Dwight R. "Rocky" Crandell, whose persistent tracking of deep layers of mud led to a pioneering reassessment of volcano hazards in the Pacific Northwest, died Monday. He was 86.
Crandell, a U.S. Geological Survey vulcanologist and author of numerous books and research papers, died at a hospice in Wheat Ridge, Colo. from a heart attack. His death was confirmed by James W. Vallance, a research geologist and friend of Crandell at the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash.
While assigned to map the Puget Sound lowlands southeast of Seattle in the early 1950s, Crandell and his longtime scientific partner, Donal R. Mullineaux, overturned what was then the conventional wisdom that the area's landscape had been shaped mainly by glaciers.
Filling his notebooks with observations of deep layers of mud beneath the surface from Enumclaw to Auburn, then tracing the mud for years, they eventually found it had come from high on the slopes of 14,411-foot Mount Rainier, the tallest volcano in the 48 contiguous states, previously thought to pose little danger.
They proved that about 5,600 years earlier, the summit of Mount Rainier had collapsed in an eruption that caused a landslide massive enough to reach Puget Sound near Tacoma, filling some valleys up to 400 feet deep. That awakened the recognition that a similar event could endanger hundreds of thousands of people living atop the ancient mudflows.
The approach used by Crandell and Mullineaux formed the basis of today's volcano hazard assessment methodology and led to discoveries of the violent past and danger posed by Mount St. Helens.
Crandell, a U.S. Geological Survey vulcanologist and author of numerous books and research papers, died at a hospice in Wheat Ridge, Colo. from a heart attack. His death was confirmed by James W. Vallance, a research geologist and friend of Crandell at the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash.
While assigned to map the Puget Sound lowlands southeast of Seattle in the early 1950s, Crandell and his longtime scientific partner, Donal R. Mullineaux, overturned what was then the conventional wisdom that the area's landscape had been shaped mainly by glaciers.
Filling his notebooks with observations of deep layers of mud beneath the surface from Enumclaw to Auburn, then tracing the mud for years, they eventually found it had come from high on the slopes of 14,411-foot Mount Rainier, the tallest volcano in the 48 contiguous states, previously thought to pose little danger.
They proved that about 5,600 years earlier, the summit of Mount Rainier had collapsed in an eruption that caused a landslide massive enough to reach Puget Sound near Tacoma, filling some valleys up to 400 feet deep. That awakened the recognition that a similar event could endanger hundreds of thousands of people living atop the ancient mudflows.
The approach used by Crandell and Mullineaux formed the basis of today's volcano hazard assessment methodology and led to discoveries of the violent past and danger posed by Mount St. Helens.
Dwight R. "Rocky" Crandell, whose persistent tracking of deep layers of mud led to a pioneering reassessment of volcano hazards in the Pacific Northwest, died Monday. He was 86.
Crandell, a U.S. Geological Survey vulcanologist and author of numerous books and research papers, died at a hospice in Wheat Ridge, Colo. from a heart attack. His death was confirmed by James W. Vallance, a research geologist and friend of Crandell at the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash.
While assigned to map the Puget Sound lowlands southeast of Seattle in the early 1950s, Crandell and his longtime scientific partner, Donal R. Mullineaux, overturned what was then the conventional wisdom that the area's landscape had been shaped mainly by glaciers.
Filling his notebooks with observations of deep layers of mud beneath the surface from Enumclaw to Auburn, then tracing the mud for years, they eventually found it had come from high on the slopes of 14,411-foot Mount Rainier, the tallest volcano in the 48 contiguous states, previously thought to pose little danger.
They proved that about 5,600 years earlier, the summit of Mount Rainier had collapsed in an eruption that caused a landslide massive enough to reach Puget Sound near Tacoma, filling some valleys up to 400 feet deep. That awakened the recognition that a similar event could endanger hundreds of thousands of people living atop the ancient mudflows.
The approach used by Crandell and Mullineaux formed the basis of today's volcano hazard assessment methodology and led to discoveries of the violent past and danger posed by Mount St. Helens.
Crandell, a U.S. Geological Survey vulcanologist and author of numerous books and research papers, died at a hospice in Wheat Ridge, Colo. from a heart attack. His death was confirmed by James W. Vallance, a research geologist and friend of Crandell at the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash.
While assigned to map the Puget Sound lowlands southeast of Seattle in the early 1950s, Crandell and his longtime scientific partner, Donal R. Mullineaux, overturned what was then the conventional wisdom that the area's landscape had been shaped mainly by glaciers.
Filling his notebooks with observations of deep layers of mud beneath the surface from Enumclaw to Auburn, then tracing the mud for years, they eventually found it had come from high on the slopes of 14,411-foot Mount Rainier, the tallest volcano in the 48 contiguous states, previously thought to pose little danger.
They proved that about 5,600 years earlier, the summit of Mount Rainier had collapsed in an eruption that caused a landslide massive enough to reach Puget Sound near Tacoma, filling some valleys up to 400 feet deep. That awakened the recognition that a similar event could endanger hundreds of thousands of people living atop the ancient mudflows.
The approach used by Crandell and Mullineaux formed the basis of today's volcano hazard assessment methodology and led to discoveries of the violent past and danger posed by Mount St. Helens.
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