Are the Yellowstone and Long Valley Calderas About to Blow?

The City Edition ^ | March 11, 2011

[exnavy]

Man plans, even schemes, God smiles.

I was just now off on the washington times website looking at pictures of the devestation in Japan, it reminds me of photos of Hiroshima 1945.

[listenhillary]

The earth changes. Adapt or die.

[The_Sword_of_Groo]

We should start a rumor that throwing in liberals will appease the volcano deity!

[Paleo Conservative]

Probably not till 2012.

[MARTIAL MONK]

We’re gonna need a bigger volcano.

[SumProVita]

“Always be ready to meet your Maker.”

Most accurate comment on this thread.

[flat]

Apocalypse Schamakalypse.....there are 2 causes...

1. the abandonment of KYOTO...

AND..

2. PALIN hate-speech.

[Eye of Unk]

I would except I’m afraid the ScyFy channel will make a horrible cheesy episode about it.

But you know what? its been done, scientist have indeed created an artificial black hole, that is a fact.

Given enough money and resources I would bet that such a device could very well be such a tool to figuratively “lance the Earths boil”.

But I would think the next super major tectonic event will occur around Vancouver Island. Really nasty fault there that has been suspiciously quiet.

[mozarky2]

“Over 5,000 wells have been drilled to date, with another 10,000 approved during the course the Bush Administration, Joseph reports”.

Well, at least when it does blow, we’ll know who to blame...

[montanajoe]

Well, Yellowstone is far less geologically active than when Colter first described it eg the geysers are fewer and smaller. When I was growing up conventional wisdom was that the next eruptions was 100,000 plus years away.

On the other hand, maybe stories like this will keep fewer out of state nuts from moving in so it might be a good thing...

[muawiyah]

The New Madrid quake also continued to rumble and tumble for two years. The land to the North all the way to Michigan rose as well ~ and drained. Earlier Indiana and much of Illinois had been flooded most of the year. Jefferson was going to give the area to the Indians since it was difficult to imagine using it for anything but small plot farming and hunting.

In a worst case scenario the entire fault structure from New Orleans to Detroit could move.

[The_Sword_of_Groo]

Perhaps we could export a few

Purely in an effort to reduce the trade deficit, you understand...

[Thermalseeker]

One thing that really troubles me is that the more recent tall buildings (1960+)are all concrete, with no structural steel.

Rebar is highly structural when encapsulated in concrete.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Environmental activists also remain wary about continued oil drilling in areas adjacent to the park. Over 5,000 wells have been drilled to date...

Pressure relief valves?

[representativerepublic]

along with pre-stressed and post-stressed tensioning steel in concrete beams, but hey I’m just a dumb contractor

[silverleaf]

Oh, get some popcorn and watch “2012”

I especially like the parts where the Yellowstone ash destroys Las Vegas and Chicago, and tidal wave from “the Chesapeake Bay” drops an aircraft carrier on the White House

[Ditter]

Did not know of the Santa Fe NM caldera.

[Thermalseeker]

My specialty is electrical engineering, but over the years I've supervised construction on hundreds of caissons for tower foundations. I've seen one hell of a lot of concrete get poured and it was always over rebar or other structural steel, not to mention the 2" diameter tower bolts. Sometimes they add fiberglass, too. I'm sure you've seen all that.

I noticed about 6-7 years ago while traveling through Memphis if you look at the bridges over I-40 east of Memphis you can see cable restraints they've installed between the bridge abutments and the bridge beams. My guess is the bridges are held together mostly by gravity and the cables were installed later to prevent the bridges from shaking apart in the event of a big earthquake. Those cables are on every bridge over I-40 for about 60-70 miles east of Memphis. I've seen a few on the Arkansas side, too.

[Grizzled Bear]

Great. Just great. What am I supposed to do with these green bananas?

[blueunicorn6]

What about the wolves??? Shouldn’t they be relocated to someplace safe like San Francisco?