Yellowstone Supervolcano Making Strange Rumblings

Frosty Piss writes "Supervolcanoes can sleep for centuries or millennia before producing incredibly massive eruptions that can drop ash across an entire continent. One of the largest supervolcanoes in the world lies beneath Yellowstone National Park. Significant activity continues beneath the surface. And the activity has been increasing lately, scientists have discovered. In addition, the nearby Teton Range of mountains is somehow getting shorter. The findings, reported this month in the Journal of Journal of Geophysical Research, suggest that a slow and gradual movement of a volcano over time can shape a landscape more than a violent eruption."

Fact for the day

[Bloke down the pub]

"Teton" is french for booby.

Re:

[DrunkBastard]

Hence why its always funny to think about the Grand Tetons (the mountains...)

Re:Fact for the day

[alienmole]

I always thought that the Grand Tetons were a reference to Anna Nicole Smith...

Re:Fact for the day

[jdray]

Serendipitous comic strip for today...?

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/uc/20070314/lnq070 315.gif [yimg.com]

Re:Fact for the day

[OmnipotentEntity]

Actually, I always thought it was funny that there are 3 Grand Tetons. Whoever the Frenchman was that named that range had been watching too much Total Recall.

Re:Fact for the day

[rthille]

"Build a man a fire warm him for a day, set a man on fire and warm him for the rest of his life."

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll devastate whole ecosystems...

Re:Fact for the day

[LynnwoodRooster]

And wouldn't you know it, they're sagging too!

Re:

[BeBoxer]

I'll be damned, you aren't even making that up...

http://www.wordreference.com/fren/teton [wordreference.com]

Disgusting!

[geekoid]

We should change the name to "el Grande Teta!"

Re:Fact for the day

[Ceriel Nosforit]

Based on my research either your hypothesis is incorrect or French women do not have breasts the images of which are uploaded to Google Images.

Since p -> (q V r), p being images of French breasts on Google Images, q being the accuracy of your statement and r being the French breasts themselves, we can conclude that the statement might be true or might be false.

Re:Fact for the day

[haakondahl]

I believe you are correct. Lack of the proper accent has caused many men to miss out on French boobies.

I'm scared

[0racle]

I mean it, I'm scared.

I'm hungry

[Abcd1234]

I mean it, really hungry.

Re:

[MindKata]

I would like to tell you something to help calm your nerves, but I'm too busy digging out my shelter to stop just yet.

Re:I'm scared

[flyingsquid]

Super catastrophes are pretty much by definition, super-rare. If they happened every other day, they would be normal, not super.

Sure, if it goes off it will ruin a lot of people's days. But if it goes off every million years or so, well, what are the chances of being alive to witness it? Not terribly good. Our species may not even be around the next time this thing blows. Same goes with other super-catastrophes like large asteroid impacts. I'm all for long-term thinking, but there's a danger in thinking too long-term as well, that is, let's worry about next year's hurricane season, or that hundred-year flood, rather than what happens when the sun goes into red giant phase a billion years from now.

Historically, it's the "normal" catastrophes that happen on the order of every few decades or centuries -like earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, plagues, famines, and non-super volcanoes- which have tended to kill hundreds of thousands or millions of people. Not to mention our incredible genius when it comes to killing each other. In terms of minimizing human casualties, odds are the most cost-effective solutions will be things like better building codes to withstand earthquakes, not letting people build in flood-prone areas, and perhaps most importantly, developing the ability to rapidly respond to disasters when they do happen.

50%

[HomelessInLaJolla]

what are the chances of being alive to witness it?

There's a 50% chance that it will happen tomorrow. Either it does... or it doesn't.

I love quantum theory.

Re:

[Jerf]

I love quantum theory.

There's a 50% chance you don't.

Apparently.

Re:

[Tony Hoyle]

Quantum theory surely says it does both, but it only collapses into one of them when someone notices one way or the other.

Quantum theory is very wierd.

Re:50%

[Goaway]

Not half as weird as the things people think it is.

