BS: Yellowstone - new theory

Subject: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: leeneia
Date: 19 Feb 18 - 12:40 PM

Here's a link to a Science News article about Yellowstone (U.S. National Park area with fairly recent volcanism and present-day geysers and hot springs.)

The idea is that Yellowstone is not fueled by a hot spot, rather by a segment of the subducting Farallon plate. Interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: leeneia
Date: 19 Feb 18 - 12:42 PM

oops. I forget to create the link.

farallon

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Feb 18 - 01:24 PM

Perhaps a new technology, for lack of a better name, Gamma Raydar will look and find the shape of the plume or subduction upwelling.
                                                    Oo@>
Its not going anywhere except /UP\ several times every million years.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Feb 18 - 10:15 PM

So if the Juan de Fuca plate is causing the Yellowstone hot spot, living where I do and if it blows am I Fucaed?

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Feb 18 - 08:26 AM

Watch out for aliens too, they might subduct you!

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: gillymor
Date: 21 Feb 18 - 08:31 AM

Interesting article, it will give me something to contemplate when I'm walking the Firehole in May. Will I be sucked into a molten inferno or blown halfway to the moon by a Super Volcano eruption?

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: leeneia
Date: 21 Feb 18 - 12:00 PM

If there's to be volcanism, you will probably get plenty of warning as seismometers detect underground movement. Enjoy your trip. It should be beautiful.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Iains
Date: 21 Feb 18 - 12:17 PM

If it does blow you will be on top of the world(briefly!)

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Feb 18 - 02:08 PM

NEWS TECH HEALTH PLANET EARTH STRANGE NEWS ANIMALS HISTORY CULTURE SPACE.COM
NEWS TECH HEALTH PLANET EARTH STRANGE NEWS ANIMALS HISTORY CULTURE SPACE.COM      


Live SciencePlanet Earth
What Would Happen If Yellowstone's Supervolcano Erupted?
By Becky Oskin, Contributing Writer | May 2, 2016 07:31am ET

Although fears of a Yellowstone volcanic blast go viral every few years, there are better things to worry about than a catastrophic supereruption exploding from the bowels of Yellowstone National Park.
Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Yellowstone Volcano Observatory always pooh-pooh these worrisome memes, but that doesn't mean researchers are ignoring the possible consequences of a supereruption. Along with forecasting the damage, scientists constantly monitor the region for signs of molten rock tunneling underground. Scientists scrutinize past supereruptions, as well as smaller volcanic blasts, to predict what would happen if the Yellowstone Volcano did blow.


Here's a deeper look at whether Yellowstone's volcano would fire up a global catastrophe.

Probing Yellowstone's past
Most of Yellowstone National Park sits inside three overlapping calderas. The shallow, bowl-shaped depressions formed when an underground magma chamber erupted at Yellowstone. Each time, so much material spewed out that the ground collapsed downward, creating a caldera. The massive blasts struck 2.1 million, 1.3 million and 640,000 years ago. These past eruptions serve as clues to understanding what would happen if there was another Yellowstone megaexplosion.

An example of the possible ashfall from a month-long Yellowstone supereruption.
Credit: USGS
If a future supereruption resembles its predecessors, then flowing lava won't be much of a threat. The older Yellowstone lava flows never traveled much farther than the park boundaries, according to the USGS. For volcanologists, the biggest worry is wind-flung ash. Imagine a circle about 500 miles (800 kilometers) across surrounding Yellowstone; studies suggest the region inside this circle might see more than 4 inches (10 centimeters) of ash on the ground, scientists reported Aug. 27, 2014, in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems.

The ash would be pretty devastating for the United States, scientists predict. The fallout would include short-term destruction of Midwest agriculture, and rivers and streams would be clogged by gray muck.

People living in the Pacific Northwest might also be choking on Yellowstone's fallout.

"People who live upwind from eruptions need to be concerned about the big ones," said Larry Mastin, a USGS volcanologist and lead author of the 2014 ash study. Big eruptions often spawn giant umbrella clouds that push ash upwind across half the continent, Mastin said. These clouds get their name because the broad, flat cloud hovering over the volcano resembles an umbrella. "An umbrella cloud fundamentally changes how ash is distributed," Mastin said.

But California and Florida, which grow most of the country's fruits and vegetables, would see only a dusting of ash.

