View Full Version : Yellowstone super vulcano ready to erupt?
http://www.earthmountainview.com/yellowstone/yellowstone.htm
Satellite images acquired by ESA's ERS-2 revealed the recently discovered changes in Yellowstone's caldera are the result of molten rock movement 15 kilometres below the Earth's surface, according to a recent study published in Nature.
Using Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry, InSAR for short, Charles Wicks, Wayne Thatcher and other U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists mapped the changes in the northern rim of the caldera, or crater, and discovered it had risen about 13 centimetres from 1997 to 2003.
http://www.unmuseum.org/supervol.htm
Reasons to Worry?
Scientists have known about Yellowstone's explosive history for quite some time, but events in the fall of 2003 suddenly had people concerned about the possibility of another massive explosion.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/uou-yr103007.php
Volcano inflating with molten rock at record rate
http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/rel/5717_rel.jpg (http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/5717.php?from=104033) This digital elevation map of Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks was overlaid with elevation change data (colors) from Global Positioning System receivers and satellite measurements. A University of Utah...
Click here for more information. (http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/5717.php?from=104033)
The Yellowstone “supervolcano” rose at a record rate since mid-2004, likely because a Los Angeles-sized, pancake-shaped blob of molten rock was injected 6 miles beneath the slumbering giant, University of Utah scientists report in the journal Science.
Something to watch out for in the next few thousand years.
As a geologist I would like this to happen in my life time, but towards the end of it so I don't suffer with the rest of the world.
Something to watch out for in the next few thousand years.
As a geologist I would like this to happen in my life time, but towards the end of it so I don't suffer with the rest of the world.
No family/kids? :oops:
Something to watch out for in the next few thousand years.
As a geologist I would like this to happen in my life time, but towards the end of it so I don't suffer with the rest of the world.
No family/kids? :oops:
If it happens close to my death then I may have 2 children and say...7 grandchildren.
If it happens in 3500 years time, than I cound have many, many thowsands of great great great great great great Grandchildren.
The later it happens, the more of my family die. :know:
The later it happens, the more of my family die. :know:
Hmm, good point. :yep:
I saw a documentary some years ago which looked at this ring of volcano's erupting at the same time, to some up for us in England you got one year and the do-do hits the fan.
Skybird
11-23-07, 03:03 PM
It's not a volcano. Its the geological enforced end of all subsim debates in the forums. That's why Neal probabaly most politically uncorrectly hates the thing, despite the mild climate and although the area is protected as a conservation area. :88)
Skybird
11-23-07, 03:05 PM
I saw a documentary some years ago which looked at this ring of volcano's erupting at the same time, to some up for us in England you got one year and the do-do hits the fan.
You don't need a ring - one of these alone is enough to blow mankind off the map.
I saw a documentary some years ago which looked at this ring of volcano's erupting at the same time, to some up for us in England you got one year and the do-do hits the fan.
You don't need a ring - one of these alone is enough to blow mankind off the map.
Skybird,
Indeed they stated that, but they were looking at the whole issue if one went off there was a high chance this would trigger the rest and good night. The power of man is a joke next to the power of nature.
darius359au
11-23-07, 06:15 PM
There was some documentary's about the super volcanoes a few years back - Yellowstone's erupted 3 or 4 times apparently (If you look at Yellowstone in a satellite image you can follow the line of calderas from the eruptions , basically the whole valley is the caldera:o).From what the documentary makers and the scientists are saying its not a case of if Yellowstone goes boom , its just when ,and if its not Yellowstone then apparently there's 1/2 a dozen super volcanoes to choose from.Anyone of them going boom would be enough to throw us into a nuclear winter scenario.
Yep, Yellowstone blowing will almost certainly reduce the Earth's population by a few billion, if not cause all out extinction of the human race, scary but absolutely true. But there's other things due to happen too... an asteroid hit is just as likely (statiscally speaking based on data from past hits) and will have a similar effect. La Palma is also due to erupt at some point and wipe out the eastern seaboard of the US in a never before seen massive tsunami that will make the one in SE Asia look like a ripple on a pond. At very least we have mass weather disasters caused by climate change to look forward to within our lifetimes (regardless of what's causing it).
