Volcano experts...

Taupo, I think--800km3 of ash erupted from Taupo in about 26500 BC--and that's not the biggest eruption ever in New Zealand. Over 1000km3 was vented from another volcano in the Central North Island just over 1 million years ago. The largest eruption from Taupo in recent times was 110km3 erupted in 232 AD. We're due for another sometime in the next 30-40 years.

 

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The largest volcanic eruptions on Earth occured during its pre-historic formation 4.6 billion years ago covering millions of square kilometres. Individual volcanic eruptions are known, through isotope dating in volcanic rock, to cover over 2,000 square kilometers.

The largest volcanic eruption ever seen by man was the Surt volcano eruption on Jupiter's moon Io in 2001, covering 1,900 square kilometers.

The largest series of volcanic eruptions in Earth's "history" were the Siberian Traps covering 2 million square kilometers and pouring out 3-4 million cubic kilometers of lava 275 million years ago at the end of the Permian period, and are thought to have caused the mass extinction of 96% of the world's animal species. The volcanic ash, sulphur, C02, and methane that engulfed the earth's atmosphere, blocked out so much sunlight (causing temperatures to plummet) that it triggered a massive glaciation and the biggest drop in sea level in Earth's history. The resulting change in climate lasted millions of years.

The second largest series of volcanic eruptions in Earth's "history" on land were the Deccan Traps 66 million years ago: the volcanic layers are more than two kilometers thick.

The largest volcanic eruption ever known during human history was Mount Toba on Sumatra, Indonesia. It errupted 75,000 years ago, triggering the Earth's last major glaciation periods and creating a "bottle neck" for advancing human civilization.

The Earth's most recent largest and destructive volcanic eruption was Lake Taupo 26,500 years ago in the Taupo Volcanic Zone, producing 800 cubic kilometers of lava. Its 200 AD erruption may have created a global tsunami.

The most destructive erruption in modern times was the Tambora eruption in Indonesia in 1815, killing 90,000 people.

Yellowstone’s last eruption was 640,000 years ago, covering 340 square kilometers. But in terms of the amount of lava, its largest eruption occurred 2.1 million years ago and produced over a 1,000 cubic kilometers. It is the largest volcanic system in North America.

The largest and tallest volcano on Earth today is Mauna Loa.

Defining the largest eruptions:
Qualitative terms suggesting the enormity of volcanic events abound in the literature, but are only rarely defined in terms of a quantitative measure of size. "Cataclysmic," "paroxysmal," or "colossal" are terms used to describe events larger than about 0.1 km3 of tephra. On a larger scale, events ejecting 300 km3 of magma have been termed "mega" eruptions, "gigantic" eruptions, and "great" eruptions. In recent years, the additional qualitative, but highly evocative, terms "supereruption" and "supervolcano" have caught the popular imagination; and these terms are now beginning to creep into the published literature.

The most widely used index of volcanic size is the volcanic explosivity index (VEI).The VEI is a semi-quantitative logarithmic scale of eruption size, based on a combination of erupted tephra volume and eruption plume height. On this scale, the largest events (VEI 8) are defined as eruptions with bulk tephra volumes >1,000 km3. For eruptions of this scale, much of the erupted tephra is in the form of ignimbrites, with a lesser component of ash fallout. The last two VEI 8 eruptions occurred ~74,000 BP with the eruption of the Younger Toba Tuff from Toba, Sumatra , and at 26,500 BP, with the Oruanui eruption, New Zealand. Since there are no historical records of eruptions within even a factor of thirty of a Toba-sized event, and since estimates of the scale of eruptive plumes are model-dependent and difficult to constrain with any certainty for ignimbrite-forming events, the VEI scale for the largest events is based only on erupted volume.

from: "The size and frequency of the largest explosive eruptions on Earth
Ben G Mason, David M Pyle and Clive Oppenheimer, "Bulletin of Volcanology," vol.66, 8, Dec., pp.735 - 748, 2004.

For a compilation of the largest explosive volcanic eruptions based on volume, mass and magnitude estimates (Caldera diameter (km), Deposit bulk volume (km3), Deposit density (kg m–3), Mass (kg), and magnitude see the chart in the above article.

 

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I.e. I, Valich, was wrong and stupid in saying that Vesuvius was the most destructive volcanic eruption in Earth's history. I have, since that stupid utterance, spent much time googling and here is the results of my web searching. I won't admit that I was stupid. I will merely state a bunch of dry facts and pretend that it never happened. I will never again mention Vesuvius as the most destructive volcano. And now such terms as Taupo, Yellowstone Caldera, Siberian Traps, etc... are now a permanent fixture of my vocabulary. Thank you all for correcting me.

