Scientists find missing link in Yellowstone plumbing: This giant volcano is very much alive.

[Faygo Kid]

Source: Washington Post

Yellowstone National Park is the home of one of the world's largest volcanoes, one that is quiescent for the moment but is capable of erupting with catastrophic violence at a scale never before witnessed by human beings. In a big eruption, Yellowstone would eject 1,000 times as much material as the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption. This would be a disaster felt on a global scale, which is why scientists are looking at this thing closely.

On Thursday, a team from the University of Utah published a study, in the journal Science that for the first time offers a complete diagram of the plumbing of the Yellowstone volcanic system.

The new report fills in a missing link of the system. It describes a large reservoir of hot rock, mostly solid but with some melted rock in the mix, that lies beneath a shallow, already-documented magma chamber. The newly discovered reservoir is 4.5 times larger than the chamber above it. There's enough magma there to fill the Grand Canyon. The reservoir is on top of a long plume of magma that emerges from deep within the Earth's mantle. . .

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/04/23/scientists-find-missing-link-in-yellowstone-plumbing-this-giant-volcano-is-very-much-alive/?hpid=z1

---

It's coming sooner than later. You and I will likely make it, but this eruption is long overdue.

[truthisfreedom]

1. Damn.

[DJ13]

2. Putting an eruption in context

[A HERETIC I AM]

18. Huh.....look at that....

"Florida Man" (that's me) survives unscathed.

[Faygo Kid]

20. +1, it will happen.

Maybe tomorrow, maybe not for thousands of years. But it's overdue now, and it will eventually happen. Sooner rather than later, likely.

[1monster]

21. The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora was the largest in recorded

history. It spewed out so much ash and other stuff into the atmosphere that there was no summer in 1815... The sun could not penetrate the volcanic cover.

By all accounts, Yellowstone makes Tambora look like a pipsqueak... It might be preferable to be in the immediate kill zone, because when Yellowstone goes, there won't be any place on Earth uaffected.

Now that I've given everyone food for nightmares, I'm off to bed... No sense in worrying about things that might not happen in my life time or my 10x great-grand children's life times and have no control over anyway.

[still_one]

32. It would be the closest thing to a doomsday event

[gladium et scutum]

47. A few weeks back

there were articles about a Russian scientist recommending the Russians target Yellowstone
with a nuke should war break out between us. This theory was that the nuke explosion could open the magma chamber starting an eruption.

[1monster]

59. He wants to starve to death while choking on the ash falling over the whole northern

hemisphere?

He's a few beakers short of a chemistry set or, as my son says, a few bazingas short of a Sheldon...

[davidpdx]

23. I believe there is another volcano in the PNW that is also said to be close to eruption

(it isn't Mt St. Helens) but I can't remember which one.

[Art_from_Ark]

33. There are a few like that

Mt. Rainier, Glacier Peak and Mt. Baker in Washington, Mt. Hood in Oregon, and Lassen Peak in California.

[Joe Worker]

37. Mt Baker looks like the one most likely

to go. Steam plumes all the time. Rainier would be the most devastating because of its proximity to populated valleys and rivers. (also has one of the largest glacial systems in the world) Lets see.....there is Rainier, Adams, Hood, St. Helens, Three Sisters, Shasta, Lassen Pk., Whitney, and Glacier Peak (which also seems to have a little activity.

None of these come close to comparing with Yellowstone which would be devastating to the whole planet.

[davidpdx]

42. Yeah

The reason I mentioned it is I was wondering if Yellowstone blew of there would be some kind of chain event setting off other volcanoes.

Personally I think since they don't believe in global warming we should sacrifice Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz by throwing them down the pit and see if that calms it down.

[cosmicone]

43. That will anger the gods even more

We are supposed to make an offering .. not dump garbage

[notadmblnd]

51. couldn't we use chris christie as a big ole cork?

[davidpdx]

52. Oh shit, you are really testing my ability to keep my mouth shut

There are so many things I could say about that, but I'm not because it would be an automatic hide.

[still_one]

31. Looks like the blue states will control the electoral college again

[dembotoz]

44. I. saw that too

[loudsue]

45. It looks like we have a DUer who sees the silver linings! Good observation.

Of course, we'll all starve due to no crops being able to grow, but at least we'll get some folks in that know how government is supposed to work for solving problems.

