Yellowstone Supervolcano

you CANNOT prevent an eruption anyway


Scientists agree that drilling into a volcano would be of questionable usefulness. Notwithstanding the enormous expense and technological difficulties in drilling through hot, mushy rock, drilling is unlikely to have much effect. At near magmatic temperatures and pressures, any hole would rapidly become sealed by minerals crystallizing from the natural fluids that are present at those depths.

from the yellowstone volcano observatory future volcanic activity FAO

so you only succeed in making things worse rather than better
 
thedevilsreject said:
you CANNOT prevent an eruption anyway
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I just thought of a possible way, but it would be incredibly expensive and would take alot of time and effort. It would involve creating a new magma chamber some distance away from the present one. Then huge tunnel would have to be dug to connect the two. Together, the tunnel and new chamber would act as a safety valve for the volcano.
 
can you really just 'create' a new magma chamber. these things have been carved out over hundreds of thousand of years
 
thedevilsreject said:
can you really just 'create' a new magma chamber. these things have been carved out over hundreds of thousand of years
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Well, I just had this idea. Still mulling it over. However, I have heard that nuclear explosions can create some pretty huge underground spaces. Or perhaps it could be bunch of smaller interconnected spaces.
Obviously, tests would have to be conducted near a smaller, remote volcano.
 
P. BOOM! said:
Well, I just had this idea. Still mulling it over. However, I have heard that nuclear explosions can create some pretty huge underground spaces. Or perhaps it could be bunch of smaller interconnected spaces.
Obviously, tests would have to be conducted near a smaller, remote volcano.
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Just grab yourself a 500KT nuke and make a basket lunch, take a couple beers and cigars with ya and head to Yellowstone lake. Pull the trigger and have a blast. :D
 
Novacane said:
Just grab yourself a 500KT nuke and make a basket lunch, take a couple beers and cigars with ya and head to Yellowstone lake. Pull the trigger and have a blast. :D
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Well, of course. That's what the BOOM! stands for in my handle :D
 
It's really hard to say. The trouble with blowing a hole with an atom bomb is that it may fracture the rock above it. It would have to be a series of smaller nukes, not one large one. Also, the rock that is vaporized by the blast is a worse hazard than the magma is. If you vaporize a few cubic miles of rock that vapor has to go somewhere and it is radioactive.
 
Aren't we getting a little radical here? I like visiting Yellowstone just the way it is right now. Whatever happens, let Nature take its course.
 
P. BOOM! said:
Well, I just had this idea. Still mulling it over. However, I have heard that nuclear explosions can create some pretty huge underground spaces. Or perhaps it could be bunch of smaller interconnected spaces.
Obviously, tests would have to be conducted near a smaller, remote volcano.
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the only problem is that if you give the magma the smallest area to escape to then you are seriously fucked
 
Actually, I think that if a crack opened up that reached the magma pit, we would have an upwelling, not a sudden release of pressure. The liquid that came up would exert pressure on what was below and I think that any tendency to froth or fountain would be contained that way. It is in equilibrium or the land would be rising or falling.

One plausible hazard is if something happened to strip away the 8,000 feet of rock above the magma. An atomic bomb can do that. That would make Yellowstone the top priority place to protect from nuclear attack. One solid hit would take the place of a lot of other nukes and pretty much bring America to its knees in one shot. The other hazard has to come from an increase in temperature of the magma, enough to increase the pressure until it can lift the land above it high enough to open up a really big rift. We don't even know how that happens.
 
MetaKron said:
Actually, I think that if a crack opened up that reached the magma pit, we would have an upwelling, not a sudden release of pressure. The liquid that came up would exert pressure on what was below and I think that any tendency to froth or fountain would be contained that way. It is in equilibrium or the land would be rising or falling.

One plausible hazard is if something happened to strip away the 8,000 feet of rock above the magma. An atomic bomb can do that. That would make Yellowstone the top priority place to protect from nuclear attack. One solid hit would take the place of a lot of other nukes and pretty much bring America to its knees in one shot. The other hazard has to come from an increase in temperature of the magma, enough to increase the pressure until it can lift the land above it high enough to open up a really big rift. We don't even know how that happens.
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You can bet that N. Korea or China's missile defense agencies has Yellowstone's coordinates programmed into their computers for a nuclear first strike. If that ever happens, kiss North America good by.:D
 
MetaKron said:
Actually, I think that if a crack opened up that reached the magma pit, we would have an upwelling, not a sudden release of pressure. The liquid that came up would exert pressure on what was below and I think that any tendency to froth or fountain would be contained that way. It is in equilibrium or the land would be rising or falling.
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What would happen would depend on the current pressures in the chamber. The Yellowstone caldera has had minor eruptions. In fact, they are more common than the big ones. The last one was a large lava flow around 70,000-80,000 years ago.

[/QUOTE] One plausible hazard is if something happened to strip away the 8,000 feet of rock above the magma. An atomic bomb can do that. That would make Yellowstone the top priority place to protect from nuclear attack. One solid hit would take the place of a lot of other nukes and pretty much bring America to its knees in one shot. The other hazard has to come from an increase in temperature of the magma, enough to increase the pressure until it can lift the land above it high enough to open up a really big rift. We don't even know how that happens.[/QUOTE]

Only if someone builds a true superbomb, well in excess of 100 megatons, or bombards the caldera with a big rock from the moon. Our largest above ground test (castle-bravo) excavated a crater only a few hundred feet deep.
 