Re:50%

[c_forq]

So if I observe the volcano, than the cat is dead? Or the cat may be dead, in some universe? Damn it, I don't think I will ever understand this quantum mechanics stuff - every time I look into it I fear I will genocide cats.

2036

[AJWM]

Just wait. The Yellowstone supervolcano and the New Madrid fault are both overdue. Comes 2036, asteroid Apophis hits the Earth, triggering the New Madrid fault which in turn pushes Yellowstone over the edge.

On the upside, we won't have to worry about the 2038 unix/linux clock rollover.

Re:

[blincoln]

Don't worry, Teddy Roosevelt is on the job [thelostworlds.net].

Odds are you shouldn't worry in the US48

[abb3w]

If the Yellowstone Supervolcano blows, the last forecast I heard was that it will be about 100 times as powerful as the Thera/Santorini explosion. The sound alone will probably kill everyone in the contenental US instantly. It's only the rest of the human race that has to suffer and die during the resulting ice age.

Have a nice day. =)

Re:I'm scared

[Jeff DeMaagd]

"due" is a relative term, because that assumes that there is a definite periodicity, when we really can't infer that from just three prior events.

A "change of pace", if it's not just a lava flow, has a chance to mean something that's massive enough to make Katrina look like someone's dog pooed in a park. It doesn't have to be, it isn't likely to be, but if it's like the previous major eruptions, then then much of the globe is in for a little trouble. The last major eruption in SE Asia basically caused there to be no summer in Europe, meaning major crop failures just about everywhere.

How much warning?

[MontyApollo]

How much warning will it likely give before it does erupt? Years, months, or days?

Re:

[naoursla]

Centuries, maybe?

Re:How much warning?

[bcattwoo]

There will likely be warning signs years it advance, but we won't recognize them as such until afterwards.

Re:How much warning?

[pclminion]

There will likely be warning signs years it advance, but we won't recognize them as such until afterwards.

Why would you think that? We only had two months warning with Mt. St. Helens, and that was plenty of time to assess risk and clear out the "red zone." There were 57 fatalities, but it's not like we didn't know it was coming.

The problem with warning signs years in advance isn't that they won't be seen -- the problem is people becoming complacent as they wait years for a geological event to play out. If scientists go on and on for years about an imminent disaster, people start to think the scientists are full of crap. Then, of course, the worst happens.

Re:How much warning?

[alienmole]

Yellowstone is a different type of volcano than Mt. St. Helens, though, and it may not give as much warning. We know there's a magma chamber there, and all it needs is the right kind of crack in the crust to expose the magma to atmospheric pressure, at which point the gas dissolved in the magma causes an explosion. I think the grandparent has a point, in that the events we're seeing now could in fact be a prelude to an upcoming eruption, but they could also just be normal activity. We may not know for sure which it is, ahead of time, because we've never observed a volcano like this erupting before.

Of course, IANAVolcanologist, all I know is what I saw on the one BBC show about it.

Re:

[AJWM]

The last major eruption in SE Asia basically caused there to be no summer in Europe

Hey, we could use a little global cooling...

Re:

[VJ42]

Apologies to the poster further down the thread, but it's actually overdue by quite some time:http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/1999/sup ervolcanoes.shtml

Scientists have revealed that it has been on a regular eruption cycle of 600,000 years. The last eruption was 640,000 years ago... so the next is overdue.

Re:I'm scared

[eric76]

The last time I got a traffic citation was about 1990.

The one before that was about 1985

And before that about 1980.

Does that mean that there is a cycle of 5 years between citations and that I'm overdue for another citation?

Re:

[644bd346996]

It would if this were only, say, January of 1996. But in reality, you now have quite a bit of evidence that there is not a regular periodicity to collecting traffic citations.

However, in the case of the volcano, we are only 1/15th of a cycle late. It is too early to say that we have totally bucked the trend.

Re:

[TempeTerra]

Presumably you were trying for those funny mods you got, but since you haven't had any sensible replies yet I'll chip in - you know somebody is going to take it seriously.