PU

A smelly climate shift
Yellowstone Volcano's next supereruption is likely to spew vast quantities of gases such as sulfur dioxide, which forms a sulfur aerosol that absorbs sunlight and reflects some of it back to space. The resulting climate cooling could last up to a decade. The temporary climate shift could alter rainfall patterns, and, along with severe frosts, cause widespread crop losses and famine.

The walls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone are made up predominantly of lava and rocks from a supereruption some 500,000 years ago.
The walls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone are made up predominantly of lava and rocks from a supereruption some 500,000 years ago.
Credit: USGS
But a Yellowstone megablast would not wipe out life on Earth. There were no extinctions after its last three enormous eruptions, nor have other supereruptions triggered extinctions in the last few million years. [Wipeout: History's 7 Most Mysterious Extinctions]

"Are we all going to die if Yellowstone erupts? Almost certainly the answer is no," said Jamie Farrell, a Yellowstone expert and assistant research professor at the University of Utah. "There have been quite a few supereruptions in the past couple million years, and we're still around."

Amos would see only 5 mm of ash on his roof.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Iains
Date: 21 Feb 18 - 02:35 PM

"There have been quite a few supereruptions in the past couple million years, and we're still around."
Would not want to be too close if it did blow though. There seems to be a little uncertainty as to what would be involved. The most recent eruptions were lava flows, whereas many of the graphics show ash deposits. Latest studies suggest The past 20 eruptions at Yellowstone have been lava flows with no significant amounts of ash fall outside of Yellowstone. The past 60-80 eruptions would have had little regional (or continental) impact.
Other studies suggest a far greater impact with a potential cost of up to 20%GDP and no estimate as to casualties.
The short answer is nobody really knows.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: gillymor
Date: 21 Feb 18 - 02:51 PM

You have a much greater chance of being trampled by buffalo than experiencing a volcanic eruption in YNP. I love being among the hydrothermal features along the Firehole and in other parts of the park, it's the most strangely beautiful place I've ever been.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Feb 18 - 05:01 PM

Seems to me that the whole Pacific Northwest, everything west of Yellowstone, is still geologically active. Much of Idaho is a lava field, and there are a whole heck of a lot of volcanoes in Washington and Oregon. Couldn't one of them be a Supervolcano and blow everything all to hell? Sure is pretty up there, though.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: leeneia
Date: 22 Feb 18 - 11:31 AM

I suppose it could, but with modern knowledge and technology, you'll be able to get out of the way.

Here's a good book for people intrigued by western geology:

The Restless Northwest by Hill Williams. You can get it on Amazon, using the page which supports the Mudcat.

https://www.amazon.com/?ie=UTF8&%2AVersion%2A=1&tag=themudcatcaf&link_code=hom&%2Aentries%2A=0

I bought it to read before my first trip to Washington & Oregon, and I'm glad I did.
==============
Have you ever noticed that some states come in pairs?

Washington'n'Oregon
Alabama-Mississippi
Vermont-New Hampshire

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: EBarnacle
Date: 22 Feb 18 - 02:54 PM

Based on the numbers Donuel cited, they are long overdue for another blowout. It's a curve of increasing frequency.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Iains
Date: 22 Feb 18 - 03:08 PM

Bit of history

https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone/yellowstone_sub_page_54.html

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Feb 18 - 07:52 PM

"Overdue for a blowout" doesn't cut it. Generally speaking, major eruptions require a large magma pool at relatively shallow depth. Magma pools are always on the move, triggering eruptions then "moving on." Vesuvius was quiescent for hundreds of years before 79AD, then spent almost 2000 years erupting extremely frequently. But it hasn't erupted since 1944 and there is no prospect of an imminent eruption. The Campi Flegrei ("Fiery Fields") caldera west of Naples devastated thousands of square miles 39000 years ago in the Campanian ignimbrite eruption, one of the biggest ever recorded, and may well have wiped out the Neanderthals. The caldera scared the inhabitants of Pozzuoli in the early 1980s when the area heaved by over a metre in just a couple of years, but nothing happened, and, apart from a rather farty eruption at La Solfatara nearly a thousand years ago and a whimper in tbe sixteenth century, not much has happened here in recent millennia (it's close to Vesuvius but is in a separate geological system). They worry a lot about the up-and-down earth movements in that area, known as bradyseism, but there's no real prospect of a sudden emergency. If you visit the area you can see signs of dramatic sea-level changes, the Macellum at Pozzuoli being a celebrated example, but also at the Roman villas at Stabiae and at Herculaneum, where stuff that was once at sea level is now well above.

