Development and persistence of hazardous atmospheres in a glaciovolcanic cave system—Mount Rainier, Washington, USA
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Glaciovolcanic cave systems, including fumarolic ice caves, can present variable atmospheric hazards. The twin summit craters of Mount Rainier, Washington, USA, host the largest fumarolic ice cave system in the world. The proximity of fumarole emissions in these caves to thousands of mountaineers each year can be hazardous. Herein we present the first assessment and mapping of the atmospheric hazards in the Mount Rainier caves along with a discussion on the microclimates involved in hazard formation and persistence. Our results are compared to applicable life-safety standards for gas exposure in ambient air. We also describe unique usage of Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) at high altitude. In both craters, subglacial CO2 traps persist in multiple locations due to fumarole output, limited ventilation, and cave morphology. CO2 concentrations, calculated from O2 depletion, reached maximum values of 10.3 % and 24.8 % in the East and West Crater Caves, respectively. The subglacial CO2 lake in West Crater Cave was persistent, with atmospheric pressure as the main factor influencing CO2 concentrations. O2 displacement exacerbated by low O2 partial pressure at the high summit altitude revealed additional cave passages that can be of immediate danger to life and health (IDLH), with O2 partial pressures as low as 68.3 mmHg. Planning for volcanic research or rescue in or around similar cave systems can be assisted by considering the implications of atmospheric hazards. These findings highlight the formation mechanisms of hazardous atmospheres, exploration challenges, the need for mountaineering and public awareness, and the broader implications to volcanic hazard assessment and research in these environments.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".