Volcanic eruptions are like earthquakes in that they are a release of built up pressure. Earthquakes happen at fault lines when two land masses have moved far enough relative to each other that the sides of the fault slip against each other to relieve the accumulated pressure. Volcanoes accumulate pressure from... uhh... magma upwellings o

Re:I'm scared

[Gulthek]

Do not be scared. An eruption is not due for at least another several hundred years.


Really? Know that for a fact do you? Yellowstone could blow up tomorrow, or it could blow up in 17,000 years. All we know is that it will blow up again someday. It's tricky to predict because all the standard warning signs that we usually notice when volcanoes are about to erupt are already happening in Yellowstone.


This hotspot is just grumblinb a little. Even if it does erupt any time soon, it will be a nice change of pace.

Yeah, it would be a change of pace. What, do you think ash melts away?

Let's look at Bill Bryson's description:

Yellowstone, it turns out, is a supervolcano. It sits on top of an enormous hot spot, a reservoir of molten rock that rises from at least 125 miles down in the Earth. The heat from the hot spot is what powers all of Yellowstone's vents, geysers, hot springs, and popping mud pots. Beneath the surface is a magma chamber that is about forty-five miles across--roughly the same dimensions as the park--and about eight miles thick at its thickest point. Imagine a pile of TNT about the size of Rhode Island and reaching eight miles into the sky, to about the height of the highest cirrus clouds, and you have some idea of what visitors to Yellowstone are shuffling around on top of. The pressure that such a pool of magma exerts on the crust above has lifted Yellowstone and about three hundred miles of surrounding territory about 1,700 feet higher than they would otherwise be. It if blew, the cataclysm is pretty well beyond imagining.

"The ash fall from the last Yellowstone eruption covered all or parts of nineteen western states (plus parts of Canada and Mexico) nearly the whole of the United States west of the Mississippi. This, bear in mind, is the breadbasket of America, an area that produces roughly half the world's cereals...It took thousands of workers eight months to clear 1.8 billion tons of debris from the sixteen acres of the World Trade Center site in New York. Imagine what it would take to clear Kansas.

Re:

[eric76]

All we know is that it will blow up again someday.

How do we know that?

Because it has erupted before?

In fact, we have no idea whether or not it will erupt again. It may or it may not -- the only way to know is to wait for it to happen. All we can say is that going by past eruptions, it is likely to erupt again at some time in the future.

Even if it does erupt again, it might not be a supervolcano the next time around.

Why be scared?

[LWATCDR]

What can you do about it.
Odds are very good that it will not happen in your life or you children's, or their children's. It may never happen.
This is a great example of an unreasonable fear.
You are far more likely to die in a car accident than from Yellowstone erupting as a super-volcano.
If you want make an effort to live a long happy life the best things you can do are.
Exercise at least 30 minutes a day.
Eat a good diet.
Don't smoke.
Don't drink and drive.
Don't drive late at night.

Oh and put aside money for your retirment and stay out of debt. That is for the happy part a long and happy life.

You should fear a sedentary life style and tobacco a lot more than volcanoes.

Re:

[Prune]

Move to Europe

I lived in Europe from 1980 through 1993. In retrospect, I'd rather go with the supervolcano.

Re:

[Kelbear]

If the global economy survives, there will be some pretty awesome post-apocalyptic video games to play off of this. Tired of the WWII rehashes.

Global catastrophe and end of life as know it aside, this could be positive for gaming!

Re:I'm scared

[istartedi]

"The ash fall from the last Yellowstone eruption covered all or parts of nineteen western states (plus parts of Canada and Mexico) nearly the whole of the United States west of the Mississippi. This, bear in mind, is the breadbasket of America, an area that produces roughly half the world's cereals...It took thousands of workers eight months to clear 1.8 billion tons of debris from the sixteen acres of the World Trade Center site in New York. Imagine what it would take to clear Kansas.

