Word: pinatubo
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Dates: during 1991-1991
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...Mount Pinatubo, the volcano that covered much of Luzon with dust and ash last month, also proved a kind of mediator in the protracted bargaining over the future of U.S. bases there. The Philippine government had been demanding direct compensation of $400 million annually for a seven-year lease extension on Clark Air Base and the huge U.S. Navy facilities at Subic Bay. Washington was offering $360 million a year and wanted an eight- to 10-year lease...
...above Mauna Kea that morning, interfering with the quality of data gathered through telescopes. "It was a miserable sky in the infrared," complained astronomer Robert MacQueen. Even more damaging to the infrared readings was the fine dust accumulating in the earth's atmosphere since the June explosion of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. "It's just heartbreaking that after being dormant for 600 or 700 years, the volcano didn't wait another week or two before erupting," said Donald Hall, director of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii...
...allow American forces to remain at the huge military installations of Subic Bay Naval Station and Clark Air Base. A few weeks ago, both teams announced that a new accord, permitting U.S. forces to stay after the old agreement expires on Sept. 16, was "within reach." But then Mount Pinatubo, a volcano that had been dormant for 600 years, erupted and accomplished what Filipino nationalists had failed to do since independence: force the U.S. military to abandon Clark, which is eight miles east of the cone. Both sides admit the explosions threw negotiations into limbo...
...molten rock. Large numbers of such signals preceded Mount St. Helens' 1980 blast. They also appeared before the unexpected explosion of Mexico's El Chichon in 1982, the blowup of Colombia's Nevado del Ruiz in 1985 and 1987 and multiple eruptions of Alaska's Redoubt. Seismometers positioned at Pinatubo have recorded similar seismic patterns...
...greatest threats to human lives may come from overlooked, long dormant volcanoes. To monitor a volcano requires identifying it beforehand; as recently as 1981, Pinatubo was not even included in the worldwide registry of volcanoes maintained by the Smithsonian Institution. "When a nice little hill covered with lush vegetation finally wakes up," observes Smithsonian volcanologist Tom Simkin, "it's going to cause a lot of damage." Fortunately, scientists were able to see that some nice little hills in the Philippines and Japan were turning nasty while people still had time to get away...