Golden Gate Volcano / Al Newman
| Synopsis |
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Golden Gate Volcano begins with a dramatic prologue that takes place in St. Pierre, Martinique, where the eruption of Mt. Pelée in 1902 scorched and scalded 30,000 people to death. Two men survived.
The action moves forward to California in the fall of 2008.
Cavan Monaghan, a geologist specializing in vulcanology, is trying to find a common thread between a series of moderate earthquakes that have occurred over a period of several months in the San Francisco Bay Area and the surprising appearance of hot springs north of the bay. He initially believes that a major earthquake is imminent, but later concludes that the earthquake may be accompanied by magma (lava) emerging explosively somewhere in the area. Since there are no existing volcanoes near San Francisco, pinpointing the location of the forthcoming magmatic incident would be virtually impossible. The only option: alert everyone in the Bay Area to the possibility of an eruption in some unexpected location.
Scaring several million people with the threat of a volcanic eruption that might never materialize doesn’t sit well with Cavan’s superiors at the US Geological Survey office in Menlo Park, just south of San Francisco. To sidetrack Cavan, Saul Caspar, Assistant Chief Geologist for the Western Region, sends him on wild goose chases, derides his research and conclusions, and ultimately reassigns him to give soothing talks about earthquakes to Bay Area schoolchildren.
Convinced that a disaster is forthcoming, and unwilling to be sidelined, Cavan forms an alliance with military veteran and helicopter pilot, Veronica (Ronnie) Wentworth, who soon becomes his lover. Others on the investigatory team include a gay paramedic and his hairdresser partner, a second grade teacher who is schooled in geology, a sculptress who lives on a houseboat, a retired geology professor, a cross-dressing coroner’s assistant, an airline pilot, and a marine biologist.
Evidence leads the team to conclude that the US Geological Survey is deliberately suppressing information about the major earthquake and/or the volcanic eruption. This defied logic because the mission of the USGS is to constantly and faithfully seek out clues to potential disaster situations and to alert the public accordingly.
Two people die in accidents involving superheated water. Dead fish begin to blanket San Francisco Bay. Other aquatic life disappears. Sausalito, across the bay from San Francisco, is devastated by a strong earthquake – but not the mighty one the team was anticipating. Cavan stumbles on clandestine, seabed-drilling activity 50 miles offshore and slightly north of the Golden Gate Channel. Now, the Secretary of the Interior and other high-level functionaries try to impede Cavan’s investigation. Unable to enlist the support of anyone in government, Cavan decides to make his findings public.
At this point, time runs out. An eruption occurs in the Golden Gate Channel two miles west of the bridge, blasting millions of tons of channel bottom and seawater skyward. This creates a tsunami that devastates northern San Francisco, obliterates much of Berkeley and Oakland and returns Treasure Island to the bay bottom. Ashfall, fire and flooding mandate mass evacuations. The terror, trauma and confusion of the post-eruption hours are described in lurid detail. Chinatown burns. The Bay Area Rapid Transit System floods. The death toll ultimately exceeds 33,000. Property losses and losses to the Bay Area economy approach $200 billion. Cavan’s two immediate superiors at USGS die on board a research ship that was at ground zero when the eruption occurred. Processing of the dead and sheltering the displaced are described in detail. A cinder cone rises in the channel. The volcanic ejecta threatens to close the Golden Gate channel forever, permanently cutting off shipping trade valued at $2 billion a week. And lastly, ash accumulation threatens to bring down the Golden Gate Bridge.
Meanwhile, in Washington, congressional debate centers on whether the Bay Area can ever be restored to economic viability again. California’s governor suggests bulldozing a ship canal through the peninsula just south of San Francisco. His plan is accepted, and relocation of cemeteries begins in the town of Colma, where San Francisco buries its dead.
Cavan is promoted to chief of the USGS Menlo Park facility. With access to previously unavailable records, he discovers that the Interior Secretary and highest-ranking officials of the USGS had been aware of the volcanic threat and had undertaken a risky – and unsuccessful – experiment to use a nuclear device to induce the eruption to occur deep at sea instead of in the relatively shallow Golden Gate channel. This would have been a credible ploy since both locations were part of the same subterranean magmatic network. Cavan is called on to brief President Beverly Waterman on the cinder cone’s projected development. Alluding to the thwarted nuclear experiment, he is astonished to find out that the President never knew about it. The President confronts her Interior Secretary and pressures him into disclosing that a shadow government – the Castling Network, consisting of high-level government officials – has existed since the time of Watergate. Its raison d’être was that if ever a major presidential decision were to threaten the United States with extreme injury or disgrace, the Network was to do an end run around the President and make the decisions deemed necessary. The members were convinced that by protecting the presidency as an institution, they might keep constitutional government from failing in a time of severe national unrest. It was a given that the Network members would take the fall if a secret undertaking should fail and the Network’s existence be exposed.
Cavan discovers that the failed procedure for preventing the eruption could conceivably yet be revived to redirect the lava flow from the the Golden Gate Channel cinder cone – now called Mount Bonita – to the location many miles offshore. When the President requests Cavan’s input, he recommends the deep-sea nuclear option. Since timing is critical and a nuclear device is involved, the President keeps the undertaking secret – almost a replay of the original plan by the Castling Network. If made public, the plan might be contested in the courts or, arguably, be barred by treaty or international convention. If successful, the detonation would create a second outlet for the magma deep on the seabed and far from population centers. Mount Bonita would stop churning out channel-obstructing lava and the ports inside the Golden Gate could be restored to full operation.
The general in charge of reconstructive engineering projects, including the proposed canal, is kept ignorant of the nuclear plan because his lover is an investigative reporter. The chairman of the US Senate Governmental Affairs Committee is kept ignorant because he aspires to the presidency at the next go-around. Both, however, are conducting their own investigations to find out who is covering up what. Just as they are about to discover the project’s existence, the nuclear device is detonated beneath the seabed. A new magma/lava chimney is opened far at sea and Mount Bonita goes instantly silent. As the detonation takes place, Cavan and a would-be rescuer are injured by ejected rocks partway up Mount Bonita and, themselves, have to be rescued by Ronnie.
The successful rescue closes the book on Ronnie’s wartime-induced post-traumatic stress disorder. The President dissolves the Castling Network, and its existence is never revealed.
The story ends with a wrap-up of what happens to all of the major players and a tour of an energetically resurgent San Francisco Bay Area. The last scene takes place on Mount Bonita.