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To: Valin
"If memory serves Yellowstone is a supervolcano."

Yup. Forty thousand years overdue too.

9 posted on 12/23/2006 4:07:49 PM PST by blam
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To: blam
Did you see "Supervolcano" on the Discovery Channel?
13 posted on 12/23/2006 4:11:00 PM PST by COEXERJ145 (Bush Derangement Syndrome Has Reached Pandemic Levels on Free Republic.)
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To: blam
"If memory serves Yellowstone is a supervolcano."

Yup. Forty thousand years overdue too.

---
Can you be more specific about when it's going to erupt?

I want to include it in my day planner on the right day.
19 posted on 12/23/2006 4:19:07 PM PST by Cheburashka ( World's only Spatula City certified spatula repair and maintenance specialist!!!)
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To: blam
Yup. Forty thousand years overdue too.

The term "overdue" is horrifically mis-used in many cases, and in any event, it's not true of Yellowstone.

From the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory website:

Is it true that the next caldera-forming eruption of Yellowstone is overdue?

No. First of all, one cannot present recurrence intervals based on only two values. It would be statistically meaningless. But for those who insist... let's do the arithmetic. The three eruptions occurred 2.1 million, 1.3 million and 0.64 million years ago. The two intervals are thus 0.8 and 0.66 million years, averaging to a 0.73 million-year interval. Again, the last eruption was 0.64 million years ago, implying that we are still about 90,000 years away from the time when we might consider calling Yellowstone overdue for another caldera-forming eruption. Nevertheless, we cannot discount the possibility of another such eruption occurring some time in the future, given Yellowstone's volcanic history and the continued presence of magma beneath the Yellowstone caldera.

21 posted on 12/23/2006 4:21:43 PM PST by Strategerist
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