Imagine what it would take to turn over all the soil in Kansas. Oh... wait... that happens at the start of every planting. So. If this happens during the winter, they might need to scrape off some ash, pile it by the side of the field, or take and put it in a big pile someplace (which is what happens to grain a lot of the time anyway). The real concern is that it will happen during the growing season and interfere with growth and harvest.

You can't compare the clearing of a massive wreck of twisted metal and concrete full of remains to clearing a field. Obviously, interfering with growth and harvest is a major concern. If it's not raining, a strategy involving a blower attachment to a combine might still save the crop. Somebody should test that. If it rains though, your crop couuld end up encased in something with the consistancy of wet cement. Also, you've got to filter those engines really well. Somebody should test this, like FEMA... umm... ok, umm... yeah, we're fucked.

Re:I'm scared

[DragonWriter]

If this happens during the winter, they might need to scrape off some ash, pile it by the side of the field, or take and put it in a big pile someplace

We're not talking about a thin layer of ash, but something that is feet thick near (and when the outer limits are the whole western US, "near" can be pretty far) the eruption site.

You can't compare the clearing of a massive wreck of twisted metal and concrete full of remains to clearing a field.

You also can't you compare the clearing of volcanic debris from the entire Western United States to clearing a field.

Re:I'm scared

[rujholla]

When Mt. St. Helens blew we had about 3 feet of ash over all our fields in Eastern WA. The problem was you couldn't really scrape it. It was too light and fluffy -- at least till the first rain fall then it was like concrete. In the end it was a combination of like he said scraping and plowing it under.

The big problem was what it did to engines -- that stuff is super corrosive well ok more correct would be super abrasive -- you have to have special filters on all your air intakes and they have to be cleaned frequently.

While not as easy as the GP makes it out to be -- farmers for the most part have the equipment to clear the fields and it can be done fairly quickly.

Re:I'm scared

[QMO]

I don't understand.

In the GP, rujholla explained the widely known experience of thousands of farmers in dealing with volcanic ash.

You appear to be trying to use your imagined idea of what farmers are capable of to disprove the results of this empirical evidence.

Re:

[Anonymous Monkey]

Clear the ash? I remember when Mt. St Helens blew. Every one was flipping about how it would devastate the crops, and that it was the end of the world!!! Then harvest time came, turns out volcanic ash is the best thing for plants since the advent of light. In fact, I have a friend with a house plant potted in ash from that eruption. It is one of the most healthy strong plants I have ever seen. I'm looking forward to that much ash.

Re:I'm scared

[zippthorne]

Fertilizer. Some of the most fertile land in the world is precariously located in the shadow of a frightening volcano. Why do you think that is?

Re:

[vought]

but for now, it slowly ripples.

With all the talk about Tetons, I read that as nipples.

Horizon

[gerrysteele]

There was a BBC horizon program about this several years ago. Apparently it is hundreds of years overdue for its regular eruption. Would wipe out America apparently.

Better not happen before I find out what happens in Lost.

Re:

[jandrese]

"Wipe out America" is a bit overstated. It would throw ash everywhere and cause food shortages, but it's not going to split the continent in half or anything.

Re:Horizon

[gerrysteele]

Sadly that is not quite the case: It's a Supervolcano

one of the most destructive and yet least-understood natural phenomena in the world - supervolcanoes. Only a handful exist in the world but when one erupts it will be unlike any volcano we have ever witnessed. The explosion will be heard around the world. The sky will darken, black rain will fall, and the Earth will be plunged into the equivalent of a nuclear winter.

Scientists have revealed that it has been on a regular eruption cycle of 600,000 years. The last eruption was 640,000 years ago... so the next is overdue.

BBC Science [bbc.co.uk]

Anyway, have a nice nuclear winter, eithr way.

Re:Horizon

[rlp]

> The sky will darken, black rain will fall, and the Earth will be plunged into the
> equivalent of a nuclear winter.

Fortunately we're compensating with global warming

Re:

[cmacb]

Need more CO2, everybody start breathing faster now!