Muaha!

 

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3. The one and only definition I found in google about "Mediterranean belt" is a major concentration of earthquakes and composite volcanoes that runs through the Mediterranean Sea, crosses the Mideast and the Himalaya, and passes through the East Indies. This seems to be not only covering the Mediterranean area but the same as the Eurasian-Melanesian belt???!!!
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=define: Mediterranean belt&meta=

 

The word "Mediterranean Belt" is nowadays used in popular literature to refer to the whole area above the Mediterranean Sea: it is now somewhat misleading. Please refer to what I posted above:

"The Mediterranean Belt is part of the Eurasian-Melanesian mountain belt system. I sometimes heard it called the "Alpino-Mediterranean belt." Basically, you have to look at the wording of the geological terms and define the individual terms accordingly. For example: "Eura" means European, "Asian" means Asia, therefore Euarasian means "consisting of both Europe & Asia." "Melanesia" includes all the areas northeast of Australia till you get into the Asian continent. Get it?

So the entire Eurasian-Melanesian mountain belt includes this entire area, including the Mediterranean region where there is a plate boundary. But the word "Mediterranean Belt" is sometimes confusing because it refers to the entire Mediterranean basin area, the flat forested regions, and also the very ancient historical mountains that were created when Pangea was still seperating."

 

Kingwinner, this extremely long impact zone is the legacy of the closing of the Tethys Sea.

 

Absolutely correct, though Vallich tried to deny this on this, or another thread. At least the weasel is consistent.

 

Ophiolite: You're wasting our time with your irrelevant posts. GET A LIFE!

Zylene is 100% correct and I never denied this. What I said was that "the word "Mediterranean Belt" is sometimes confusingly used [nowadays in popular literature] because it refers to the entire Mediterranean basin area, the flat forested regions, and also the very ancient historical mountains that were created when Pangea was still seperating": the Alpide-Himalayas that began to form with the closing of the Tethys Sea.

 

If I can cause one casual reader to recognise what an ignorant person you are I shall not be wasting my time. The irrelevance of posts has been brought to the level of an art form by yourself. As previously pointed out to you (no attention span laddie?) I have a life: quite a satisfactory one, thank you. The only blight on the horizon is a single blithering idiot with a propensity to misunderstand, misinterpret, obfuscate and obscure.

 

Again, as usual, you are wasting our time with senseless posts. In what way does your post have anything to do with volcanoes??? You are interefering with those of us who are trying to learn on these "scientific" forums. Stop stalking me and GET A LIFE!

 

Scientists believe Nyiragongo Volcano, Congo will erupt again covering the town of Goma. "500,000 people live in Goma, and the population will probably double in five years....Only Italy's Mount Vesuvius is more dangerous in its threat to humans than Nyiragongo, which has erupted five times since 1902."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/11/07/volcano.shadow.ap/index.html

 

Stop posting random, irrelevant, easily googled links, whose only commononality is inclusion of one or more words from the thread title. It does not make you look erudite, merely foolish.

 

You seem fixated with the word "google." Sounds like a baby in a crib: ""google, google, google."

Everyday - time permitting I read or watch CNN, AND what's your problem with a person using an online search engine like Google anyways? It's called "education."

My post is highly relevant: your's is distracting, obtrusive, dumb, belligerent, rude, and worthless. My post contributes to one of the questions asked above about so-called "supervolcanoes" or which are the most dangerous and explosively erupting.

"Only Vesuvius is more dangerous in its threat to humans than Nyiragongo."

 

I am unable to reply to the above post as this would be construed by the entity known as Vallich as stalking. He has threatened me with legal action if I continue such activity, so I guess I shall just have to leave it to the rest of you to recognise just what a tosser he is. Shouldn't be too difficult for you all. Good luck.

 

Valich,

Heh.
You know. As soon as I read the word 'Vesuvius' I knew that you were trying to prove that Vesuvius was the most destructive volcano in the history of the Earth.

That is what you said, you know. The most destructive volcano in the history of the Earth.

So. The fact that Vesuvius caused a large number of human deaths because of the city on its slopes (said cities which once more nestle up cozily with the beast, by the way. I wonder if they'll leave us with the lovely ash statues as well? That would be sweet.) has nothing to do with your original statement.

Vesuvius is barely a pimple compared to so many volcanoes that have erupted in the past.

Hell, if you want to look at destruction in terms of human life, what about the volcano that took out Minoa? I'm not entirely sure about numbers of people living on Minoa at the time, but I can say that the destruction of the Minoan culture surely set the development of civilization for awhile. (It also provided inspiration for myths, of course. Atlantis.)

