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.

The movie was called " The Day After Tomorrow "

<groan>

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'.

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

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.

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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.

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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

There used to be but that was a little while ago...

http://www.bigvolcano.com.au/natural/wollum.htm

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...Exactly. And, due to there being far more actual survivors, there will be far more skills preserved.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.

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:

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

See, 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.

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.