Slashdot Log In
Is the Yellowstone Supervolcano About To Blow?
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Dec 31, 2008 06:40 PM
from the four-horsemen-dressage dept.
from the four-horsemen-dressage dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently, Yellowstone National Park has been having a very unusual number of earthquakes. Many of the most recent tremors have been deeper underground, an ominous sign. Combine that with a rapid rise in elevation over the past three years, and the possibility that earthquake activity from surrounding areas could trigger such an eruption on its own, and you've got the possible warning signs of a supervolcano eruption that would wipe out half to 2/3 of the continental US, plunge global temperatures, and wipe out a very significant chunk of world food sources. Here's a little more info to make your New Year brighter!"
Related Stories
Submission: Is the Yellowstone supervolcano about to blow? by Anonymous Coward
[+]
A Supervolcano Beneath Mt. St. Helens? 180 comments
We've discussed the supervolcano beneath Yellowstone a few times here (not going to blow, 2004; going to blow, 2008). Now scientists are pondering whether a large area of conductive material beneath Mt. St. Helens might contain enough magma that the area could be classed a supervolcano. The jury is still out on this one. Reader nhytefall sends us a New Scientist progress report. "Magma can be detected with a technique called magnetotellurics, which builds up a picture of what lies underground by measuring fluctuations in electric and magnetic fields at the surface. The fields fluctuate in response to electric currents traveling below the surface, induced by lightning storms and other phenomena. The currents are stronger when magma is present, since it is a better conductor than solid rock. ... [M]easurements revealed a column of conductive material that extends downward from the volcano. About 15 km below the surface, the relatively narrow column appears to connect to a much bigger zone of conductive material. This larger zone was first identified in the 1980s by another magnetotelluric survey, and was found to extend all the way to beneath Mount Rainier 70 km to the north-east, and Mount Adams 50 km to the east. It was thought to be a zone of wet sediment, water being a good electrical conductor. ... [Some researchers] now think the conductive material is more likely to be a semi-molten mixture. Its conductivity is not high enough for it to be pure magma.. so it is more likely to be a mixture of solid and molten rock."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Good time to start pumping out GHG then! (Score:5, Funny)
After all, if we are going to have the sun blocked out by a huge cloud of dust, it would be fantastic to have as much heat trapped on earth as possible!
Re:Global Warning (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more likely to cause global cooling, as TFS and TFA state.
Parent
Re:Global Warning (Score:5, Funny)
If I am warmed and cooled at the same time how will I know what to complain about?
Parent
Re:Global Warning (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Global Warning (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Global Warning (Score:5, Informative)
nah, it won't quite be that bad. most predictions expect the immediate danger zone to have a radius of 1000-1600km, with pumice & ash deposit probably covering all of California and most of the Midwest [tulane.edu]. but rather than being burned, most deaths/injuries will likely be caused by ash inhalation.
luckily, modern humans have the benefit of science and technology.given enough warning, most people within range of the volcanic explosion and subsequent lava/pyroclastic flow (70,000 to 100,000+ individuals by some estimates) can be evacuated beforehand. everyone else will simply have to stay in doors for a couple of days before they too can be evacuated outside of the ash cover area.
the USGS seems pretty confident that the YVO monitoring program will detect any premonitory indicators (such as emissions of magmatic gases) of any such impending disaster. and studies indicate that, if there is a volcanic eruption, it is not likely to be a caldera-forming supervolcanic eruption due to insufficient rhyolitic magma-storage to sustain such an event.
in the event that a caldera-forming eruption takes place, then yes the ash will probably circle the entire globe and lower the temperature in the lower atmosphere for a few years, and that can have a severe impact on the ecology of the planet. but it's certainly survivable. and the chances of such an event actually occurring is still statistically insignificant--contrary to what is often reported, are are not "overdue" for a supervolcanic eruption. (the mean interval between such eruptions is 710,000 years, not 600,000 years.)
if others are interested, you can read the USGS's report on the Preliminary Assessment of Volcanic and Hydrothermal Hazards in Yellowstone National Park and Vicinity [usgs.gov] (the actual report is in PDF format).
Parent
Re:Global Warning (Score:5, Funny)
Yep. Major rhyolitic, non-huge-caldera-forming eruptions have a far more statistically significant record than anything you could call "supervolcanic", and are only once every ten thousand years or so on average. Far more common. And most earthquake swarms at Yellowstone have nothing to with upcoming volcanic eruptions.
Sorry to ruin everyone's doomsday fun. ;)
Parent
Re:Global Warning (Score:5, Funny)
Sometimes typos are beautiful!
Parent
Re:Global Warning (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but only if someone hears it.
Parent
Re:Global Warning (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Good time to start pumping out GHG then! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Good time to start pumping out GHG then! (Score:5, Interesting)
You have NO friggin' idea what you're talking about. The mega-eruption, if it happens, could be *hundreds of thousands* times bigger than Mount St. Helens. The last super volcano was 75,000 years ago. Light was blocked out all over the world. 35 centimeters of ash fell *2500 miles* away. The global temperature plunged 21 degrees. Mankind was almost extinguished, cut back to only a few thousand. This one...could be *ten times bigger*.