...for heaven's sake you all sound like grumpy old men, full of gloom. ;) BTW the first links are quite dodgy if anyone bothered to check.
baggygreen
11-23-07, 07:31 PM
They may be dodgy, but the sentiment behind them is accurate. I'm just hoping im long gone by the time it happens...
I know the film you're talking about Steed, I think rather than a ring of supervolcanoes it was a ring of eruption sites from the main magma chamber which then caused a collapse of the main chamber and a massive eruption, that's IIRC. It was a while back, pretty good film though.
So, if it's not Yellowstone then it'll be the Canary Islands Super-Tsunami, and if it's not that then it'll be an asteroid or some such.
Not a great deal we can do about it, save be ready and try to survive when it happens.
XabbaRus
11-25-07, 06:00 PM
I saw that drama documentary and my impression was that the USA north of the southern states was screwed and everyone ran down to Mexico, the rest of the world was OK.
MothBalls
11-25-07, 06:11 PM
http://www.livescience.com/environment/071108-yellowstone-volcano.html
"There is no evidence of an imminent volcanic eruption or hydrothermal explosion. That's the bottom line," Smith said. "A lot of calderas worldwide go up and down over decades without erupting."
If you want to be rattled, read about the other 100 ways the world is going to end.
http://www.armageddononline.org/
"And I feel fine!"
What? Someone had to say it! :lol:
We are boned. :oops: I mean we could be boned. ;)
JSLTIGER
11-26-07, 03:12 PM
"And I feel fine!"
What? Someone had to say it! :lol:
:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
Spoon 11th
01-06-09, 06:56 AM
Data of recent earthquake swarm.
Recent Earthquakes in the Intermountain West
Yellowstone National Park Special Map
http://www.seis.utah.edu/req2webdir/recenteqs/Maps/Yellowstone_full.html
also:
Part 1 of the BBC Supervolcano docu-drama.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF-RKzqNtz0
We're all going to die a horrible death!!:oops::doh::dead: AAAAAHHH!:lol:
Zachstar
01-06-09, 04:18 PM
Game over man GAME OVER!!
No it is not going to blow. Reason I say that? Because with 7 billion people on earth there is zip that can be done if it does blow.
Besides this fear creeps up every year. The simple fact is it can blow within an hour or within a thousand years and more than likely something in between.
So not in our lifetimes.
Imagine the irony when Americans are tearing down the walls and floating on makeshift rafts to get into Mexico...:rotfl:
Digital_Trucker
01-06-09, 06:31 PM
Imagine the irony when Americans are tearing down the walls and floating on makeshift rafts to get into Mexico...:rotfl:
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b173/digital_trucker/Smilies/smileW.gif Even better, imagine the irony of the Mexican government trying to figure out what to do with us.
Your always welcome in Australia, does anyone there know how to build an ark?:lol:
Your always welcome in Australia, does anyone there know how to build an ark?:lol:
Actually if I couldn't live in America anymore, Australia would be my first choice as a new home.
baggygreen
01-06-09, 06:56 PM
Your always welcome in Australia, does anyone there know how to build an ark?:lol:
Actually if I couldn't live in America anymore, Australia would be my first choice as a new home.Why's that mate?
Why's that mate?
Because you Aussies remind me more of my own people than any other. It's not the accent or the customs but rather the general take on life.
baggygreen
01-06-09, 07:07 PM
Fairy's nuts.
Visited much?
ooh, better make it on-topic a bit... umm, there are no super volcanoes down under so you can escape it! :D
Fairy's nuts.
Visited much?
ooh, better make it on-topic a bit... umm, there are no super volcanoes down under so you can escape it! :D
Never been there, or to Yellowstone for that matter.
Christopher Snow
01-06-09, 07:33 PM
The Yellowstone supervolcano is already about 40,000 years overdue, so we are all living on borrowed time anyway.
It's gone off several times in the past, on average about every 600,000 years or so.
Those who suggest it could wipe out mankind aren't that far wrong either--the last time one of those supervolcanoes went off (about 75,000 years ago in the South China Sea) it nearly did wipe out mankind.
If the human genetic record is to be believed, everyone alive today is decended from just a few thousand hardy survivors of that last big one....
Assuming there are at least a few thousand survivors once again, they'll start all over again. It won't be a question of picking up the threads of civilization--it will be "back to the stone age" all over again.