That's a bit alarmest

[mosb1000]

"The last eruption was 640,000 years ago... so the next is overdue."

That's kind of like saying "it hasn't rained in a couple weeks, so it'll probably rain today". There is a very small chance this thing will erupt in your lifetime. We should be prepared anyway, though.

Re:

[peragrin]

odd it did rain here today.

though we didn't get the snow they promised.

Re:That's a bit alarmest

[DragonWriter]

No, it's kind of like saying that it erupts at a 600,000 year cycle, and that it's 40,000 years late this time.

I've yet to hear an adequate explanation for how a 600,000 year cycle is inferred from the known eruptions at 2.2 mya, 1.3 mya, and 640 kya. You've got one 900,000 year interval, and one 660,000 year interval. Now, you could say its an average of 780,000 years, or you could say its getting shorter each time and, judging from the ratio, it should have erupted about 160,000 years ago, or a lot of other hasty, invalid, but at least consistent generalizations. But how you get "every 600,000 years", I don't know.

Re:

[ragabash13]

Uhmm.. Science actually revealed that has erupted about three times before. Once about 2.1 million years ago, once again around 1.2 million years ago, and most recently 640,000 years ago.

Science requires more data then this to make accurate predictions. Media on the other hand have no problem reporting based on guesses and bad math. So no, there isn't a pattern yet and I am inclined to believe geology rather then the media.

That there has been increased activity is interesting, but given that the Yellowstone

Re:

[joebagodonuts]

Bravo! I missed your post originally or I would've making one of my own.

Yellowstone Volcano Observatory FAQ [cheniere.org]

Re:

[TFloore]

i don't own emergency pants!

Just remember this rule when buying emergency pants:
Emergency pants are always brown.

You already know why. :)

Re:

[joebagodonuts]

I understood that there have been 3 eruptions, the last 2 of which are roughly 600000 years apart. Not a very large dataset to make a prediction from.

The "Supervolcanoes" show was sensationalized (alarmist?) in order to get people to watch it. Did it contain some facts? Sure. Were those facts chosen and presented in such a way to support one theory? In this case the "it's overdue to blow at any moment" theory? Sure seems that way. A quote from a summary of a made-for-TV show isn't necessarily scientific (or

Re:

[jandrese]

That's what I'm saying. There is no doubt that it will put a lot of debris in the air and cause enormous local devastation, but it's not going to blot the sun out for years or anything like that. The last eruption tossed ash over most of the western US and Canada, which would cause crop shortages (but the US overproduces food already, so this isn't completely dire), but people are talking about complete environmental destruction which is just hyperbole. It will be a bigger disaster than Katrina though, s

Re:

[Stanistani]

So what's FEMA's plan... hello? Anybody? Brownie? Oh, right.

Looking at their site, they used advanced visualization tools to... help the BBC make a documentary. They also have plans to... evacuate locally, near lava flows.

Hmm. I think I'll update my passport and buy some gold coins.

Re:

[Grave]

There is no real preparing for this. You can prepare for an asteroid, in that you can see it coming, calculate when it will hit, and figure out a way to intercept/divert it (presuming there is enough time).

You can't stop a volcano. At least not with any known technology, and the consequences of altering a volcano could be worse than it going off in the first place.

Preparing for a supervolcano eruption is like preparing for full-out nuclear war. There is no effective recovery plan that isn't a lot of loca

Re:

[Stanistani]

Which is why my plan is to sew gold coins into my clothing, slip across the border into Mexico, and continue to head south. Ecuador should be about right.

Re:

[coyote-san]

The US would just be the start. Some huge fraction of the Canadian population lives within 100 miles of the US border so she would be in a world of hurt as well. Europe wouldn't get the same ash burden, but it would still get hit by plunging temperatures and acidic rain.

I'm not sure what 'overdue' means. This isn't a stable system like the periodic ice ages over the last few million years. The earth's crust has been moving over that hot spot and some experts think that the crust is thicker than during t

Re:

[segfaultcoredump]

Its "regular" eruption?

