Yellowstone Volcano A Western Apocalypse

[westwall]

Russia has been working on a way to induce the caldera to erupt. Except that if it did the whole world, including Russia would be in darkness for at least three years. Rain worldwide would be acidic and sulphurous. It would be national suicide.

The United States would break in two while the large fault lines along the west coast would rupture. The Santa Monica mountains would be west coast islands. The energy released could well travel along the ring of fire wiping out pacific islands abd most of Japan. So Russia scrapped the idea as being worse for them.

Ummmm, no. The US would not break in two and the rest of the geologic consequences you enumerate have no basis in fact. Yellowstone has erupted before. 700,000 years ago it blew around 600 cubic miles of material into the atmosphere. Most life east of the eruption died and the west coast wasn't too happy either. I don't think anyone has actually looked into the global effects of the eruption (there's a Doctoral thesis for you) but they would have been severe.

But the rest of your post is simply hyperbole.

And to answer the original question, no...there is no mechanism extant to cause the caldera to erupt. If anyone did have that sort of energy, you wouldn't need the caldera in the first place.

 

[Katzndogz]

An eruption today would be just like the one 700,000 years ago. No difference.

Hah!

 

[HenryBHough]

When it happens.

Even if it's 200 years from now.

Democrats will immediately blame Boooosssshhhhh!

 

[WinterBorn]

I like that I live in North America if this volcano goes off at full force. Most ofthe country will be dead immediately. The rest of the world will starve because the ash cloud will render farming impossible for at least 2 or 3 years.

 

[westwall]

An eruption today would be just like the one 700,000 years ago. No difference.

Hah!

Yes, it would. And the US didn't crack in two back then either. That's the point.

 

[orogenicman]

Fortunately you have a geologist right here (yours truly) who can tell you that there is no danger from this volcano for the foreseeable future, and in fact, if any eruption were to occur in the near future, it would likely be small (smaller than or equal to Mt. St. Helens). And at any rate, these super volcanic eruptions, from everything I've read and seen, tend to give plenty of warning, so no one should be worried that we won't have the opportunity to kiss our own arses goodbye. lol

That said, there is at least one other supervolcano that we should be far more concerned about with regard to its potential to be utterly devastation. That volcano is Taupo Volcano, in New Zealand. It is younger, and has had much more recent supervolcanic eruptions than Yellowstone. Granted, it is way down south, on a large but remote Island, but its devastation would nonetheless have global impact.

There are, of course, many others on the planet, and while Yellowstone has the potential to be the most devastating, others demand to be watched carefully.

So while you are contemplating these things, enjoy this light show:

 

[westwall]

Fortunately you have a geologist right here (yours truly) who can tell you that there is no danger from this volcano for the foreseeable future, and in fact, if any eruption were to occur in the near future, it would likely be small (smaller than or equal to Mt. St. Helens). And at any rate, these super volcanic eruptions, from everything I've read and seen, tend to give plenty of warning, so no one should be worried that we won't have the opportunity to kiss our own arses goodbye. lol

That said, there is at least one other supervolcano that we should be far more concerned about with regard to its potential to be utterly devastation. That volcano is Taupo Volcano, in New Zealand. It is younger, and has had much more recent supervolcanic eruptions than Yellowstone. Granted, it is way down south, on a large but remote Island, but its devastation would nonetheless have global impact.

There are, of course, many others on the planet, and while Yellowstone has the potential to be the most devastating, others demand to be watched carefully.

So while you are contemplating these things, enjoy this light show:

Actually, the one to have the most potential for destruction is the one that no one knows about. It is my belief, and most volcanologists I know agree, that once there has been a major calderic eruption, the likleyhood of a second major eruption, in the same location, is vanishingly small.

As far as warnings go. There should be ample warning. That much is true. The earthquake activity as the magma body works its way to the surface would be substantial.

 

[pismoe]

off topic on Yellowstone but on topic concerning volcano's . The volcano in the cornfield !! --- Natural Seven Wonders Paricutin - Cornfield Volcano --- always been interesting to me since I first heard about it .

 

[Darkwind]

Yellowstone won't be a western apocalypse.

It will be a global one.

 

[Kondor3]

An 'A bomb' isn't even close. It could change the entire world's climate and cover two thirds of the US in ash.

There are already a lot of ashes in Washington, D.C., and the volcano hasn't even erupted!

Perhaps, but, the alternative explanation is, that D.C. is rife with the depressions into which the ash would fall... some red, some blue, but all ash-holes...

 

[orogenicman]

Fortunately you have a geologist right here (yours truly) who can tell you that there is no danger from this volcano for the foreseeable future, and in fact, if any eruption were to occur in the near future, it would likely be small (smaller than or equal to Mt. St. Helens). And at any rate, these super volcanic eruptions, from everything I've read and seen, tend to give plenty of warning, so no one should be worried that we won't have the opportunity to kiss our own arses goodbye. lol

That said, there is at least one other supervolcano that we should be far more concerned about with regard to its potential to be utterly devastation. That volcano is Taupo Volcano, in New Zealand. It is younger, and has had much more recent supervolcanic eruptions than Yellowstone. Granted, it is way down south, on a large but remote Island, but its devastation would nonetheless have global impact.

There are, of course, many others on the planet, and while Yellowstone has the potential to be the most devastating, others demand to be watched carefully.

So while you are contemplating these things, enjoy this light show:

Actually, the one to have the most potential for destruction is the one that no one knows about. It is my belief, and most volcanologists I know agree, that once there has been a major calderic eruption, the likleyhood of a second major eruption, in the same location, is vanishingly small.

