Uh-Oh. Yellowstone!

[3113]

Well, this would certainly top off the dominos of disaster (economic or otherwise) that have been tumbling one after another across the U.S over the last few months.....

...a wave of recent earthquake activity [in Yellowstone] is raising fears that have their origins 642,000 years ago, when a Yellowstone "supervolcano" exploded so violently that it created the caldera itself. Today, such an explosion - 1,000 times more powerful than the explosion of Mount St. Helens in 1980 - would not only cover most of the U.S. with ash but also throw so much dust into the atmosphere that the world's climate could change.

Could the current activity be the warning signs of another such apocalypse? Or just a large but not world-ending earthquake, like the 7.5-magnitude temblor that happened on a summer night in 1959 and caused a mountain to slide down into a campground, killing 28 people and damming the Madison River?

Last week, geologists at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO) announced they had recorded a "notable swarm of earthquakes under way since Dec. 26 beneath Yellowstone Lake." The strongest tremor among the hundreds in the past week measured 3.9 on Dec. 27; most of the readings above 2.8 were felt by park employees and visitors around the lake area. The activity relaxed in magnitude early this week but then flexed upward again to top 3.0 by early New Year's Eve. "This December 2008 earthquake sequence is the most intense in this area for some years," YVO reported, "and is centered on the east side of the Yellowstone Caldera," the ancient collapsed volcano beneath Yellowstone Lake. The scientists said they cannot immediately "identify any causative fault or other feature without further analysis."

This activity could have a whole range of consequences. In a study released last year, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said possible hazards could include hydrothermal explosions, when steam breaks through the surface and forms a crater. That has happened 26 times in the park's 127 years of record-keeping. The USGS discounted chances for cataclysmic eruption of the caldera, noting that the hot, active magma chamber below Yellowstone has turned into "largely crystallized mush." But the same study also said: "Depending on the nature and magnitude of a particular hazardous event and the particular time and season when it might occur, 70,000 to more than 100,000 persons could be affected; the most violent events could affect a broader region or even continent-wide areas."

Rest of the article here. Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to move...oh, I dunno, maybe to Australia. That might be safe enough.

 

[shereads]

Well, this would certainly top off the dominos of disaster (economic or otherwise) that have been tumbling one after another across the U.S over the last few months.....


Rest of the article here. Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to move...oh, I dunno, maybe to Australia. That might be safe enough.

Supervolcanos put other disasters in perspective. For example, the prospect of a Sarah Palin presidential win in 2012. Imagine: northwestern Wyoming has just erupted, sending ash sufficient to lay a 60-foot layer across the land as far away as Kansas. Meanwhile, in the day's other news, President-Elect Palin has named Bill O'Reilly to be her Secretary of State. "How sad for them," you think. "Along with the rest of the Eastern U.S., the inaugural will be disrupted by a weeks-long rain of toxic gasses and choking black ash, punctuated by falling boulders the size of dachshunds...I wish President-Elect Palin god-speed as I race for the relative safety of the Grenadine Isla--" <SPLAAT!!>

There's some comfort to be found in reminders that life as we know it could go up in a cloud of dust while we're making other plans, and worrying about the plans of others. Our worst fears and greatest disappointments just don't matter.

 

[wife2hotblk]

Actually, it was all laid out in a made for TV docudrama called Supervolcano.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419372/

I love it...makes my top 10 list of movies. But I would be very glad to be living in the UK, although we would get unbelievably cold for several years because it will create a new Ice Age. So thanks for the warning, I'm going to start to stock up of non-perishables and water for our family.

 

[DesertPirate]

Possibly bigger than Krackatoa (sp)

 

[wife2hotblk]

Actually if I remember correctly Mount St Helens was what they call a VI3 and Krackatoa was either a VI5 or 6. Yellowstone has the potential to be a VI8. Like the earthquake scale the VI is also ex-ponentially based. So it would be about 100 times worse than Kracktaoa.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I note that in spite of the comments by the geologist in charge that a supervolcanic eruption is minisculey unlikely, the headline and all the commentary on this thread is focusing on "Oooo, we're gonna get it now." Odd how whenever we're told to quit imagining the worst, that's the first thing that comes to mind.


Human!

 

[Noor]

Well, this would certainly top off the dominos of disaster (economic or otherwise) that have been tumbling one after another across the U.S over the last few months.....


Rest of the article here. Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to move...oh, I dunno, maybe to Australia. That might be safe enough.

I don't know, Australia seems a bit too close to Krakatoa and Tambora for me.

 

[3113]

I don't know, Australia seems a bit too close to Krakatoa and Tambora for me.

Well, going in the other direction don't help. Iceland just as geologically unstable and the poles are melting! Of course...once we're in a nuclear winter, that should be the end of that problem.

This is all payback for the polar bears, isn't it?

 

[DesertPirate]

I note that in spite of the comments by the geologist in charge that a supervolcanic eruption is minisculey unlikely, the headline and all the commentary on this thread is focusing on "Oooo, we're gonna get it now." Odd how whenever we're told to quit imagining the worst, that's the first thing that comes to mind.


Human!

Of course, it's more fun this way

In actuallity if it happens, it happens, can't do a damn thing about it