Using wikipedia as the ultimate source of information, Yellowstone has seen eruptions 2.1 million years ago, 1.3 million years ago and 640,000 years ago.

This gives you a total of 3 data points, spaced 800,000 and 660,000 years apart. Thus, the average times is 730,000 years. We are 640,000 years into it so we should still have 90,000 years.

Of course, the with only 3 data points even that spacing is very speculative at best.

To make matters more interesting, the size of the 3 eruption's

i have an idear

[Anonymous Coward]

sacrifice a virgin! yeah, theres plenty of those here reading slashdot im sure..

-Dirtbag

Re:

[ArcherB]

sacrifice a virgin! yeah, theres plenty of those here reading slashdot im sure..

NOT IT!

Told them not to do it.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Last time I visited Yellowstone, I saw some people throwing half eaten burritos and other Mexican food loaded with refried beans into these blow holes, vents and what not. Told them it is dangerous, but no body would listen. People are senseless!

Re:

[digitaldc]

Was Yogi in that blowhole? Because he's always hungry.

Does someone know how to contact Bruce Willis?

[elrous0]

Okay...we form a team. We'll need some reckless rebels who act crazy in their off-time but get the job done when the pressure's on. We'll train relentlessly. Then we go in there, and with the help of Tommy Lee Jones, or Bruce Willis, or Robert Duvall, or that chick who played a dude in that one crying movie; we'll blast that bastard all to Hell, against all odds!

But I warn you, there will be casualties. Everyone but the romantic leading man and the vulnerable-but-tough woman will be in real mortal danger. But I know we can do it!

Well shit

[PitaBred]

Here I was all smug living in the west thinking I was pretty immune to most natural disasters that you people on the coasts and in tornado alley set yourselves up for...

Tornado Alley and supervolcanos

[swid27]

FYI, tornadoes are probably the easiest natural disaster to avoid; all you have to do is pay at least slight attention to the weather and have access to a basement or interior room. I've lived in Tornado Alley my entire life, and it's been 15 years since the last time a tornado came close enough to where I live that taking cover was justified.

On the other hand, even though it's very unlikely to happen in my lifetime, a Yellowstone eruption would almost certainly own much of North America. An eruption fr

Re:Tornado Alley and supervolcanos

[Sponge Bath]

...a Yellowstone eruption would almost certainly own much of North America.

On the bright side, SCO would have front row seats.
Eat hot ash Darl!

Re:

[Surt]

I think hurricanes have to qualify as easier to avoid. You typically have days to prepare yourself.
Earthquakes aren't bad either, assuming you choose to live and work in earthquake safe buildings, your odds of getting caught out are pretty low (but of course you have basically no notice if you are caught out).

Volcano TCO

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Remember folks... A volcano is an investment that lasts for generations. That's why you need easy to use software for your volcano so that your kids and unborn grandkids can use it. Microsoft Windows for Volcanos is so simple, sperm can use it.

You need to get your Volcano software from a company that will be there to send you patches and keep your volcano humming along nicely. You can't trust those pesky Linux starups that last only until all the share options are cashed up.

You also need to consider Total C

Re:

[Dr Caleb]

Ahhh! But how easy to use is Microsoft Windows for Sperm?

Warning

[ImaLamer]

You are trying to erupt, cancel or allow?

Re:

[lostboy2]

You've attempted to blast 2,000 million tons of ash and sulfuric acid into the atmosphere. Cancel or Allow?

Yellowstone Alone

[digitaldc]

Judging by all the inflation, pressure and possible eruptions - scientists have concluded that Yellowstone really needs to get laid.

Re:

[abb3w]

Judging by all the inflation, pressure and possible eruptions - scientists have concluded that Yellowstone really needs to get laid.

Ah! I always wondered where that "sacrifice a virgin" meme came from.

Yogi

[imaginaryelf]

It's time for Yogi Bear to move out!

Re:

[LouisZepher]

I think you're thinking of Jellystone Park...