[still_one]

48. unfortunately it really is a doomsday scenario, and I suspect if the U.S. survives we would be under

Last edited Fri Apr 24, 2015, 07:55 AM - Edit history (1)

Martial law indefinitely, literally concerned were our food, energy, and housing is coming from

[still_one]

50. Thanks. Good thing I didn't put marital law, that would have major implications I suspect

[corkhead]

46. Looks like Wyoming would become a firey Hellscape

Dick (dick) Cheney would feel right at home

[Surya Gayatri]

54. The 'Ash Zones' are America's breadbasket, how she feeds herself.

Good luck growing wheat, corn and soy beans under a meter of corrosive, stifling ash.

[lordsummerisle]

3. Gee thanks

I did a brief search to see if drilling could help relieve the pressure here and the responses were not only no but hell no, it would be like deploying a flea to stop an elephant.

Even with the asteroid threat there are a number of mitigation strategies available, given enough lead time.

So now as you drift off to sleep at night you can add a catastrophic volcanic eruption in your (virtual) back yard to the things that could kill you and your children instantly at any time along with asteroid/comet impact, terrorist attack, and North Korean nukes...

[Spitfire of ATJ]

5. Some people live in fear. They tend to vote Republican too.

[awoke_in_2003]

9. Death will come to us all...

live life while you're alive.

[democrat2thecore]

15. News Flash!

It doesn't take a volcano or nukes to kill you and/or loved ones in a heartbeat. It could be as simple as not waking up after an overnight heart attack (any age), a car moves a few feet over and hits you head-on, an aneurism, a fall in the shower...

I don't worry about any of the more existential threats to life because any of the others I listed is far more likely and honestly, as much as nobody likes to think about it: We All Die. Some at 6 hours old, some at 6 days, 6 years, 26, 46, 66, 86. The only question is when -- as there is no escaping it.

Nothing new, obviously. But few people stop and actually think that we begin dying the moment we are born.

[A HERETIC I AM]

19. You skipped 56!

Which I will be in 2 weeks. So thanks!

[apnu]

56. "If you hear this whipering, you're dying"

You know what album that's on right?

[democrat2thecore]

61. Oh

The greatest album ever pressed to vinyl. DSOTM.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

4. Sounds like the movie "Supervolcano"....

The one scientist screaming, "I know what a harmonic tremor means!!!"

Earth thrown into a new ice age as volcanic ash kills millions who breathe it in causing them to drown in liquid concrete.

Everyone else having to evacuate to Mexico.

[Art_from_Ark]

34. Meanwhile in Mexico,

a "super Paricutin" rises up out of another corn field...

[Spitfire of ATJ]

38. Beats one that was so massive that it effected human evolution 70,000 years ago....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Toba

[Kablooie]

6. Here is a novel about what might happen if Yellowstone erupts.

Ashfall by Mike Mullin

It's a pretty interesting dystopian novel and shows how drastic a Yellowstone eruption could be.
It's about a 15 year old boy in Iowa who is alone for the weekend while his parents visit relatives when Yellowstone erupts.
He must make a terrifying journey across the devastated, freezing landscape to try and get to his parents.

It was well researched so the how the world is effected is based on science.


http://www.amazon.com/Ashfall-Trilogy-Mike-Mullin/dp/1933718749

[Mojorabbit]

25. I love apocalyptic fiction. I read that book. It was well done. nt

[2naSalit]

7. Aw c'mon, it'll be fun!

Last edited Thu Apr 23, 2015, 11:29 PM - Edit history (1)

I live right on top of it so when it goes, I won't have to watch much. From all the geologists I know, the basic idea is that the entire planet will become uninhabitable for most organisms who require air and moderate temperatures above deep freeze.

I always suspected there was a larger pool of magma down below... it is one of the major "hot spots" on the planet. Hawaii being one of them. If you look at the Hawaiian Island chain, they are just magma that has punched up through the ocean floor and up above the ocean surface at intervals. It's the same with Yellowstone only under a continental plate. If you look at the Snake River Plain in southern Idaho you can see that it looks smooth yet surrounded by mountains. That's because the "hot spot" currently under Yellowstone oozed magma in many places-there are visible cinder-cones rising up from the floor of the SRP that are roughly 10 million years apart in age... all created by the same "plumbing" network, the Menan Buttes near Idaho Falls being two of the most recent. The Idaho Batholith is probably from the same network too... maybe (my speculation).

