Is Yellowstone Going to Erupt?

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by soullust, May 4, 2010.

  1. soullust Registered Senior Member

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  3. fedr808 1100101 Valued Senior Member

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    What's the point? Not like we can do anything about it. Now if it were an asteroid it'd be a different story, we could just send Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck to blow it up.

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  5. Omega133 Aus der Dunkelheit Valued Senior Member

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    "Russian components, American components, all made in Taiwan."

    "Ever heard of Evil Keneivel?" "No I never saw Star Wars."-Armagaedon

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    Anyways. On topic, ther'es really nothing we can do is kiss our butts goodbye. You can't stop a Volcano.
     
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  7. ScaryMonster I’m the whispered word. Valued Senior Member

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    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_super_volcano

    That’s very interesting, I remember seeing a doco about supervolcanoes a few years ago, the Discovery Channel highlighted six known supervolcanoes: the Yellowstone, Long Valley, and Valles Caldera in the United States; Lake Toba, North Sumatra, Indonesia; Taupo Volcano, North Island, New Zealand; and Aira Caldera, Kagoshima Prefecture, Kyūshū, Japan.

    The first super-eruption at Yellowstone ejected into the atmosphere 2500 times more volcanic material than the Mount St Helens eruption of 1980; the ground beneath Yellowstone could hold more than 25,000 cubic kilometres of molten rock; an eruption could send as much as 2 billion tonnes of sulphuric acid into the stratosphere; and the death toll from a Yellowstone super-eruption would top 1 billion people. And that's just for starters.

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    I understand that knowledge of Supervolcanoes is relatively new to science.

    This thread probably belongs in Earth Science I think.
     
    Last edited: May 4, 2010
  8. fedr808 1100101 Valued Senior Member

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    How could it be 1 billion people?
    There are only around 350 million people in the US and it's not like they are all going to drop dead the second it erupts.
     
  9. soullust Registered Senior Member

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    Yeah The thread can be moved up there, i just find full scientific threads lack personal opinion, which can mean allot, esp with a smart audience.
     
  10. PieAreSquared Woo is resistant to reason Registered Senior Member

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    gosh i hope it's not till next month
     
  11. Omega133 Aus der Dunkelheit Valued Senior Member

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    Why?
     
  12. PieAreSquared Woo is resistant to reason Registered Senior Member

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    I have some things I'd like to do before then:shrug:
     
  13. soullust Registered Senior Member

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    i think they were referring to world wide, not just American

    And imagin if something caused them all to erupt
     
  14. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    || Thread moved from 'Free Thoughts' to 'Earth Science'.
     
  15. ScaryMonster I’m the whispered word. Valued Senior Member

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    The effects would be world wide, acid rain, crop failure and a mini nuclear type winter minus the radiation.

    Yellowstone has erupted three times, 2.1 million years ago, 1.3 million years ago and 640,000 years ago, a cycle that suggests the next eruption is due.

    Susan Orr who produced the doco (Nowhere to hide) says:
    "The reaction to this information, is generally disbelief. And understandably so," she adds. "Two years ago, when this film was first suggested to me, I didn't know what a supervolcano was and once I found out my reaction was the same. Why don't people know about these things? This is something we should all know about."
     
  16. fedr808 1100101 Valued Senior Member

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    Well first off nothing would cause them all to erupt. And second, the part of the explosion that would have any sort of lethality ends inside of the united States. sure other countries may get some wierd weather, but it won't be lethal at all. It's be the US that is by far the hardest hit.
     
  17. fedr808 1100101 Valued Senior Member

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    But remember that the next eruption being due is give or take anywhere from a thousand, to ten thousand, to even a hundred thousand years. So I wouldnt be sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for it to happen.
     
  18. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Actually there just might be a way to relieve the pressure in the center of the volcano by using a tunneling machine to make a tunnel to the magma to relieve the pressure of building magma before it erupts.
     
    Last edited: May 4, 2010
  19. John99 Banned Banned

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    Because:

    a: it may have shot its load already.

    b: examining event from millions of years ago is not exactly as simple as saying you know for certain what actually DID happen.
     
  20. soullust Registered Senior Member

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    if it blows it blows, just give me lot's of budd and i will go into a hole and come out in a few years

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    but for real, how would we even be able to begin cleaning up the mess?
     
  21. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    But there are other effects to consider, and weird weather alone can be a killer.
     
  22. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    History suggests that's probably a bad idea, unless you get in shortly after the previous eruption.

    Generally, removing weight removes pressure, and makes it easier for a volcanoe to erupt (consider the 1980 eruption of Mt St Helens, for example).

    Also, consider that a Volcanoe is what you get when you have a tunnel connecting the surface to a magma chamber.
     
  23. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Evidence would suggest otherwise.
    Yellowstone is located above a hotspot, hotspots are believed to draw their power from deep in the mantle, near the boundary between the mantle and inner core.
    There is still a substantial amount of heat under Yellowstone, however, there is some evidence to suggest that the magma chamber directly under the caldera might be cooling, however, this is far from being indicative of having 'shot its load'.
    The mantle plume that powers yellowstone has a diameter of 1000km, is currently centered under Dillion, Montana, connected to the Yellowstone hotspot by an 80km wide conduit - the implication being that if it has indeed 'shot its load already' which I highly doubt, then it may simply mean that the hotspot is shifting it's focus.

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    From a 2009 article (not quite what I had pictured based on what I had read elsewhere, but).

    Finally found what I was looking for - it shows the relationship of the Magma resevoir under Yellowstone that's been feeding the eruptions to the plume imaged above:

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    Simply wrong.
     
    Last edited: May 4, 2010

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