Re:

[imaginaryelf]

And we all know that Jellystone is a takeoff on Yellowstone, no?

Re:

[geekoid]

I think you mean http://www.campjellystone.com/ [campjellystone.com]

How do they know it is increasing?

[sphealey]

Per the article, geoscientists only have detailed large-scale measurements for the last 17 years (which would roughtly correspond to the increasing availability of reasonably-priced GPS and comm units I should think). So how do they know that activity is increasing (or decreasing) on any kind of historical scale?

sPh

Well, THAT'LL fix global warming...

[smellsofbikes]

If I didn't live a stone's throw away from Yellowstone (by which I mean how far Yellowstone is going to throw stones when it goes) I'd be kind of cheering it on in that way I watch hurricanes or tidal waves and think "whoah, that's amazing."
If Yellowstone went, we might expect "some 2,000 million tons of sulphuric acid were ejected into the atmosphere to block out sunlight over much of the planet causing global temperatures to plummet by between 10C and 20C." from here. [nucnews.net]

WMD's in Jackson's Hole: who would ever have thought? (Cue the Taco Bell jokes...)

Obviously anthropogenic

[Anonymous Coward]

This is obviously due to human activities. Probably the weight of all the SUV's people are driving there on vacation is compressing the magma resulting in increased volcanic activity. There's no way this is natural.

The volcano god is angry!

[Eudial]

The volcano god is angry! Quickly, we must sacrifice all virgins to appease it!

Re:

[drinkypoo]

The volcano god is angry! Quickly, we must sacrifice all virgins to appease it!

Unicorns aren't mythical - virgins are.

Awesome.

[teamhasnoi]

If it blows, there's a good chance the park won't be so crowded that year. I could finally go!

Full Journal article

[Leto-II]

The full journal article is available here [usgs.gov].

Build more geothermal power plants

[WindBourne]

If the volcano is coming alive, perhaps, we can dump some of the heat off by simply doing a lot more geothermal power plants. So far, the ones that they have set up there are wet ones that waste the water there. But if they build it so that it recycles or simply is treated as a dry plant, then we can use it to create giga watts of energy AND escape the heat from below.

Re:

[WindBourne]

Actually, it is not the heat that they are worried about. Most of the geothermal plants have been going for the cheap way, which is to simply use the heated water there and allow it to escape. The re-injection or even using ammonia in a closed loop system is a bit more expensive, but they will not use water. Once you start using the heat as long as it does not harm old faithful or other geyser, then things will be ok.

Re:

[Canthros]

I've been wondering about that for a while. Seems like it would be far preferable to open up a couple of normal volcanos as pressure releases on the hot spot below, even assuming they'd go, day and night, for centuries. Don't know enough about it to guess whether or not that would just blow the whole thing wide open, though, like popping a balloon. That would be a sub-optimal result.

Paricutin

[BurntNickel]

I beleive you are thinking of Paricutin [und.edu]

Re:

[vought]

Anyone see the discovery channel Supervolaco edu-doc-drama show last year, or two years ago. I thought it was really frightening

Well, the acting was frightening, anyway.

Re:

[markana]

Don't worry - when it blows, the caldera will come to you...

Re:

[Farmer Tim]

I've read about the caldera previously.

So have I, and my prediction based on previous history it will just change it's name to a three letter acronym, fail to sue IBM and fizzle out leaving a smoking crater in Utah.

Oh, we're talking about geology...

Al Gore

[jeevesbond]

Has Al Gore been alerted about this? He's our only hope!!!!!!

Of course he knows, he invented the supervolcano!

Re:

[master_p]

Indeed. After all, it's a well established fact that volcanos form a series of interconnected tubes.

the tourists help! We need more

[CFD339]

We need as many of them as possible to stand on park itself, providing extra weight to keep the ground down. We need the equivalent of about 20 metric-Oprahs per acre over the long term. This will cause the magma bubble to recede, and bulge somewhere else. The Bush administration is doing research (on cable tv) to see if that bulge will happen in Iran.