I want to go to Yellowstone one day. A couple of weeks ago I went to a lovely presentation given by a local wildlife man who has spent many months there expertly photographing the flora and fauna. But I love the Bay of Naples, the Sorrentine peninsula that bounds it and the Amalfi Coast on the other side of the peninsula. Go there before you die!

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: olddude
Date: 22 Feb 18 - 11:19 PM

I dunno I dunno I dunno where I am a gotta go when the volcano blow
(jimmy buffet)

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 23 Feb 18 - 03:34 AM

The one I would most like to visit is Lake Toba. But I doubt I ever shall now.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Feb 18 - 10:49 AM

but with modern knowledge and technology, you'll be able to get out of the way.

Out of the the way of what? If it is anything like Krakatoa it will cause a mini ice age. More likely it would spew for years pumping particles into the upper atmosphere reducing the power of the sun. And the ice age would be more like the middle ages. The years of no summer. Frost Fairs on the River Thames.

Renewable energy from PV? Climate change skeptics? And maybe a whole raft of satellite comms, including TV, would be curtailed. It rather depends how much carbon gets thrown up.

And don't rely on GPS too much, it might surprise you. FWIW the Russians have form on scrambling that on their borders and around grabbed territories like Crimea.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Feb 18 - 09:56 PM

So I might NOT die in a Yellowstone blowout after all! Even though I live only about 150 miles (straight line distance) away! That's great news! Of course, my lawn would suffer and my garden may not bloom for a couple of years.

Frankly, I'm more concerned about this place, which I can see from my back yard. The Shoshone and Bannack both have oral histories about the last blowup there.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Feb 18 - 07:45 AM

I'm jealous. I love places like that, being slightly weird. Your hotspot is now under Yellowstone though (it hasn't moved but you have). Your area is considered dormant, not extinct, but you'll be fine as long as you don't ignore rumbles...

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Feb 18 - 02:58 PM

Oh, I can pop over to Lava Hot Springs and have a soak in a NON-SULFUROUS pool (varying temperatures) 'most anytime. It's great to lay back in that warm water in winter and enjoy life while frost forms in your hair. Kinda like
Ojo Caliente but closer and not nearly so expensive and snooty.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Feb 18 - 08:58 PM

There's an amazing hot mud pool on the island of Vulcano, just off Sicily, in which you can wallow and emerge with what could be described as a full-body face pack. It's supposed to be terribly good for the skin, but you come out smelling like a walking fart that lasts for a whole week. You can walk up the volcano in an hour and see a perfect crater and a huge field of threatening fumaroles. One hour up there completely discoloured my mobile phone plastic case. But what a view.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Feb 18 - 09:13 PM

There are hot springs and such-like geologic features all over the US West. Thermopolis, Wyoming is an entire town built, like Lava Hot Springs, around "hot pool" features. But there are also lesser-known places and you don't have to come out stinking of sulphur fumes and worse. Just imagine the first (white) visitors to Colter's Hell and the Stinkingwater River!

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: leeneia
Date: 26 Feb 18 - 10:36 AM

My fellow Americans, if you read the article, you will find that you may have been living over a piece of the Pacific ocean floor all your life. It' something to give anybody pause or a sense of wonder.

Me, I'm wondering if this process had anything to do with the baffling New Madrid quakes of 1811-12.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Feb 18 - 09:14 PM

Here's my scenario about what's going to happen:

The Cascadia Fault liquefies the US Pacific Coastline from Puget Sound south to Half Moon Bay in California. This upsets the equilibrium of the San Andreas Fault and everything from Sandy Ego to Frisco falls into the ocean.

Naturally this has upset the geoplastic equilibrium of everything west of the Mississippi and since New Madrid, Missouri is on the western bank of The River, the New Madrid Fault kicks off a quake that's felt in Augusta, Maine. Various things happen, including a slide of the southern edges of the Great Lakes.

Without a southern edge, the Great Lakes wash over the central and eastern US, washing Canada over that area.

The property losses are, of course, quite astronomical. The US becomes a country consisting of States west of Wichita, Kansas to what was the California/Oregon/Washington eastern borders and a pinch of States in the vicinity of Maine.

But! Canadians are nice folks, polite and all, and a couple of years after The Big Disaster they load up dump trucks and haul their nation back North.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Feb 18 - 10:52 PM

and "various things happen", I need deetales dad gumit. https://www.livescience.com/15249-earths-biggest-eruptions-source.html

As the heat went up the cold came down and froze even wooly mammoths solid in mid chew. An earlier eruption caused the Permian extinction.

