"Largest Volcano on Earth"? It Is All About Timing

Bathmetry of the Shatsky Rise and the Tamu Massif in the Pacific Ocean. The lines represent paths of seismic profiles taken in order to interpret the structure of the oceanic crust in the area of Tamu Massif. The red dots are drilling locations on the volcanic center. Image: Figure 1 in Sager and others (2013), Nature Geosciences. Sometimes it can be difficult to separate the publicity-driven hooks for a new study in science from that actual findings of the study itself. A research paper itself is the distillation of years of works and reams upon reams of data and interpretation. Depending on the journal in which the study is published, that could mean trying to present the findings in as little as a few pages with a smattering of figures (the bigger the journal's reputation, the shorter the paper it seems to be these days). Then, that paper is taken by the press officers at an institution and distilled even more into a press release that might be a page where maybe a single figure and finding are touted with some quotes from the author that emphases BIG FINDING #1, with possibly a few brief quotes from other scientists who have had a day or two to look at some (possibly not all) of the paper. Once that press release is freed to the wild, then many in the media (I emphasize, not all in the media) descends, latches onto that BIG FINDING, makes it seem like that single paper unequivocally proves BIG FINDING and then takes chunks of the press release and maybe a secondary quote and we're left with a tiny vestige of what the original study had set out to do. This is what people hear about scientific research: "Dr. Someone makes BIG FINDING that is the biggest/fastest/deadliest/noisiest/hotter/furthest (circle one) discovery ever!" Now, I bring this up not to say that coverage of science in the media is a bad thing -- in fact, we likely need more of it. However, the way it is tackled, as trying to get across so much information in so little space, leaves us without the information needed to make any educated assessment of the study. The assumption that people can't understand complicated science (or don't want to understand) leaves us taking the "science" out of science and leaves us with an overdistilled undrinkable product. With that in mind, many of you have noticed a bevy of new articles proclaiming that the "largest single volcano on Earth" had been discovered. You look at the headlines and wow, it seems impressive: Scientists Confirm Existence of Largest Single Volcano On Earth