Super Volcano In Yellowstone National Park

solcomhouse ^ | Unknown

[Rebelbase]

Old Harry Truman is now a fossil, that is if he was'nt evaporated in the blast.

[dead]

Cool stuff! Of course "in the next hundred thousand years" means that it could affect me or my kids, which would be awful.

More likely, it will affect my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren, and I really don't know them. They might be total jerks for all I know.

[lavaroise]

Oh, why don't you just go hug a tree. Nature cares for us after all and the Earth will always turn round. (Sarcasm)

[Salgak]

Exactly. It's happened before, will happen again, and sounds roughly equivalent to another Krakatoa explosion.

I wouldn't want to be within several hundred miles of it, when it blows. The recent 70-cm rise is disturbing, hinting at "sooner" rather than "later", from what I can recall of my vulcanolgy course (back in the early 1980's). But "Soon" in geologic terms can mean anywhere from 5 seconds from now to several thousand years from now. . . .

[Junior]

This one might give the YEC the willies ...

[SengirV]

I saw the Discovery Channel show about this as well. The cycle is not exactly 600K years. It has gone off from 600,000 - 700,000 years intervals for the past 3 eruptions that we know of.

Granted, it's going to blow up but I wouldn't be canceling any planned trips there for the next 10,000 years.

[John H K]

Exactly. It's happened before, will happen again, and sounds roughly equivalent to another Krakatoa explosion.

Would make Krakatoa look like a complete joke...hundreds or thousands of times more material ejected and explosive power. There hasn't been a caldera blast like Yellowstone, or remotely approaching Yellowstone, in recorded human history.

[SauronOfMordor]

I wonder if, by drilling into it we could simultainiously relieve pressure, and generate electricity via the geothermal heat ?

[stripes1776]

I was in Yellowstone during the 1959 earthquake. Things were a rockin' and a rollin'.

[Junior]

Here's another one:

New research proves existence of super volcano beneath Loch Ness

Professor Tom Plume PhD (51) of the EU Volcanic Research Committee has warned that the famous fault-line, known as the Great Glen, may be about to rip apart as a result of a Super Volcano, which has lain dormant for millions of years.

"Loch Ness lies on the Great Glen fault-line and its incredible depth (over 2km) has severely hampered our research project", said Professor Plume. Unlike some other projects, we need to be able to see right down through the earth's crust, but until recently, we have been restricted to dry land. Fortunately new developments with satellite laser topography sonar side-scanning techniques have enabled us to penetrate through the thick sludge that lies up to 400m thick at the loch's bottom. What we found shocked us: nematode worms and zooplankton the size of a human fist that seem to be feeding on thermal vents."

Ironically it was the discovery of the sulphur-feeding creatures that prompted Professor Plume to hire a special robot submarine capable of dropping through a thermal vent and searching beyond. "We found a very active thermal rupture in the sub-base of the loch", said Professor Plume, "further sonar probing showed large lava-filled caverns and pressure readings suggest that a major volcanic event may be about to occur. Tremors have been felt recently in parts of the Highlands of Scotland and it is understood that small seismic shocks often precipitate a major or catastrophic eartchquake or volcanic eruption."

For now, however, this fascinating Loch Ness research project continues to probe its bottom. Professor Plume cautiously suggests that Nessie may have managed to survive the ice age by swimming around the warm volcanic vents and feeding on the monster sized sulphur feeding worms and plankton. The volcano may be a relic from the time this area was part of the super-sized continent Pangea.

"It's just a theory", he said, "but our research has shown that Loch Ness still holds some incredible mysteries and there is little sign that they will be solved in the near future."

The Highlands of Scotland Tourist Board (HOST) was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.

[Junior]

This one almost spelled the end for humanity:

SUPER VOLCANO TOBA 
Their is substantial evidence to show that within the time of the super volcano Toba's eruption in the Indonesian Pacific, the world's population of homo sapiens decreased from over one hundred thousand to less than two thousand, basically because global temperatures dropped five degrees for many years.  This was within the current interglacial and at its start.
 Toba, Indonesia, 75,000 years ago: The eruption of 2,800 cubic km of magma at Toba caldera 75,000 years ago was the largest eruption in the last 2 million years. The eruption may have release as much as 10¹² kg of sulfuric acid, an order of magnitude more than Laki in 1783 and Tambora in 1815, two of the greatest Holocene eruptions. The Toba eruption may have caused about 3 to 4 degree C cooling at the surface but this impact is hard to detect because of concurrent glacial conditions (Sigurdsson, 1990).
   

[Deguello]

Someone has been watching the Discovery Channel.

[Junior]

Yep. Fascinating, wasn't it?

[ckilmer]

if the thing can hold off even a thousand years the technology will be in place to minimize the damage. or they'll just haul everyone off world for awhile as nasa will have put up the space elevator

[Deguello]

"Yep. Fascinating, wasn't it?"

I'm hold out for the Dooms Day Meteoroid.

[Cleburne]

The south end of Yellowstone Lake is sagging, so that water has flooded areas that were formerly forest. And there are a slew of brand new thermal features up in the region north of Pelican Creek, lots of new hot lakes and such. Now, I certainly hope the good volcano limits itself to such displays for at least another century or so, or even just a decade or two, so I can go back up there again and get a good look before the scenery gets re-arranged. It's such a great place and all, I will really hate to see it go. Still, we can always hope even cooler stuff will show up after the thing blows. I can imagine a Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes only several hundred times larger. It will take a few centuries to replinish the underground water supply of course, but maybe the massive smoke and ash cloud will begin a small ice age in the area, and get some nice glaciers going. Which would be a real need, for the glacial lakes and such are a great part of the park as well.

[Cleburne]

Hmm...perhaps this explains the existence of the waterhorses and other aquatic terrors of Highland lore...

[TADSLOS]

Maybe it plans to just blow off a little steam and then retire.

[RightWhale]

I think I see. It would be like a geyser except big and blowing out a lot of hot dust and gas. A typical volcanic cone might not form, but the dust would settle over a huge area burying everything several feet deep. Right?

[smithson]

And I just settled on a townhouse just north of the park. Oh well.