Anyway.
I guess I better not call you on your bullshit anymore. Or you might sue.
Ha!
Idiot.

 

No, that is not what "I" said. As you yourself can see, and have requoted as such, that statement is in quotation marks and I cited the source. That is what the reporter wrote.

I have already posted that the most intensively explosive volcanoes occurred during the formation of the Earth - on Earth that is. In terms of destruction, that would probably refer to loss of life as you also seem to agree? I also do not know if Vesuvius was or was not more destructive than the one that took out Minoa. I have tried to research more on Vesuvius but ran out of time and came up with no fatality figures. Don't know.

 

See. This is your problem, Valich.
You clearly made that statement. It was not a quote. It was not what someone else said. It was what you said.
And now're trying to pass the buck.

Here's the quote again with more context:

First you talk about how journalists exagerrate. This implies that you don't. And that what is coming next is not exagerration.
What comes next is you saying that 'as you've said' there is no scientific term 'supervolcano'. Which is true. There isn't. But that doesn't mean that supervolcano isn't apt for certain of the volcanic eruptions under discussion. (Not Vesuvius, though. Not even the volcano that destroyed Minoa would be termed a 'supervolcano'. Pimples. The both of them.)

You then go on to say that Vesuvius is perhaps the most destructive volcano in the history of the Earth.

This is not a quote. This is your own words.

You, Valich, don't even know what you say. How can you defend yourself when you don't even know what you've said or haven't said? What you've quoted from other sources and what you haven't? This is similar to Billy T quoting from some of your own links and you having no recollection of those links. Not only that, but you never understood, despite multiple attempts to explain it to you, that those were your links.

So. You're inconsistent. At least you're consistent in your inconsistency.

No. I don't agree. Destruction is destruction. I think that the Yellowstone Caldera was a million times (not accurate) more destructive than Vesuvius. And there was not a loss of a single human life. However, there was a lot of animal life lost. A lot. A whole lot.

You're squirming, Valich. But you can't squirm away from this. You said destructive. (Yes. You said it. Not some journalist or whatever.) You didn't say destructive in terms of human life and/or property.

Well. At least you finally admit to not knowing. Doesn't stop you from trying to squirm out of the implications of your statement anyway, does it?

Here's a hint as to the 'destructiveness' of the Minoan volcano. It destroyed the island leaving only fragmentary remains. Minoa was one of the seats of earliest civilization. Some of the oldest structures found are Minoan. Their whole island went boom. Vesuvius merely dumped a bunch of ash on a few cities.

I have no idea as to fatality figures. Nor do I care. It's easy to judge the difference between the two eruptions without it.

Rome barely blinked when Vesuvius blew. Minoa vanished.

 

Im reallly starting to get pissed off. Read this very carefully. I dont care who started what. Its your words against everyone else (this goes for EVERYONE). The fact remains quite simply and strongly: stop this bullshit bickering real quick. You can argue, thats fine. Use expletives or doragotory comments and the shit is going to hit the fan real quick.

This is the FIRST and LAST warning. The Next step is closing threads. And the next is temp bans.

 

Tristan: I agree with you 100%. Invert is requoting statements I made way back tagging them on as quotes to what I just said. Look at what I said in my last post, " I also do not know if Vesuvius was or was not more destructive than the one that took out Minoa. I have tried to research more on Vesuvius but ran out of time and came up with no fatality figures. Don't know."

If I can in any way stop this bullshit bickering then please advise. I did not use any type of insulting, vulgar, or condemning words in reply to Invert. I said, this is what was reported: I tried to research it but don't know, and he said the same?

I don't understand why I was given such and argumentative responce post. Please tell me how I should reply to avoid these?

 

The problem, Tristan, is that you can't debate with Valich. It's been tried. And it's impossible.
It's not that he 'wins' any debate. He simply refuses to debate. He denies saying things that he clearly said. He repeats himself endlessly without responding to rebuttals of the former times he said the exact same thing. He googles up quotes that aren't relevant and which he doesn't even seem to understand.

I understand your point, and I'll back off. But I have little doubt that he'll say something so dumb and outrageous again that I won't be able to help myself.

You're a mod. How easy is it to find out if he's a sock puppet? I suspect him of stirring all this up purposefully. (I am not, however, denying my own responsibility in becoming enmired, especially as I suspect him of doing it on purpose to begin with.)


Anyway.
You said 'bullshit'. That's an expletive.
Naughty boy.
Valich is going to accuse you of being vulgar and unscientific, you know.
Muaha!!