I do hope no one reinvents "Windows" the next time around. :-P
CS
I wonder what signs of our present civilization would be left 75,000 years later. Not very much i'd expect.
FIREWALL
01-06-09, 08:35 PM
I saw that drama documentary and my impression was that the USA north of the southern states was screwed and everyone ran down to Mexico, the rest of the world was OK.
The movie was called " The Day After Tomorrow "
UnderseaLcpl
01-06-09, 09:34 PM
I saw that drama documentary and my impression was that the USA north of the southern states was screwed and everyone ran down to Mexico, the rest of the world was OK.
The movie was called " The Day After Tomorrow "
<groan>
Aramike
01-06-09, 09:43 PM
Those who suggest it could wipe out mankind aren't that far wrong either--the last time one of those supervolcanoes went off (about 75,000 years ago in the South China Sea) it nearly did wipe out mankind. See, it's this very type of idea that makes me take issue with the "Doom and Gloomers".
Yes, it is true that the last time a supervolcano erupted was around 75,000 years ago (Toba). And it sure did cause a near extinction (the DNA bottleneck estimates around between 2,000 and 25,000 human survivors).
However, mankind DID INDEED survive. Those people had none of the technology and scientific understandings of today, and yet they made it.
Also, I don't believe that the Yellowstone caldera is expected to have quite the size as Toba.
Just sayin'.
Digital_Trucker
01-06-09, 09:50 PM
However, mankind DID INDEED survive. Those people had none of the technology and scientific understandings of today, and yet they made it.
And that was to their advantage, not their detriment. They knew how to fend for themselves without modern conveniences. Todays human race (at least the so called civilized portion of it) wouldn't last long without a grocery store and electricity.
However, mankind DID INDEED survive. Those people had none of the technology and scientific understandings of today, and yet they made it.
And that was to their advantage, not their detriment. They knew how to fend for themselves without modern conveniences. Todays human race (at least the so called civilized portion of it) wouldn't last long without a grocery store and electricity.
True but I think that because there are far more of us, even with a lowered survival rate per capita there's still likely to be more actual survivors...
Glass half full. :D
Christopher Snow
01-06-09, 10:52 PM
Aramike, the point I was trying to make was this: If we get down to (or were down to) just a few thousand survivors (of any sort of man-made or natural disaster), we're pretty near the ragged edge of oblivion, and it wouldn't take much more to snuff us out completely. An inconvenient plague, a bad run of strep throat...a killer STD, etc.
I'm not saying mankind won't survive again, but the fact that we have done so up until now is no real guarantee either.
-------------
For anyone who has so far missed it, the biggest problem that will face mankind after one of these events is GLOBAL COOLING/GLOBAL DARKENING on a massive scale, due primarily to the huge new amount of dust in the atmosphere*.
[*many cubic miles of it.]
An event like this would certainly trigger a new ice-age, so the survivors (who will be confined, generally, to the tropical zone as far as liveable habitat goes) will face a real challenge to grow enough food to stay alive. Fishing won't be a hugely viable alternative either, because plankton (which feeds the rest of the easily accessible ocean food chain) depends on sunlight too, and there won't be very much of it to go around for quite a few years after such an event.
-------
It seems to me we really ought to get off our collective duffs and build a few "civilization-recoverable" repositories down in the tropics, to give us the best chance to rebuild from this sort of disaster, but it won't happen anytime soon, I fear. We're too focused on global-warming to get anyone's attention.
There ARE a few such "narrow-focus" repositories at various places around the globe (there is a frozen seed repository on the island of Spitzbergen, for example), but I don't believe the efforts are anywhere near coordinated enough to significantly increase our chances after a disaster like this. At least not yet.
Moreover, a seed-repository on Spitzbergen won't be accessible to anyone who gets there AFTER it's covered under a half-mile of new ice, even if they know it's there (which I seriously doubt).
An "off-globe" repository (on the moon) would be a better idea, but it would necessarily also have to have it's own "population" which would return to the earth to begin rebuilding too--without an accompanying population base up there, it would certainly be unreachable...and entirely useless...to the few surviving "cavemen" down here.
CS
Fairy's nuts.
