What you are looking at is an unusual video recently sent to me by a helicopter pilot
who goes by the name Nicolas Drader.
This video was filmed on September 2nd 2023 at 9:23 am local time, and shows the northeast
end of an extinct volcanic vent referred to as the Black Tusk in British Columbia.
In this short clip, you can see gasses rising from the ground and going more than 100 meters
into the air, originating from a spot just above a patch of yellow ground which I believe
to be filled with native sulfur or some form of sulfur mineralization.
I have geolocated this feature to the following coordinates, but I must state that you do
not attempt to reach this area for safety reasons rather than a volcanic danger with
several reasons being displayed on screen.
This spot of rising gas appears to represent a brand new volcanic fumarole on a part of
a volcanic system fairly close to several population centers which has not erupted in
11,700 years and previously had no known fumaroles.
This fumarole, if it truly is one, in my opinion has its gasses probably sourced from an at
depth magma chamber somewhere several kilometers beneath this volcanic complex.
For context, the Black Tusk is the oldest vent in the Garibaldi Lake volcanic field,
which itself covers an area of 148 square kilometers east of the town of Garibaldi.
While this is still debated, the Garibaldi Lake volcanic field is considered by some
scientists, myself included, to be a completely separate volcano than the Mount Garibaldi
stratovolcano to the south.
Both of these volcanoes have been active for a lengthy period of time and are part of the
northern Cascade volcanic arc.
Mount Garibaldi last erupted in 7300 BCE, producing an 18 kilometer long dacite lava
flow from the Opal Cone.
As for the Garibaldi Lake volcanic field, it erupted twice in the last 15,000 years.
The first eruption 13,000 years ago produced a 7.4 kilometer long dacite lava flow which
erupted from Mount Price's western side, with part of this tall lava flow collapsing to
form "The Barrier", allowing for the creation of the water filled Garibaldi Lake.
An eastern lava flow then subsequently occurred from Mount Price 11,700 years ago, traveling
6.4 kilometers.
As for the Black Tusk, it is a highly eroded subglacial volcanic fetaure referred to as
a "tuya".
It formed during two periods, one 1.3 to 1.1 million years ago, and the other around 250,000
years ago.
During the first period, a more than a kilometer thick ice sheet existed which lava eventually
erupted into, creating a flat topped volcanic vent.
Significant erosion then did the rest, until finally we were left with a highly eroded
andesite and ash covered tuya remnant.
You might then ask, wait why is there a possible fumarole which is presumably emitting volcanic
gas if this vent has not erupted for 250,000 years?
The answer is that it's best to think of the entire Garibaldi Lake volcanic field as a
single system rather than the Black Tusk as a distinct system.
Thus, since the last volcanic eruption occurred only 11,700 years ago, and magma chambers
can take tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years to fully cool, it makes
sense that magma in some form exists at depth.
The gas from this magma chamber simply used a path of least resistance to reach the surface
which just happened to lead it to the northeast section of the Black Tusk.
To further prove this point, the dormant Steamboat Springs volcano in Nevada has not erupted
for 1.14 million years, and yet, it still contains active fumaroles.
However, there are a few other possibilities with a non volcanic explanation.
Native sulfur has a very low ignition temperature of only 160 degrees Celsius.
Thus, this sulfur could have been ignited purposely or accidentally by people, or by
a minor landslide involving falling rocks which generated heat from friction, or even
by a lightning strike in the last week since several lightning strikes did occur within
the vicinity on August 28th and August 29th of 2023.
Another possibility is that this suspected fumarole is not new, but rather has existed
for thousands of years without anyone noticing it.
It may have only recently became visible as small glaciers and permanent snow cover in
the region disappeared as the region warmed.
As a final note, this potential discovery should not be a cause for concern, and I have
outlined why with the reasons shown on screen.
Thanks for watching!
I would like to thank my new YouTube member Pam Heinze for supporting this channel!