutes of each other; then Alma Bevins in accounting on the second floor; the heavy-set woman had been working at USGS since the agency was moved from Boulder to Golden in the mid-70s. She had to take three busses to get to Golden from her home in Commerce City on the east side of Denver.

 
Nancy quickly punched out the number for the University of Utah’s Earthquake Information Center, one of NEIC’s regional seismograph centers.             

 
“Come on, pick up!” On the fifteenth ring came a breathless voice.

 
“Hello—“

 
“Danny?“

 
“Yes, Dr. O’Brien.”

 
“Look at your stations; SHAKE-NET, ANNS (yes, pronounced Anus, or more politely AN-us). Look at your seismos!”

 
Nancy could hear Danny Ross, a very likeable, athletic young man bang away on his keyboard. Danny had just earned his Ph.D. in Geology and Geophysics and at 27 years old was in charge of the 4-man (2 men, 2 women) seismology lab that monitored seismic activity in Utah, eastern Idaho and the Yellowstone area.

 
“What the heck?“ Danny exclaimed.

 
“Exactly,” added Nancy from 500 miles away. “Until this morning. No, until last night at eleven-fourteen the pattern of earthquake swarms had virtually duplicated the swarms of February 2008 and January 2010.”

 
“Just like they have been for the last three weeks,” replied Danny.

 
Referred to as swarms, like bees coming out of a hive, there had been repetitive periods where the seismic activity of moderate earthquake in the 3x range had run for a month or so, then jumped from 30 or 40 per month up to 1600 or higher. This earthquake activity was also accompanied by thermal events, referred to as earth burps or more often as VFs (Vulcan farts).

 
“Now look at it,” Nancy switched screens to the Utah Seismic measurement screen which showed the 35 seismographs installed in various locations within Yellowstone. Each seismograph, a relatively simple computer which measured the vibration of the earth—either at the surface and/or beneath.

 
Many of the seismic stations had multiple measuring instruments; temperature, GPS, even a camera. The now-familiar seismic printout shows in fifteen-minute increments the movement of the earth; with black, red, green and blue lines demarking the 15-minute span, making it a lot easier to read.

 
“Dr. Nancy,” Danny started, his voice betraying his youth and rising anxiety. “Look at the thermal imaging screens from ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer, Jet Propulson Lab at Cal Tech) and MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectoradiometer, NASA).

 
Overnight the imaging data from the two satellites showed a color change of the temperature immediately beneath the surface up to 2 miles deep from blue to a series of psychodelic oranges and deep reds; magma, lots of it, had moved closer to the surface of the earth.

 
“Are we about to have an
event
?
” Danny asked, very concerned.

  “We may,” Nancy agreed.
“I need to get up the line; be back to you soon. Get me what you can.” Nancy hung up.

 
Nancy wasn’t a “coffee-person” but she could have used the moments to sip a cup to reflect on her options; five seconds passed and she went to Plan B, the second thing she’d learned.
When the shit is going to hit the fan, make sure your boss knows about it ahead of time
.

 
In the government of the United States; that would be
OUR
government; many, if not most, line responsibilities are dotted; that is,
I need to know what you’re doing but I can’t fire you
; as opposed to direct line,
I know what you’re doing and you’re fired
. 

 
Because our government is so large and so convoluted (the Republicans are right on this one) one manager can have multiple dotted line “managers” and may not even have a direct line manager, or one that has hire-fire capability. 

 
Nancy punched out a local number 236-5900, the number for the USGS Regional office in the Denver Federal Center on West 6
th
(US 6) and Kipling Streets, less than five miles downhill from her office in Golden.

  “
You’ve reached the Southwest Regional office of the United States Geological Survey. Our office hours are seven-thirty to four-thirty Mountain Standard Time. Please call back during those hours.”

 
“Shit!” Nancy cursed as she returned to her computer and found the internal Federal Government telephone directory, then dialed Bill Gallagher’s direct line 236-5440.

 
“
Hi, this is Bill Gallagher. Sorry I’m not in the office.  I’m on vacation this week, returning on February 26
th
. You can either leave a message at the beep or contact my secretary, Rhonda Holland at 236-5441, or press the pound key to leave a message
.”

 
It was the curse of the over-achievers; most people get to and leave from work at the appointed hours. Part of the generally-accepted CYA process was that when you couldn’t reach someone, make sure you leave electronic breadcrumbs along the way that timestamp your efforts. Nancy pounded out to voice mail; either Rhonda or Bill would pick up the message; as she left the voice message she quickly typed an e-mail to duplicate it.

 
In the lower right of her screen a pop-up box showed that Danny Ross was IM’ing her. 

 
Madison River is spiking big time, so is Lake Yellowstone.

 
Nancy punched out 703-648-7412 in Reston, Virginia where it was 8:56 and Spring was just around the corner in the capital area; temps would be in the high 50’s today. It didn’t matter that another Deep South system was already cranking up in the Southwest. Denver had received six inches of snow last night. The storm would follow the typical winter pattern across the South and roll up the Eastern Seaboard the day after tomorrow.

 
Reporting seismic anomalies from Upper Falls, Yellowstone River. Jesus, Ms. Nancy!

 
“This is Janice Smithers,” answered the 48-year old Deputy Director.  Her secretary Unice Smith had gone to fetch coffee, but that was twenty minutes ago.

 
“Ma’am, this is Nancy O’Brien.  This isn’t a recording is it?” Nancy replied in a laugh as did the Deputy Director.

 
“No, Dr. O’Brien. It’s not a recording. We actually answer our own phones,” replied the political appointee from Texas in her sweet, tangy drawl. “What time is it there? Aren’t you the early bird!"

 
“Ma’am,” Nancy wasn’t used to calling any woman “ma’am” except her mother, however having been in the loop for thirteen years, she knew when to
ma’am-ify
and when not to.  “It’s a little after seven here. The Yellowstone caldera is experiencing a significant deviation from the last three weeks. The earthquake swarm which has followed traditional trends in even-number years, has started to approach off-the-record numbers.”

 
“English, please,” replied Janice Smithers.

 
“Ma’am, I can’t reach my Regional Manager who is on vacation. My next line-of-command is you. Reston needs to be aware that the earthquake centers in Colorado and Utah are reporting extraordinary activity in the Yellowstone caldera area.”

 
Janice Smithers sat up in her chair, now aware that a field office was semi-transferring a problem to her; that it could/would be HQ’s responsibility to notify FEMA, the political process (White House) and or National Guard units (Pentagon).

 
“Can our people see your systems?” she asked.

 
“Most,” replied Nancy, then amended it. “Perhaps, not in real-time. Much of our information is relayed and processed in batch. We see it real-time; and honestly, we’re lucky.  Our network consists of highly-educated, low-paid, virtual volunteers with—
unique
—equipment,” which was a polite way of describing the Rube Goldberg configuration of various measuring equipment scattered across the globe in support of a ever-diminishing program whose information is demanded only once in a while.

 
“What do you recommend?” asked the Deputy Director.

 
It was the
oh-shit
question. Or, the possible
transfer-the-blame
question. It was the classic case of
well, she said
to the Congressional committee.

 
“Nature is either going to do something or it won’t,” replied Nancy. “Our measurement tools indicate there could be a massive ‘event’ of some kind—an explosion, possibly a series of earthquakes or a venting, centered in the Yellowstone National Park area.”