Super Volcano.
Private_Coleman
PhD in Video Games Join Date: 2002-11-07 Member: 7510Members
PhD in Video Games Join Date: 2002-11-07 Member: 7510Members
<div class="IPBDescription">It's in the park!</div> The beauty of America's Yellowstone National Park masks one of the rarest and most destructive forces on Earth - a supervolcano. A new question is begged: 'What if Yellowstone erupted?'
The occurrence of a super-eruption would have severe environmental effects and might threaten global civilisation. Discuss.
Supr Edit: (if the yellowstone volcano erupted, Australia would only experience a 7 degree temperature change, but volcanic ash would not cause a major climate problem, apart from rain pattern alteration. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->)
The occurrence of a super-eruption would have severe environmental effects and might threaten global civilisation. Discuss.
Supr Edit: (if the yellowstone volcano erupted, Australia would only experience a 7 degree temperature change, but volcanic ash would not cause a major climate problem, apart from rain pattern alteration. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->)
Comments
Whether it wipes out a surrounding area, or causes massive global environmental change isn't all that relative, if it happens, we can't change it.
In terms of discussion, I think the prevalent objective must be an attempt to discover when it will erupt, and possibly, ideas on how to stem the death it reaps
<a href='http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/supervolcano/under/under.html' target='_blank'>http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/super...nder/under.html</a>
I'm not sure why I'm asking you guys, it's a rhetorical question really <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I must admit the idea of siphoning off magma/pressure occurred to me too but do we know enough or more importantly have the tech to do it? I'd imagine that drilling/digging/whatever would be rendered impossible due to the insane levels of heat and even if we can then what's to stop it going out of control?
And that Discovery channel thing said the volcano was overdue to explode... by a few tens of thousands of years if I remember correctly. (Judging by the geological layers of surrunding terrain)
Actually, considering the eruption of Krakatoa affected weather patterns worldwise, causing the "Year without a Summer" in Europe, and taking into account how much larger this volcano is compared to Krakatoa....yeah, I'd say the world would experience considerably more turbulence than just some rain pattern alteration.
Also, let us not forget what area this volcano will hit the hardest: the American midwest. The part of the country where all of the grain is grown. The grain that we export at very cheap prices to other countries that can't grow their own food. When Yellowstone blows, all that farmland is going to be blanketed in ash, turning it into a wasteland. Global food production will take a noticeable hit. Between this, and the fact that another "year without summer" would kill crops worldwide, I believe that there will be a mass famine and general starvation in many 3rd world countries, and economic havoc in all developed countries.
So....anyone got a drill? <!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I got a shovel and a pick.
Didn't someone just recently reach a record depth for drilling? I'll try to find it when I get back from a review session for a final everyone is going to fail, go me.
Couldn't venting it potentially weaken the crust around the area and just accelerate its erruption?
On the bright side if it does blow up I won't have to go to work that day. :-)
IRC... drilling could very easily provoke it to erupt with even more violence then it would on its own. Its like when you shake up a bottle of soda, poke it with a pin and it will start shooting out quite nicely for a long time, but it does weaken the entire plastic around it. If you had some baking soda and vinegar in there.. it cracks the surrounding plastic, and occasionally puts a hole in it.
Yeah... no one go near there with a drill pls. :-)
Yellowstone has erupted in the past too, and even it's smallest eruption was 5 times larger than the Tambora eruption.
<a href='http://www.dandantheweatherman.com/Bereklauw/yearnosummer.html' target='_blank'>readme</a>
I'm glad I'm only a couple hundred miles from Yellowstone, maybe I could die faster that way, then the rest of the world can suffer! mwahahaha
Whether or not explosions actually relieve tectonic pressure is inconclusive (although most results point to transferring the stress around the plate instead of dssipating it...even with earthquakes). Probably just better off letting it go on how it wants <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> .
Then again, it probably wont happen in our lifetime (I demand more cool stuff while I'm alive <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> ). Or, maybe it's a part of that "Benedict XVI is the last pope before the devil-pope and subsequent apocalypse" thing...from the PopeThread <span style='font-size:6pt;line-height:100%'></span>
Personally, I'm still waiting for that volcano to pop up in LA...
[edit: in other news, much like my "Battle of Hastings" post, this post number is brought to you by British ships capturing American sailors and subsequently starting a war which resulted in a burned capital building and lots of lost battles.]
The ground in the Yellowstone caldera has been measured to be rising, swelling with the pressure. Geologically, we're overdue for an eruption. While the probability of the eruption coming in our lifetimes is probably pretty small, given how long geological processes take, I would say that that eruption is coming in at most 200 years. Plenty of time to prepare; of course, it could always blow sooner.
Actually, you're in the "slow and painful but certain death" zone. Where the ash gets into your bloodstream from your lungs and makes your bones grow fast enough to hurt really, really bad while you get only enough oxygen to live on...
So yea, it's gonna suck more than the really really cold winter I'm gonna have to put up with. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Another point of interest is that the bible marks the end of the world with a blood red moon and destruction by fire, both of which would be apparent in the case of eruption.
This is probably why the midwest is so furtile to begin with. I mean, the air currents have something to do with it, but it makes alot of sense to me that when this thing erupts it lays furtile ground down all around the midwest that we can use for growing after the sky clears. Kind of like a reverse trojan horse, though...