Parent
Re:Good time to start pumping out GHG then! (Score:5, Insightful)
The Toba eruption is generally thought to have been larger than any of the Yellowstone eruptions. The largest Yellowstone eruption was pretty close, though. Source: http://www.armageddononline.org/known-super-volcanoes.html [armageddononline.org]
Parent
Re:Good time to start pumping out GHG then! (Score:5, Interesting)
Mankind was almost extinguished, cut back to only a few thousand.
But this was human civilization from 75,000 years ago, which intellectually and technologically pales in comparison to human civilization today. Wouldn't the advancements we've made since the Toba eruption help us to endure the effect of another mega-eruption?
Parent
Re:Good time to start pumping out GHG then! (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Good time to start pumping out GHG then! (Score:5, Informative)
(emphasis mine).
Second cite [bbc.co.uk]:
Not just a dusting of ash, by any means. To extrapolate from a single event (Mt St Helens) which may or may not even be in the same geologic region (I don't know) is pointless when the Snake River Plain has erupted several times over - the entire landscape their bears the scars of it.
Parent
Um no (Score:5, Informative)
Um no, dude, you don't really get it. If Yellowstone blows, there is no volcano eruption in human history that even remotely comes close. Mt. St. Helens would look like a fart standing next to Chernobyl. Areas 400 miles away would get covered in a foot of ash. There is just nothing like it.
Here is a nice, graphical link for you to look at:
link [discovery.com]
The number of deaths could be staggering. That foot of ash, even 400 miles away in Denver, would collapse most roofs, and any with people in them would get severely injured or die. It would be the end of the U.S. as a global superpower, and there would be wars. You are naive.
Parent
Re:Um no (Score:5, Interesting)
At its worst, there will be an immense disruption of the electrical and telecommunications grid, immense expense from ash damage and removal, alot of immediate deaths and some ash deaths.
You forgot one little detail: Widespread subzero temperatures and no new food anywhere on the planet for at least a year.
Parent
Re:Good time to start pumping out GHG then! (Score:5, Informative)
It's eruptions cover hundreds [yellowstone.net] of square kilometers, not tens of thousands.
Most of the United States by area would see a few meters of ash, not a football field's worth (which would be plenty devestating enough).
Yay for mods blindly modding up posts that contain numbers as "informative."
Parent
Re:Good time to start pumping out GHG then! (Score:5, Funny)
7. 17. Twenty one. Three point one four. Eighteen thousand, seven hundred and sixty two. Zero point zero three percent.
Parent
It WILL blow up on... (Score:5, Funny)
Dec 21, 2012
Re:It WILL blow up on... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:It WILL blow up on... (Score:5, Funny)
Those Mayans were a smart bunch.
Yup - they figured out how to design a calendar system that would provoke all sorts of speculation and running around in circles in the future.. I nominate the Mayan calendar system for "best troll ever!"
Parent
Re:It WILL blow up on... (Score:5, Funny)
No, that one's going to go to the Bible or the Quran.
Parent
Suddenly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Suddenly the economy doesn't sound like such a big problem after all.
Re:Suddenly... (Score:5, Funny)
Are you nuts?!? With 2/3 of the country gone, my 401k is going to be completely ruined! RUINED! It would be a financial catastrophe (in addition to an actual catastrophe)!
Parent
Re:Suddenly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fortunately, I heeded the advice to SELL SELL SELL all of the stocks in my 401(k) portfolio and invest in Guns, Ammo, and Booze. I should be in pretty sweet shape if the Apocalypse occurs in the next few months.
Peter
Parent
Re:Suddenly... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Two multiple hundreds of thousands of years events (Score:5, Funny)
Why not? All the mathematical models claimed that the US Financial credit market and the Housing Bubble wouldn't burst at the same time- they calculated that was a once in 75 million years event. Given the luck of the United States lately, a 1/600,000 year event going off right now would just be the icing on the cake.
Re:Two multiple hundreds of thousands of years eve (Score:5, Funny)
History books will refer to late 2008 as The Year God Decided He Really Hated America.
(This is only true if the volcano blows within the next 5 hours, and I have to say - if it's going to blow, it should do it then, just for the humor value.)
Parent
Re:Two multiple hundreds of thousands of years eve (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, this is true, but what you have to remember is that those "mathematical models" were created by imbeciles who believed that all events in the financial market were independent (i.e no event in the market affects any other event), that the market can grow forever without limit, and -- worse -- still believe that when an event that the models say is a once-in-a-hundred-years event happens three times in six months, it's not an indication of a basic flaw in the model, but rather a rare fluke that means it's now statistically certain it'll NEVER happen again. The global financial sector's "mathematical models" are worthless, and always have been. They built a house of cards using imaginary money as cards, and the question was only one of when the house of cards would collapse.
