Yellowstone Ready To Blow

[cronus]

Looks like about that time?

[Hermit]

Looks like about that time?

Sometimes increased activity just means that a volcanically active area is blowing off a bit of steam only to resume relative hibernation. At other times it's a precursor to a big-time eruption. We can't tell which is which. One thing is for sure, though: When that caldera blows the way it has three times in the past couple of hundred million years, we can stop worrying about global warming, the next rice harvest, car insurance or whatever else exercises our minds now. To begin with, the majority of this planet's population will be wiped out within a few hours of that event. Those who are not crushed, drowned or asphyxiated will try to survey the destruction around them in the darkness of the enveloping dust and make preparations to somehow cope with the impending ice age that will make the previous one look like a holiday in Davoz or Aspen.

[mistermack]

While it's all very true about the consequences, you have to be realistic about the chances of it happening at any time during our lifetime.
If the average person has forty years left to live, and it blows on average once every seventy million years, your chances of ever witnessing it must be less than one in a million. And that applies to all seven billion people on the planet.

Instead of worrying about asteroid impact, or giant volcanic catastrophes, or being home-invaded or society breaking down, we really ought to worry about the state of our arteries, or whether we have a mole that wants looking at. Because that's the sort of thing with realistic odds of killing you.

[cronus]

It won't be that bad. Maybe for America but not so bad here. Plenty of long pig around here if there's a couple of years low crop yields. The worst of the ash will blow over America....and grounded planes will counteract any global dimming beyond. I'd like to know how close any fracking operations or other industrial activities that might upset the sleeping giant are?

The model suggests the reason there may be no precursor eruption is that the trigger comes from above, not from within, de Silva pointed out.

http://phys.org/news/2011-10-trigger-vo ... tions.html

[Hermit]

While it's all very true about the consequences, you have to be realistic about the chances of it happening at any time during our lifetime.
If the average person has forty years left to live, and it blows on average once every seventy million years, your chances of ever witnessing it must be less than one in a million.

My apologies. In my laziness and sieve-like memory I got the time scale wrong by a couple of magnitudes. The Yellowstone caldera blew up 2.1, 1.3 and 0.64 million years ago. It could be argued that it's actually overdue to do so again. But no, I'm not worried, if for no other reason than there's no point to worry about something you have zero control over. If the thing blows up in my lifetime I'll just feel happy for having had a pretty good life and kiss all those near and dear and my arse goodbye.

It won't be that bad. Maybe for America but not so bad here.

Depends on the magnitude of the explosion. The latest of Yellowstone's eruptions was its smallest by far. The bulk of dust and ashes was confined to North America, but the stuff that finished up going into orbit resulted in a global drop in temperature. It was instant ice age, and it took only 1000 cubic kilometres of matter to do that. 70,000 years ago the Toba eruption blew 2800 cubic kilometres of ejecta into the air. Genetic research suggests that the event resulted in the human population being reduced to somewhere between 1000 and 10,000 breeding pairs. About 28 million years ago the Garita Caldera spewed out 5000 cubic kilometres.

[cronus]

While it's all very true about the consequences, you have to be realistic about the chances of it happening at any time during our lifetime.
If the average person has forty years left to live, and it blows on average once every seventy million years, your chances of ever witnessing it must be less than one in a million.

My apologies. In my laziness and sieve-like memory I got the time scale wrong by a couple of magnitudes. The Yellowstone caldera blew up 2.1, 1.3 and 0.64 million years ago. It could be argued that it's actually overdue to do so again. But no, I'm not worried, if for no other reason than there's no point to worry about something you have zero control over. If the thing blows up in my lifetime I'll just feel happy for having had a pretty good life and kiss all those near and dear and my arse goodbye.

It won't be that bad. Maybe for America but not so bad here.

Depends on the magnitude of the explosion. The latest of Yellowstone's eruptions was its smallest by far. The bulk of dust and ashes was confined to North America, but the stuff that finished up going into orbit resulted in a global drop in temperature. It was instant ice age, and it took only 1000 cubic kilometres of matter to do that. 70,000 years ago the Toba eruption blew 2800 cubic kilometres of ejecta into the air. Genetic research suggests that the event resulted in the human population being reduced to somewhere between 1000 and 10,000 breeding pairs. About 28 million years ago the Garita Caldera spewed out 5000 cubic kilometres.

Human population would have been a fraction of what it is now, got a better chance of surviving as a species than many if TSHTF.

[Hermit]

Human population would have been a fraction of what it is now, got a better chance of surviving as a species than many if TSHTF.

I wasn't talking about human extinction. That's your breviary.

[cronus]

I'm more interested in a sustainable population than extinction given freedom to choose.

[piscator]

Looks like about that time?

Such stupid. Many bullshit. Wow!

They show a frost heave that the snowplows scrape.
They show the lake in 2005. They show the lake on a frosty morning "now". They are alarmed that a hot geothermal lake makes steam when it's cool enough for snow in the bg?

That's as long as I lasted. Did I miss much? Imminent doom? Dr Evil's new lazershark facility?

[Seth]

When it goes I want to be standing on the edge of the caldera watching.

[piscator]

When it blows, I predict all the ejecta will land on Iowa, and cover it 6m deep. Corn and pork will skyrocket. I'm positioned all over this one.

[Scott1328]

When it blows, I predict all the ejecta will land on Iowa, and cover it 6m deep. Corn and pork will skyrocket. I'm positioned all over this one.

Well as long as it's Iowa, I am sure the Omaha region will be fine.

[pErvinalia]

And what is Obama doing about this? It's clearly his fault in the first place.

[pErvinalia]

When it goes I want to be standing on the edge of the caldera watching.

I too want you to be standing on the edge of the caldera when it goes...

[Xamonas Chegwé]

When it goes I want to be standing on the edge of the caldera watching.

"Edge of the caldera" includes most of the continental USA, so I guess all you have to do is live long enough and not go on any foreign holidays.


PS. Rev's reply was Waaaaay too easy!