Nature Question?

Question

I am watching supervolcano on the discovery channel. Some people don't believe that an eruption in Yellowstone park can happen. I want to know what you think. Do you or do you not think we can be faced with a super eruption that can take out the entire northern hemisphere? And, I want to know your why or why nots.

I believe it can and will happen. We are sitting on an unstable planet, over molten lava. It would be just a matter of time.
I've been to Yellowstone and Old Faithful isn't faithful anymore.

What do you believe?

For Johnnie....... I am not trying to sway people to my side. I am just curious for other opinions.
FYI......people said Mt. St. Helen's wouldn't erupt and look what happened there.

Answer 1

Can it happen? Unquestionably yes. It has already been proven that it happened before and it can be proven that the giant magma chamber still exists today. So the potential is unquestionably there and anyone who doubts this much is naive to the facts.
Now things get more speculatory. Will it erupt again? Probably. You can follow the tracks of the hotspot westward through Idaho and Nevada towards the Pacific because it sat stationary while the surface of the Earth moved over it. To me it would seem unlikely that it would suddenly become inactive now. Some even say it is 'overdue' because the eruptions are approximately 600,000 years apart and the last one happened 630,000 years ago, but this logic doesn't always apply on a geologic time scale. I know I won't be cancelling my visit to the park this year!
Your statement about Old Faithful not being faithful anymore is a little bothersome. Old Faithful is just as predictable as it ever was. But you're on the right track in that if there was an eruption brewing down there, there is a good chance that changing geyser activity would be one of the first indicators, along with increased seismic or earthquake activity.

Answer 2

The eruption could happen at any time, and the Yellowstone supervolcano may already be overdue to erupt.

The result would be catastrophic, per quote below:

"The last eruption of a super volcano was in Toba, Sumatra, 75,000 years ago. It had 10,000 times the explosive force of Mount St. Helens and changed life on Earth forever. Thousands of cubic kilometres of ash was thrown into the atmosphere - so much that it blocked out light from the sun all over the world. 2,500 miles away 35 centimetres of ash coated the ground. Global temperatures plummeted by 21 degrees. The rain would have been so poisoned by the gasses that it would have turned black and strongly acidic. Man was pushed to the edge of extinction, the population forced down to just a couple of thousand. Three quarters of all plants in the northern hemisphere were killed. "

-- http://www.rense.com/general31/overdue.htm


Remember that the global warming hysterics are predicting the world going to hell in a handbasket for a few degree increase in temperature.

The supervolcano eruption would cause temperatures to drop immediately, by a lot, and maybe initiate extensive glaciation, that would be the end of the United States and civilization as we know it.

The only reason why end-of-the-world people glom onto global warming, and not other better documented more believable end-of-the-world scenarios, is because they want to blame mankind.

Meteor strikes, Spanish flu, supervolcanos, ice age glaciation, etc. are extensively studied and clearly have the capacity to wipe out mankind. But they are not the fault of mankind.

So the chicken littles focus on global warming, that is highly unlikely to cause any discomfort to anyone.

Answer 3

There are many things that will almost certainly happen. Volcanoes erupt. Faults slip and earthquakes and tsunamis result. Objects from space crash into the Earth. Some of these things have been unbelievably devastating in the past, and probably will be again. The thing is, our time scale and the time scale on which these disasters happen, are very different, and we have only a very crude ability to predict when such things are likely to occur. A civilization of sentient mayflies would have a hard time comprehending and predicting seasonal weather changes, for instance.
The point of all this is, I expect that we are sitting atop a very dangerous bubble out Yellowstone way. When will it blow? Will it blow at all? I dunno. Equally, the Cascade range has several volcanos that could do a Mt. St. Helens. Will they? When? The "Big One", the earthquake that will destroy LA or San Francisco may be overdue - but does that mean in our lifetime or several hundred years from now? In the meantime, I have to worry about the risks I take getting up in the morning, crossing the street or sticking my face in a fan. I can't do diddly about the huge disasters, so I hope they don't happen until I'm not here to be affected...

Answer 4

I can only believe what I can scientifically see as sound.
All of the television programmes can be exaggerated, because I have gone to research some of these documentaries claims in more detial.

If you want to know you should do the same.

Yes, there is a giant magma chamber down there and it is big.
This sort of thing averiges out to be every 60,000 years, and your life is about 70 years, so the chances may be 1 in 1,000
Of course, it is getting ready to pop soon.
On the other hand, there may be a gap of 300,000 years between one and another such erruption, and then again only 400 years between another two.

They say that this could be syphened off to prevent such a bang.

Since it is so far down, I would say that it wouldn't go off for anoher 200 or so years at least.

If you want to do this research, you may be able to guestimate this by knowing how far down it is and how fast it is rising etc.

Answer 5

What difference does it make as to what I think about something that I am not an authority on. This intelligence of swaying all these ignorant ( about the topic ) people to be on your side. All these people that want us to get out of Irik ,all there super military instinct accounts for nothing. When u need to worry about Old Faithful is when u see the energy curve increasing at a high rate.

Answer 6

Anyone who watches that program will become a believer. I watched it myself. When you visit Yellowstone, you can't believe the amount of bubbling, boiling, and hissing going on. Evidence from the past shows what has already happened. We tend to think that the past all led up to this point and that this is the final condition of the Earth. However, we're just at one point along the way.

Answer 7

Yes, it can happen. Yellowstone is a volcano, and they are unpredictable in nature. Will it happen in our lifetime, I don't know.

Answer 8

TV, IT HAS YOU!!!