If you're going to open up a hole in the ground, then a 20MT 'Hydrogen bomb' is definetly the one to use for finding some good earthworms. Make sure you aim right in the center of Yellowstone Lake for the best results. :D
 
The Sedan nuclear test is a much better example to extrapolate from. It dug a crater 320 feet deep and 1280 in diameter. This still sounds like it had to have been suspended some distance above the ground to get that much more of a radius than depth but I admit I don't know that the hole has to be spherical. That device was 104 kilotons, more than 100 times less powerful than the Castle-Bravo test. The damage radius goes up according to the cube of the power of the explosion so you might expect a 20 megaton device to produce a crater roughtly six times as deep under the same circumstances. That would be about 1900 feet of depth closer to the magma. The width of the crater, multiplying by the cube root of 200, would be around 7200 feet. You can't expect a depth any greater than half of that width. Still, it begins to sound like one device just might be able to crack that egg, especially considering what could be in the works that we just don't know about.
 
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MetaKron said:
TheSedan nuclear test is a much better example to extrapolate from. It dug a crater 320 feet deep and 1280 in diameter. This still sounds like it had to have been suspended some distance above the ground to get that much more of a radius than depth but I admit I don't know that the hole has to be spherical. That device was 104 kilotons, more than 100 times less powerful than the Castle-Bravo test. The damage radius goes up according to the cube of the power of the explosion so you might expect a 20 megaton device to produce a crater roughtly six times as deep under the same circumstances. That would be about 1900 feet of depth closer to the magma. The width of the crater, multiplying by the cube root of 200, would be around 7200 feet. You can't expect a depth any greater than half of that width. Still, it begins to sound like one device just might be able to crack that egg, especially considering what could be in the works that we just don't know about.
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If it comes to a nuclear first strike by another country, then I can imagine that probably at least 40 or more of their nuke tipped 500KT ICBM missiles would be heading towards Yellowstone. Why not?
 
Monday, October 2, 2006 10:37 MDT
Current Volcanic-Alert Level: NORMAL
Current Aviation Color Code: GREEN

September 2006 Yellowstone Seismicity Summary

During the month of September 2006, 65 earthquakes were located in the Yellowstone region. The largest of these shocks was a magnitude 2.8 on September 7, 2006 at 7:09 PM MDT, located about 5.7 miles northeast of Canyon Junction, Wyoming. A small swarm of 13 events magnitude 0.2 - 1.4 occured on Sept 12-13. These were located about 12 miles west southwest of Old Faithful.

No earthquakes in this period were reportedly felt. Earthquake activity in the Yellowstone region is at relatively low background levels


Ground Deformation Summary: Through September 2006, continuous GPS data show that most of the Yellowstone caldera continued moving upward at the same relative rates as the past year. The maximum measured ground uplift over the past 24 months is ~12 cm at the White Lake GPS stations. An example can be found at: http://www.mines.utah.edu/~ggcmpsem/UUSATRG/GPS/Site_Info/pboscat_lkwy.gif


The general uplift of the Yellowstone caldera is scientifically interesting and will continue to be monitored closely by YVO staff.

An article on another recent uplift episode at Yellowstone and discussion of long-term ground deformation at Yellowstone and elsewhere can be found at: http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/2006/uplift.html
 
Yellowstone Update

Wednesday, November 1, 2006 15:42 MST
Current Volcanic-Alert Level: NORMAL
Current Aviation Color Code: GREEN

October 2006 Yellowstone Seismicity Summary

During the month of October 2006, 150 earthquakes were located in the Yellowstone region. The largest of these shocks was a magnitude 2.4 on October 29, 2006 at 1:38 AM MDT, located about 12.2 miles west of Old Faithful, Wyoming.

A swarm of 78 events ranging in magnitude from 0.4 to 2.4 occurred on October 14-15. These were located about 7.1 miles northwest of Old Faithful. A small swarm of 13 events ranging in magnitude from 0.6 to 2.0 occurred on October 21-22. These were located about 6.6 miles south-southwest of Madison Junction, Wyoming. No earthquakes in this period were reportedly felt.

Earthquake activity in the Yellowstone region is at relatively low background levels.

Ground Deformation Summary: Through October 2006, continuous GPS data show that most of the Yellowstone caldera continued moving upward at the same relative rates as the past year. The maximum measured ground uplift over the past 24 months is ~13 cm at the White Lake GPS stations. An example can be found at: http://www.mines.utah.edu/~ggcmpsem/UUSATRG/GPS/Site_Info/pboscat_lkwy.gif


The general uplift of the Yellowstone caldera is scientifically interesting and will continue to be monitored closely by YVO staff.

An article on another recent uplift episode at Yellowstone and discussion of long-term ground deformation at Yellowstone and elsewhere can be found at: http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/2006/uplift.html
 
Novacane said:
If it comes to a nuclear first strike by another country, then I can imagine that probably at least 40 or more of their nuke tipped 500KT ICBM missiles would be heading towards Yellowstone. Why not?
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It would maximize the damage and make it more thorough while also improving the soil fertility of the affected areas. Actually, it would improve soil fertility for a great distance outside of the areas where it caused major damages. Unfortunately, the major population centers would not experience a decline in population when the major food production areas go kaput for a period of time. They would wind up taking a bunch of slaves into the affected areas to grow crops and live in whatever shelter they could find.
 
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