Volcano Enthusiast Disappointed to Learn Most Volcanoes 'Just Sit There'

First-year volcanology student Trevor Pyroclast has expressed profound disappointment upon discovering that the overwhelming majority of volcanoes on Earth are dormant, inactive, or, in his words, 'just sitting there doing absolutely nothing.' 'I thought this was going to be all explosions and lava flows,' said Pyroclast, who transferred from a business degree after watching a documentary about Mount St. Helens. 'Nobody told me that 95 percent of volcanology is staring at seismograph readings and writing about 'quiescence.' That's literally a word for doing nothing. I left business school for this.' Pyroclast's disillusionment began during his first field placement at the Cascades Volcano Observatory, where he was assigned to monitor Mount Adams, which last erupted approximately 1,000 years ago. 'I sat in a trailer for six weeks watching a line on a screen that didn't move,' he said. 'My supervisor got excited one day because the line wiggled slightly. She said it was probably a truck driving by on the highway. That was the highlight of my placement.' Pyroclast's academic advisor, Professor Diane Caldera, acknowledges that the field's public image may be misleading. 'Students come in expecting Pompeii. What they get is decades of careful monitoring punctuated by occasional gas measurements. The eruptions are thrilling, but they represent approximately 0.01 percent of the job.' Pyroclast is now considering a pivot to earthquake seismology, which he describes as 'at least things actually happen sometimes.' Professor Caldera has warned him that seismology is 'ninety-nine percent of the same thing with different squiggly lines,' but Pyroclast remains cautiously optimistic.