Those eruptions brought up heavy metals that were as deep as 1,300 miles down.
I always thought they should have found gold in the Siberian traps.
https://books.google.com/books?id=b6UvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA227&lpg=PA227&dq=siberian+traps+gold&source=bl&ots=dFk2Am-Agy&sig=_ZLcwRwSLK

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Feb 18 - 09:25 AM

This will be, in some ways, a nice disaster. No ugly volcanic ash, just earthquakes everywhere, buildings falling, fires, earth sinking or breaking or liquefying, stuff like that. The Western US will be protected by the Great Plains, which will act as a floodplain, and the Rocky Mountains.

Lots of great art will be lost when DC, Chicago, NYC, and other museums are lost but on-the-ball curators will have it on boats and barges in time to save the best of it.

Some people won't believe it is happening (Genesis 9:8-17) and they will be washed away (God gets away with it because it's just the US and Canada that's affected not the whole world) and because it wasn't caused by rain).

There are a few world-wide repercussions, of course, but they are few. Most affected are trade deals with the US and Canada, but the surfers who ride the Great Wave of the Great Lakes more than make up any losses by their spending.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Mr Red
Date: 01 Mar 18 - 03:36 AM

because it wasn't caused by rain

It might be accelerated by global warming.

The Earth's crust , on a global scale, is a bit like toffee. It bends unless you hit it. And by analogy (& scientific observation) the warmer it gets, the more bendable it is.

Small changes in global temperatures, they may be, but given the pressures that can build - what is considered a 50,000 year probability (eg) might reduce to 25,000 years. Probability is not predictability.

There is research that suggests volcanic activity is more frequent now, even taking into account the fact that record taking is far shorter than geological timescales. Let us hope that the activity is a better spread, smaller disasters more often, stylee.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 01 Mar 18 - 09:15 AM

https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-significant-increase-in-volcano-eruptions.t6225/

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 01 Mar 18 - 09:17 AM

https://www.nature.com/news/earth-s-lost-history-of-planet-altering-eruptions-revealed-1.21630

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Iains
Date: 01 Mar 18 - 09:28 AM

" Probability is not predictability" but there may be cyclity.

https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/reading-ridges-are-climate-and-seafloor-connected


https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/12/earths-orbital-cycles-may-trigger-peaks-of-volcanic-eruptions/

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Mar 18 - 11:04 AM

New Scientist reports research on increased volcanic activity. They don't say, they report.
The research was stated as a "hint". Not all activity is newsworthy, some just bubbles away minding its own business. But they add to the totals, probably more than eruptions.

FWIW I would believe what the New Scientist choose to publish over a website that states its raison dêtre as debunking. Clues in the name.
Fake news is everywhere, including those with an agenda to debunk. At the end of the day they are selling eyeballs. All of them. The current currency is attention.

People do not scrutinise, that which they are glad to hear.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 02 Mar 18 - 02:25 PM

"FWIW I would believe what the New Scientist choose to publish over a website that states its raison dêtre as debunking. "

New Scientist? Seriously? New Scientist publish all sorts of crap. Now if you said Nature. Or some other peer-reviewed journal. As far as I am concerned New Scientist lost all credibility when the went it to bat for the charlatan Shawyer.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: Mr Red
Date: 04 Mar 18 - 03:17 AM

New Scientist report what Nature say.
They canvass opposing many researchers specialising in the subject in articles. In news they invariably say "research by XYZ" - if you can't decipher that - better you don't read it.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 04 Mar 18 - 02:51 PM

And who, in this case, are the XYZ the research is by?

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: robomatic
Date: 05 Mar 18 - 08:29 PM

Just avoid 'hot potting' trying to take a hot soak, illegally, in a Yellowstone hot spring. In 2016 a young man thought he'd try it, got to close to a hot pool with his thermometer, fell in, and dissolved.

Subject: RE: BS: Yellowstone - new theory
From: gillymor
Date: 06 Mar 18 - 08:57 AM

Good advice, robo. Apparently fishermen of yore used to catch fish in YNP and immediately swing them into a hot spring for a shore side snack

Click

From the story: "It required from three to five minutes to thoroughly cook the victims of the experiment, and it was the general verdict that they only needed a little salt to make them quite palatable."

I imagine Homo sapiens would take a bit longer.



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