Most folks who live here figure heading toward the caldera will be the best way to go since you can't run far enough fast enough to survive it when it does blow.

[still_one]

35. beam me up scotty, quickly

[roamer65]

8. It would make the "Year without a summer" look like a picnic.

The year without a summer was 1816, after the Tambora volcano erupted in 1815, in what is now Indonesia. Read up on the "year without a summer". Europe was especially hard hit with civil unrest.

[jwirr]

11. Not only civil unrest. Famine.

[1monster]

22. You beat me to it... I posted up thread about Tamboa before I read

your post.

[alfredo]

10. video

https://vimeo.com/125629104

[Orrex]

12. On the plus side...

It will cut down on bear attacks in Yellowstone.

[still_one]

36. and perhaps student loans would be forgiven

[Spitfire of ATJ]

39. Don't count on it....

That will be one of the FIRST lists they try to preserve for when they rebuild society.

[davidthegnome]

13. An interesting read.

I read about this briefly once, several years ago and found it fairly disturbing. The eruptions in the future - their size, and when they will (or may) take place, to my knowledge, cannot yet be known. So while this is an interesting mixture of fascinating and frightening, I don't think I'm going to lose any sleep over it. I'm far more concerned about climate change and the effect it is already having on the world. Every year it seems, the weather is showing us something different, something unexpected, something new (at least, to the present generations living with it). It is a strange time to be living in - to be aware of all of these things happening, but not really on their overall effect, what will happen, or when.

I guess it's all part of the mystery of being human. There's just so much we don't know and can't predict - but this is the way I'd prefer it. Ultimate knowledge, or the knowledge of our own fate, the when and how... that would suck. Me, I prefer to be endlessly clueless and fascinated by the world around me - and to leave behind as much kindness and good feeling as I can.

I think that humanity will continue on, in one form or another, for time beyond our imagining, in the grand scheme of things, in the ocean of space and time, each one of these events is much smaller than it seems when considered on the surface.

The volcano will erupt sooner or later, but sooner or later, humanity will also be colonizing other planets. The future is unknown, but there is as much light as darkness, as much that is beautiful as there is that is frightening.

In any event, I think I'll keep on keeping on.

[still_one]

30. However, if it did erupt, that would accelerate climate change immediately

[Gumboot]

14. On the minus side...

Florida survives.



Only kidding, Florida. The sea will probably get you first.

[Hestia]

16. National Geographic has a really good show on Yellowstone - it was an extinction event when it last

blew. Scientist showed how it killed off humans worldwide and the bottleneck of just a few women who then had children. We are all related to those few humans - 500,000 k +/- worldwide - who survived.

The entire US would be covered in ash. Even Florida

[Spitfire of ATJ]

40. "The entire US would be covered in ash. Even Florida"

I can picture some asshole capitalist trying to clean up on the clean up.

[NBachers]

17. I wonder if the shock would have any effect on the earthquake faults in California.

[still_one]

29. I doubt it. The big problem would be a "nuclear type" winter, which would wreak havoc on food

transportation and other essentials.

Of course the states nearest the eruption would be devastated, and I have no doubt it would cause an economic depression, but that would be the least of our problems

everywhere would be affected

It would be a doomsday event

[marym625]

24. yikes!

[Arugula Latte]

26. I think I'd prefer to live in the kill zone ... as it is, I'm too far west.

I don't want to survive that explosion. No thank you.

[Historic NY]

27. OMG panic.........

get the bison out.

[still_one]

28. but what will it do to property values in the area?

[Bosonic]

41. One of the many reasons why we need to be an interplanetary species.

[Surya Gayatri]

53. America's breadbasket under a meter of stifling ash.

Good luck with the food supply.

[apnu]

55. Dont worry last eruption was 640,000 years ago.

These eruptions occur, on average, every 700,000 years. We have 60,000 years to evacuate the state of South Dakota.

[Baclava]

57. the law of averages was made to be broken

Run away!

[central scrutinizer]

58. Republican response:

Legislation to allow mining and timber companies to extract as much as they can as quickly as they can while there is still time.

[niyad]

60. thank you for posting this. maybe the volcano will get us before the pukes completely screw us.