34 Facts About Barry Voight

Barry Voight is an American geologist, volcanologist, author, and engineer.

Barry Voight remains an emeritus professor there and still conducts research, focusing on rock mechanics, plate tectonics, disaster prevention, and geotechnical engineering.

Barry Voight foresaw the collapse of the mountain's north flank as well as a powerful eruption.

Barry Voight's predictions came true when St Helens erupted in May 1980; Voight was then hired by the USGS to investigate the debris avalanche that initiated the eruption.

Barry Voight's brothers are actor Jon Voight and songwriter Chip Taylor, actress Angelina Jolie is his niece, and musician James Haven is his nephew.

Barry Voight's father was professional golf player Elmer "Elmo" Barry Voight, a leader in the effort to break the color barrier in golf, and his mother Barbara was a teacher and swim instructor.

Voight and his brothers grew up playing golf, and Barry developed an interest in swimming.

Barry Voight earned his master's degree in civil engineering from Notre Dame in 1961.

Barry Voight began teaching in 1961, serving as a teaching assistant at the University of Notre Dame while pursuing his master's degree in civil engineering.

Barry Voight taught at Penn State for more than four decades, retiring from teaching in June 2005 but continuing his research.

Barry Voight suggested they begin monitoring the rate of movement of the bulge, worried that the collapse could trigger an eruption.

Barry Voight advised hiring a local surveyor to take measurements, offending several of the geologists.

Shortly after, Barry Voight left the mountain and returned to teaching classes at Penn State.

Barry Voight led the investigation into the volcano debris avalanche which had occurred during the eruption, guiding other volcanologists including Harry Glicken, who built upon Voight's preliminary research to create his report "Rockslide-Debris Avalanche of May 18,1980, Mount St Helens Volcano, Washington".

Barry Voight's work won him international renown, and he later cited his experiences there as "career-changing".

Barry Voight's work helped reinvigorate widespread interest in landslides and other phenomena at volcanoes that potentially pose a threat to life.

In 1985, Barry Voight blamed human error for the Armero tragedy in Colombia, where more than 23,000 died from an eruption from the Nevado del Ruiz volcano.

Barry Voight stated that while categorically accurate predictions of volcanic eruptions were impossible, unpreparedness for the disaster exacerbated the death toll.

In January 1986, Barry Voight visited Nevado del Ruiz responding to concerns from the Colombian government that the northeastern section of the volcano might cave in, causing another eruption.

Barry Voight established a monitoring network of reflectors and used laser ranging to track how the distances to these reflectors changed over time.

When one reflector indicated significant movement, and large cracks became visible from the air, Barry Voight contemplated initiating an evacuation, but waited.

When Barry Voight began research at Mount Merapi in Java, Indonesia, in 1988, it was largely unknown to volcanologists.

Barry Voight set up meters to record movement within the volcano, and educated local scientists on volcanic monitoring.

Barry Voight concluded that protective, long-sleeved clothing and masks enhance chances of survival when exposed to eruptive activity.

Barry Voight surmised that phreatic eruptions do not exhibit an acceleration in deformation before taking place and left after confirming that the volcano's monitoring system functioned properly.

Barry Voight assisted with assessment activity at Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, Mount Redoubt in the United States, Mount Bandai, Mount Unzen, and Mount Ontake in Japan, and Bezymianny and Shiveluch in the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia.

Worried about an expanding lava dome at the Soufriere Hills volcano, the island's government asked Barry Voight to assess its potential for an avalanche that could generate an eruption.

Barry Voight thought it was unlikely that the crater would collapse, but expressed concern over a possible pyroclastic flow that could reach the city of Plymouth in approximately three minutes.

Barry Voight continued research at the island with Steven Sparks, a geoscientist at the University of Bristol, establishing the SEA-CALIPSO system to analyze Soufriere Hills by using seismic waves and explosions in the ocean.

Barry Voight still oversees hazard assessments at the volcano, providing his input during eruptive periods in 2006 and 2010.

Barry Voight has served as a consultant geotechnical engineer for dams, tunnels, and nuclear power plants, helping plan engineering projects in France, India, Ireland, Somalia, Papua New Guinea, Canada, and Turkey, as well as in the United States.

Barry Voight currently serves as a member of the United States Geological Survey's Volcano Hazards Response Team, and has responded to potentially eruptive volcanoes in Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Chile.

In 2008, Barry Voight was appointed a Union Fellow of the American Geophysical Union for "fundamental contributions to the understanding of volcano deformation, assessment of volcano hazards, and forecasting", and the following year, he was awarded the Schuster Medal by the Canadian Geotechnical Society for "outstanding achievements in research on geologic hazards in North America".

When Voight published his failure forecast prediction mechanism, USGS geologist Robert I Tilling praised it as "a significant refinement in the interpretation of monitoring data".