32 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {punchline} on these volcanoes,” he says. “You’re dropped off and then that big, smelly, noisy helicopter goes away and you’re left with quiet.” Since Andy was hired by the USGS in 2001, he and his wife, Amy McLanahan, have lived in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, San Mateo and most recently, Belmont. Raising their family here (their son and daughter are now in their 20s) ofPHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF TOM SISSON - USGS / COURTESY OF TIM ORR - USGS / COURTESY OF JORGE VASQUEZ - USGS fered myriad opportunities to explore the Peninsula’s own unique geology —particularly on excursions to the coast. “We’re in a pretty amazing part of the world because we can drive over to Half Moon Bay and go from one huge tectonic plate, the North American Plate, onto the largest plate, the Pacific Plate,” observes Andy. “My kids get so sick of me saying, ‘Ooop! Crossing to the Pacific Plate!’” During his five-year term as scientist-in-charge of the California Volcano Observatory, Andy helped oversee the USGS move from Menlo Park to Moffett Field in Mountain View. He’s currently diving back into research (including Mount Shasta mapping), where he still relies on the basic tools he first learned to use at Stanford: a hammer and a hand lens. However, Andy fully appreciates Moffett’s brand new lab and stateof-the-art technology. “We have equipment we use to measure the ages of rocks that’s pretty fancy,” he affirms. And what a way to calibrate accuracy: testing rocks from the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Nodding to a noble gas mass spectrometer, Andy breaks into a wide, schoolboy smile. “We took crystals from that eruption and ran them on that machine there and we got the right answer!” ABOVE (clockwise from top): Andy describes the eruptive history of Harrat Rahat to members of the Saudi Geological Survey after a five-year study of the seismic and volcanic hazard to the holy city of Medina, Saudi Arabia; Andy investigates a complicated deposit of rounded, light-colored granite pieces mixed with black volcanic scoria bombs near the Iliamna Volcano on the Alaska Peninsula; (left) Andy explores a volcanic ash layer from the Wilson Creek Formation at Mono Lake in California.
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