The financial market and the Yellowstone basin are hardly related. Our models of vulcanism are incompletely understood, and based on what is -- on a geological scale -- a very short period of observation, a mere century and a half or so in the case of Yellowstone. But they are at least based on observation and study, not wishful thinking. Yes, many of the models indicate that there could be another supervolcanic event at Yellowstone "any time now". But on a geological timescale, that "any time now" could be a thousand years away.
This is interesting news, and absolutely bears close monitoring, but I think it's a little premature to run around shouting that the sky is falling. But regardless of the actual risk from Yellowstone, I don't think that the failure of the consensual delusion passed off as mathematical models of the global economy constitutes anything that can be used as evidence for anything except for how stupid a whole lot of ostensibly really smart people can actually be, when they're blinded by greed.
Parent
Re:Two multiple hundreds of thousands of years eve (Score:5, Funny)
Our models of vulcanism are incompletely understood
We just need to think more logically.
Parent
Well damn... (Score:5, Funny)
Recent Earthquake map (Score:5, Informative)
"would wipe out half to 2/3 of the continental US" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"would wipe out half to 2/3 of the continental (Score:5, Informative)
One
Parent
Re:"would wipe out half to 2/3 of the continental (Score:5, Interesting)
The three last eruptions [yellowstonepark.com] were 6000, 700, and 2500 times Mt St Helens 1980 (MSHE), which released 1.67 exajoules [wikipedia.org] (1.673 x 10^18 Joules). According to the esteemed Christopher Thomas [slashdot.org] 1 Burning Library of Congress (BLoC) is equivalent to 4 petajoules (4 x 10^15 Joules). Converting MSHE to BLoC gives 1 MSHE = 418.25 BLoC. So the last three eruptions were 2509500 BLoC, 292775 BLoC, and 1045625 BLoC, respectively. Since we don't know how big the next eruption will be, let's just assume the mean of the last 3, and that's 1282633.3 BLoCs, or 39% of the total solar energy that strikes the surface of the Earth [wikipedia.org].
Parent
No boom today. (Score:5, Funny)
Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow.
Sensationalism at its best (Score:5, Insightful)
The linked articles do not really raise any cause for concern. The title sure has a ZOMG!!! factor to it, but in reality it's just a bunch of what-ifs. Move along, nothing to see here.
At times like these (Score:5, Funny)
At times like these, I feel it's appropriate to start rocking back and forth singing:
Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.
And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
Some scientific perspective... (Score:5, Informative)
Fortunately, the Yellowstone volcanic system shows no signs that it is headed toward such an eruption in the near future. In fact, the probability of any such event occurring at Yellowstone within the next few thousand years is exceedingly low.
...
Lava flows and small volcanic eruptions occur only rarely--none in the past 70,000 years. Massive caldera-forming eruptions, though the most potentially devastating of Yellowstone's hazards, are extremely rare--only three have occurred in the past several million years. U.S. Geological Survey, University of Utah, and National Park Service scientists with the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO) see no evidence that another such cataclysmic eruption will occur at Yellowstone in the foreseeable future.
(emphasis mine)
As for that "several million years" figure for a devastating explosion of the kind TFA is describing, consider that the United States as a nation is still less than 250 years old. I'm not saying it can't happen, but the idea that "it hasn't happened in a long time so it must be ready to happen now" is just a popular Las Vegas delusion.
Re:Warning (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Totally (Score:5, Funny)
Hell, I could be so bold as to state some asinine comment on Slashdot and not care about Karma or mod points:
I love MS, hate Apple, think Linux is cute but just a toy, and man enough to admit I own a copy of the Joy Luck Club on DVD. ...I feel liberated.
Parent
Re:Totally (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Warning (Score:5, Funny)
Well, if it's going to be the apocalypse (and I'm not going to be responsible, much to my chagrin), can you just make sure I get a few weeks' notice? There are... things... I want to do.
Those 'things' are girls and they've already told you they wouldn't have sex with you even if the world were ending.
Oh wait on second thoughts this is slashdot. You do realize that at the end of the world, no one's going to care if you put out a new beta of your new Robocode [sourceforge.net] robot, even if it is unbeatable.
Parent
Re:Can't decide (Score:5, Insightful)
After the fact.
Parent
Re:Can't decide (Score:5, Funny)
Please do not panic. Resist the temptation to read or talk to loved ones. Do not attempt sexual relations, as years of TV radiation have left your genitals withered and useless.
Parent
Re:GW linked to volcanic activity ?! WTF (Score:5, Funny)
"Climate change may actually increase the probability of volcanic and earthquake activity!"
Come on get off the fence, does it or doesn't it.
Parent
Re:Your link doesn't seem to support your contenti (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Somebody call Crono! (Score:5, Funny)
And all this time I thought that if you weren't part of the solution you were part of the precipitate...
Parent