Yellowstone SuperVolcano much larger than previously thought
Ron Czapala
Posts: 2,418
HELENA, MONT The hot molten rock beneath Yellowstone National Park is 2 1/2 times larger than previously estimated, meaning the park's supervolcano has the potential to erupt with a force about 2,000 times the size of Mount St. Helens, according to a new study.
By measuring seismic waves from earthquakes, scientists were able to map the magma chamber underneath the Yellowstone caldera as 55 miles long, lead author Jamie Farrell of the University of Utah said Monday.
The chamber is 18 miles wide and runs at depths from 3 to 9 miles below the earth, he added.
The largest blast -- the volcano's first -- was 2,000 times the size of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state. A similar one would spew large amounts of volcanic material in the atmosphere, where it would circle the earth, he said.
"It would be a global event," Farrell said. "There would be a lot of destruction and a lot of impacts around the globe."
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/12/17/yellowstone-magma-much-bigger-than-thought-study-says/
Comments
Too bad there is not a way to release the pressure like a small zit on the earth so that it does not build up too much pressure.
ticking time bomb .
Irony, Yellowstone is one of the most wonderfull places you can visit .
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Apparently that was small potatoes compared to the Bikini Atoll Castle Bravo nuclear tests that lit up the night sky of Wakaki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii at a distance of about 1000 miles.
I am not too worried about Yellowstone. After all, I am in Taiwan.
Probably a bigger concern for us all...
It is expected to rise to 10.5 billion by 2050 from the current 7+ billion...
World population clock - http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
Well if we just go back to 8 oz sodas and single patty hamburgers without the cheese, we might just be able to feed the world through 2050.
Of course, if I am arond in 2050, I will be 103. So I just wonder why Hollywood and Dan Brown make a market in such senarios. I've been living with the doom and gloom ever since the first Godzila movie. Earth has died 1000 times over, maybe much more.
The reality is the that nothing changed at Yellowstone. Our information about Yellowstone changed. Back in the 1990s we got a new generation of higher resolution ultrasonic medical imagining in Taiwan. Suddenly the doctors were seeing more and scaring everyone with their observation... which they really couldn't sort out the implications of.
This is new information... too early to get worried.
Nah, that just makes the situation worse, we'll all be healthier and live longer -- way more then 10.5B by 2050. I say 64 oz sodas and more fatburgers for all!
Dr Simon Day, who works at the Benfield Greig Hazards Research Centre, University College London*, says that one flank (Western) of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma, in the Canaries, is unstable and could plunge into the ocean during the volcano's next eruption. [SIZE=+1]Dr. Day says: "If the volcano collapsed in one block of almost 20 cubic kilometres of rock, weighing 500 billion tonnes - twice the size of the Isle of Wight - it would fall into water almost 4 miles deep and create an undersea wave 2000 feet tall. Within five minutes of the landslide, a dome of water about a mile high would form and then collapse, before the Mega Tsunami fanned out in every direction, travelling at speeds of up to 500 mph. A 330ft wave would strike the western Sahara in less than an hour."
He goes on to say that the major portion of the Tsunami will be aimed squarely at the US East coast and in 7 hours the 330 foot wave will inundate the East Coast up to several miles inland.
Happy New Year, everybody!
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I just pray that neither happen. Way too many lives will be lost.
Best,
Joe
Wormwood, Artemisia absinthium, is a source of Absinthe and Vermuth (http://azarius.net/encyclopedia/19/Wormwood/ not peer reviewed). Fascinating.
Along the way, there might be earthquakes, erruptions, and tsunamis galore. Yellowstone just might be one zone of destruction amongst many. So I suppose that we should not get too worried. One can live for months on instant noodles supplimented by rodent protien.
If the chunk of island hasn't detached to the ocean floor by the time Yellowstone blows both will likely happen almost simultaneously.
Should the earth get hit by a sizable asteroid the seismic shock of that event could likely trigger both and a host of other earthquakes or eruptions. Once the continental plates start dancing it could be lights out for many 'higher' forms of life on this planet.
Sweet dreams Y'all,
Tim
That gets my +1 for the day. :-)
Same here! Que Sera, Sera.
-Phil
When I read about this years ago, I was reminded of all the civilizations that have come and gone...and we are left asking what happened?
Based on what I had read...before the recent calculations that emphasize how much larger it really is...the last eruption of this volcano wiped out most life on the North American continent...and the remaining ash cloud plunged the world into another Ice Age.
So...if this super volcano did erupt about all you can do is grab a beer and sit back and watch..we are all history...for some future civilization to contemplate.....like we do of Pompeii
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii
FWIW...I believe a movie called Pompeii is coming soon...in 3D yet.
FWIW...the article mentioned that the initial blast zone (everything turned to ash) extended as far east as Chicago
I always compare any threats I might contemplate to the odds of getting killed by a drunk driver.
I'm guessing there's a greater chance of getting killed by some teenage girl yacking on her cell phone than by some mega-caldera blowing up soon.
this is the way the world will end
this is the way the world will end
this is the way the world will end
not with a bang
but by some teenage girl yacking on her cell phone about the new tat she just got.