Visited much?
ooh, better make it on-topic a bit... umm, there are no super volcanoes down under so you can escape it! :D
There used to be but that was a little while ago...
http://www.bigvolcano.com.au/natural/wollum.htm
Aramike
01-07-09, 03:56 AM
And that was to their advantage, not their detriment. They knew how to fend for themselves without modern conveniences. Todays human race (at least the so called civilized portion of it) wouldn't last long without a grocery store and electricity.I HIGHLY disagree with that. Just because modern humans aren't accustomed to living off the land, as it were, doesn't mean we'd be any less likely to adapt to it.
As a whole, we are quite a bit more educated than prehistoric man. Sure, 90% of people may not be able to adapt. But the remaining 10% accounts for MILLIONS of people.
That being said, there will certainly be survivors who are well-equipped to live without conveniences. These people would likely become leaders. They would then teach their crafts to others. New leaders would emerge.
So is human history...True but I think that because there are far more of us, even with a lowered survival rate per capita there's still likely to be more actual survivors...Exactly. And, due to there being far more actual survivors, there will be far more skills preserved.Aramike, the point I was trying to make was this: If we get down to (or were down to) just a few thousand survivors (of any sort of man-made or natural disaster), we're pretty near the ragged edge of oblivion, and it wouldn't take much more to snuff us out completely. An inconvenient plague, a bad run of strep throat...a killer STD, etc.
I'm not saying mankind won't survive again, but the fact that we have done so up until now is no real guarantee either.True enough, but anything that gets us down to a few thousand considering how we're so urbanized, may as well be enough to wipe us out, as the catastrophe would have to be worldwide thereby ensuring that survivors are few and far-between.
baggygreen
01-07-09, 05:06 PM
I reckon any event like that would be bad, and no doubt kill millions.
But I also think it wouldn't wipe out anywhere near enough people to threaten the human race. Plants are dying? Hydroponics people! more clouds in the sky, less sunlight? no need to worry about skin cancer!
Yes it would be bad, but it wouldn't be catastrophic to homo sapiens, because we are adaptable and we are able to create. We see an obstacle, we figure a way around it.
FIREWALL
01-07-09, 05:16 PM
I reckon any event like that would be bad, and no doubt kill millions.
But I also think it wouldn't wipe out anywhere near enough people to threaten the human race. Plants are dying? Hydroponics people! more clouds in the sky, less sunlight? no need to worry about skin cancer!
Yes it would be bad, but it wouldn't be catastrophic to homo sapiens, because we are adaptable and we are able to create. We see an obstacle, we figure a way around it.
:up: :up: :up: :yep:
magic452
01-08-09, 02:16 AM
The raw materials, technologies and people with the knowledge to use them would still exist. Shelter, heating, clothing, transportation, fuel, electricity and most all other necessities except food would be readily available. The cites, roads, housing, all types of stores, construction equipment, ect. would still exist. Food would be the biggest
problem. There are more than enough smart people to figure out how to produce enough food to survive. The idea of going back to the stone age is rather silly I think.
What the human race might NOT SURVIVE is the total anarchy which we would bring on ourselves. Everybody having a gun and ready to use it to survive is not a pretty picture.
Magic452
Aramike
01-08-09, 03:45 AM
The raw materials, technologies and people with the knowledge to use them would still exist. Shelter, heating, clothing, transportation, fuel, electricity and most all other necessities except food would be readily available. The cites, roads, housing, all types of stores, construction equipment, ect. would still exist. Food would be the biggest
problem. There are more than enough smart people to figure out how to produce enough food to survive. The idea of going back to the stone age is rather silly I think.
What the human race might NOT SURVIVE is the total anarchy which we would bring on ourselves. Everybody having a gun and ready to use it to survive is not a pretty picture.
Magic452See, I think humanity has a very clear history of creating order out of anarchy. As a species, we thrive on defining and following leaders. I think that any such cataclysm would be followed by the siezure of power by those with the capability, with the others simply falling behind.
So is human history.
OneToughHerring
01-08-09, 08:50 AM
I'm sure there's a lot of things going on with tectonic plates etc. Nobody, or very few, knew about the huge earthquake that caused the tsunami of 2004. When mother nature puts on the big gear, **** really hits the fan.
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