As far as warnings go. There should be ample warning. That much is true. The earthquake activity as the magma body works its way to the surface would be substantial.

To say nothing of the inflation that would occur prior to any eruption. But I have to disagree with you about the likelihood of multiple super eruptions occurring at the same volcano. Most supervolcanoes, including the large igneous provinces, have had multiple super eruptions. The three well known supervolcanoes in the conterminous U.S. (Yellowstone, Valles caldera, and Long Valley) have all had multiple major eruptions. And at least one extinct supervolcano (San Juan volcanic field, which includes La Garita Caldera) has had multiple eruptions, with La Garita Caldera being one of the largest, if not the largest known explosive eruption in Earth's history. Every large igneous province has consisted of many large eruptions over quite a long period of time, usually hundreds of thousands of years. So I would not rule out the possibility of any supervolcano having multiple VEI 8 or larger eruptions. As for Taupo, it has already produced two VEI 8 eruptions, and so the New Zealand government is very concerned about this one, and has their ear to the ground, watching it very carefully.

 

[Kondor3]

I remember when Mount St. Helen blew... within a couple of days, ash was falling on the Chicago metropolitan area... a bit of a mess, until it rained good-and-proper.

 

[orogenicman]

off topic on Yellowstone but on topic concerning volcano's . The volcano in the cornfield !! --- Natural Seven Wonders Paricutin - Cornfield Volcano --- always been interesting to me since I first heard about it .

Yeah, but that was a piss ant cinder cone that occurred along a known volcanic graben. Nothing to worry about there.

 

[Moonglow]

When this baby BLOWS we in the western US are in for it....think A-bomb type of damage.

A giant reservoir of magma and hot rock beneath the Yellowstone supervolcano has been found and imaged. The newly found reservoir lies 12-28 miles below the surface, and is four-and-a-half times larger than the shallower, hot melted rock zone that powers current Yellowstone geysers and caused the caldera's last eruption some 70,000 years ago.

The volume of the newly imaged, deeper reservoir is a whopping 11,000 cubic-miles (46,000 cubic kilometers), which is about the volume of Long Island with 9 miles of hot rock piled on it, or 300 Lake Tahoes. The discovery begins to fill in a gray area about how Yellowstone connects to a far deeper plume of heat rising up from the Earth's mantle.

“It's existence has been suspected for a while,” said University of Utah geophysicist Hsin-Hua Huang of the newly imaged hot reservoir. Huang is the lead author of a paper announcing the discovery in the Thursday issue of the journal ScienceExpress.


Peering Inside Yellowstone s Supervolcano Discovery News

Scientists with the United States Geological Survey, partly to establish “quantitative research in terms of regional ashfall impacts” in the event of a modern-day eruption, and partly, I’d like to imagine, to fuel all of our nightmares, set out to investigate just that. Their results, published in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, indicate that things would get really bad, really quickly.

To be clear, the researchers caution that it’s very unlikely this will happen any time soon. But if it did? Whoa.

For starters, there’s the ash: computer modeling indicates that a supereruption (as befits a supervolcano) would spew about 240 miles of it into the atmosphere, effectively shutting down electronic communications and air travel throughout the continent as it dispersed in what’s known as an “umbrella” cloud. How it lands depends on wind conditions, but cities closest to the eruption could end up blanketed in up to a meter of ash; those on the East, West and Gulf Coast would get smaller, but still disruptive, ash deposits of their own.

Even in places where the ash layer is only millimeters thick, water supplies and crops would be ruined; it would be hard to drive, and people would develop respiratory problems. And the climate itself would change significantly. While there are no historical examples large enough to draw a comparison, the researchers note that the considerably smaller Tambora eruption of 1815 ”cooled the planet enough to produce the famed ‘year without a summer’ in 1816, during which snow fell in June in eastern North America and crop failures led to the worst famine of the 19th century.” The reality, they add, pales in comparison to some of the theories floating around on the Internet; apparently that’s meant to be reassuring.

Here s how bad it would be if Yellowstone s supervolcano erupted today - Salon.com

I remember the 1964 Alaska quake making the water in ponds slosh around in Louisiana.

I can't imagine what a big one at Yellowstone would do.

It would make for interesting times!

I guess interesting would be one way of putting it.....
Instant third world nation conditions and worse.

Note to self: Buy more ammo!!!

learn to be flexible so you can kiss your as goodbye...

 

[HenryBHough]

A nice super-eruption would be Mother Nature's best shot at scolding humans for their hubris in believing they even might have been able to "Save The Planet".

 

[September]

Volcanic lightning is so pretty​

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

A nice super-eruption would be Mother Nature's best shot at scolding humans for their hubris in believing they even might have been able to "Save The Planet".

Here's a four year stretch of winter for you pretentious globull warming assholes!!!!

 

[orogenicman]

A nice super-eruption would be Mother Nature's best shot at scolding humans for their hubris in believing they even might have been able to "Save The Planet".

The notion that nature would or could scold anyone is as ridiculous as the notion of vengeful gods. Nature simply does not care.

 

[HenryBHough]

The notion that nature would or could scold anyone is as ridiculous as the notion of vengeful gods. Nature simply does not care.

And here I thought I was going to have to define "hubris" for liberals!

Silly me.

 

[orogenicman]

The notion that nature would or could scold anyone is as ridiculous as the notion of vengeful gods. Nature simply does not care.

And here I thought I was going to have to define "hubris" for liberals!

Silly me.

Just sayin...