If Yellowstone were to erupt....

profcough wrote:There was some heavy irony in the film, likw videos of Federales turning back American refugees at the Rio Grande. The film was called Super Volcano I believe.

I saw that film. I was not particularly impressed, but it was interesting. And hey, it was better than 'The Day after tomorrow' which was good right up until science got sacrificed on the altar of politics. And ended much the same way, except the federales were rescuing all the poor surviving New Yorkers. *bleh*

Andor wrote:

profcough wrote:There was some heavy irony in the film, likw videos of Federales turning back American refugees at the Rio Grande. The film was called Super Volcano I believe.

I saw that film. I was not particularly impressed, but it was interesting. And hey, it was better than 'The Day after tomorrow' which was good right up until science got sacrificed on the altar of politics. And ended much the same way, except the federales were rescuing all the poor surviving New Yorkers. *bleh*

I saw that too, I think it was on either the History Channel or Discovery Channel. While some of the movie was decent, overall it was pretty bad.

I saw "The Day After Tomorrow" too and was... underwhelmed by the sheer amount of bad/hollywood science in it. My feelings about the film were reinforced when I came across this site and the comments therein. My goodness, this film seems to be second only to "The Core" in sheer scientific impossibilities.

Okay. Yellowstone.
Should it erupt, things will become... difficult. America will become a borderline nation due to the sheer devastation that such an eruption (with associated flying molten rock, rivers of lava, destructive ground tremors etc) would cause. Air travel would be impossible (except maybe for zeppelins and other lighter-than-air craft) while long-distance ground travel would become very hard due to the choking effect of ash. Effectively, America would cease to be a superpower and would, at best, become a barely-better-than-subsistance area. At least until the ash settles, whereupon the ground will become extremely fertile. May take a while, though.

The rest of the world would also suffer. The amount of sunlight reaching the ground would be reduced due to the ash cloud, leading to a rapid amount of global cooling and possibly inducing another ice age. The ash cloud would also affect air travel across most of the northern hemisphere (and across South America), reducing trade, travel etc. The resulting population drop would not be as extreme as in America, but it would be severe.

China would most likely be the least affected and may choose to use the crisis as an opportunity for expansion. A similar rationale may be seized upon by the Islamic countries, so open warfare would be a highly likely result. Should it go nuclear, extinction becomes a distinct possibilty for much of life on earth, including humanity.

Let's hope that the scientists gfind some way to lower the pressure under Yellowstone. Perhaps by drilling down and starting to pipe out some of the accumulating magma?

Well, whatever happens, happens, and we'll just have to cope.

Hope I haven't depressed you all too much.

Michael Everett wrote:Let's hope that the scientists gfind some way to lower the pressure under Yellowstone. Perhaps by drilling down and starting to pipe out some of the accumulating magma?

Heh. Except that lowering the pressure is the last thing you want to do. Magma is kind of like a bottle of soda that's been shaken. Once you get that initial drop in pressure it starts to get ....fizzy. That is the gas boiling out of suspension. Kind of like dropping a mentos into a soda bottle, if the soda was hundreds of cubic miles of moltem rock....

Andor wrote:

Michael Everett wrote:Let's hope that the scientists gfind some way to lower the pressure under Yellowstone. Perhaps by drilling down and starting to pipe out some of the accumulating magma?

Heh. Except that lowering the pressure is the last thing you want to do. Magma is kind of like a bottle of soda that's been shaken. Once you get that initial drop in pressure it starts to get ....fizzy. That is the gas boiling out of suspension. Kind of like dropping a mentos into a soda bottle, if the soda was hundreds of cubic miles of moltem rock....

The goal would be to stabilize the pressure. If the pressure continues to build, stress on the superstructure will eventually reach a catastrophic failure point.

That is not to say that it is practical or feasible or even possible to accomplish.

Michael Everett wrote:I saw "The Day After Tomorrow" too and was... underwhelmed by the sheer amount of bad/hollywood science in it. My feelings about the film were reinforced when I came across this site and the comments therein. My goodness, this film seems to be second only to "The Core" in sheer scientific impossibilities.

Okay. Yellowstone.
Should it erupt, things will become... difficult. America will become a borderline nation due to the sheer devastation that such an eruption (with associated flying molten rock, rivers of lava, destructive ground tremors etc) would cause. Air travel would be impossible (except maybe for zeppelins and other lighter-than-air craft) while long-distance ground travel would become very hard due to the choking effect of ash. Effectively, America would cease to be a superpower and would, at best, become a barely-better-than-subsistance area. At least until the ash settles, whereupon the ground will become extremely fertile. May take a while, though.

The rest of the world would also suffer. The amount of sunlight reaching the ground would be reduced due to the ash cloud, leading to a rapid amount of global cooling and possibly inducing another ice age. The ash cloud would also affect air travel across most of the northern hemisphere (and across South America), reducing trade, travel etc. The resulting population drop would not be as extreme as in America, but it would be severe.

China would most likely be the least affected and may choose to use the crisis as an opportunity for expansion. A similar rationale may be seized upon by the Islamic countries, so open warfare would be a highly likely result. Should it go nuclear, extinction becomes a distinct possibilty for much of life on earth, including humanity.

Let's hope that the scientists gfind some way to lower the pressure under Yellowstone. Perhaps by drilling down and starting to pipe out some of the accumulating magma?

Well, whatever happens, happens, and we'll just have to cope.

Hope I haven't depressed you all too much.

I'm not a vulcanologist, but I am fairly sure that you aren't going to get rivers of lava. It's the wrong type of volcano.

Mt. Saint Helens, just over 1 cubic km. Krakatoa ejected about 25 cubic km of stuff. Tambora in 1815 around 100 cubic km, it caused the "year without a summer." The last Yellowstone eruption is thought to be 1000 cubic km of stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava_Creek_Tuff

I think that effects have been a bit understated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_Explosivity_Index

waddles for desert wrote:

Andor wrote:Heh. Except that lowering the pressure is the last thing you want to do.

The goal would be to stabilize the pressure. If the pressure continues to build, stress on the superstructure will eventually reach a catastrophic failure point.

That is not to say that it is practical or feasible or even possible to accomplish.

I just scared myself with a stray thought.

Does anyone know how much the glaciers melting away from the peaks surrounding Yellowstone weigh? Or used to weigh? How many megatons of pressure on the magma chamber are we losing as that ice melts? That... could be bad.

Not every eruption was a super volcano. MAYBE without the overburden of glaciation, the cork pops before cataclysmic forces develop. Or not. We know too little to know if it is for better or for worse.

I can not recall which channel it was on, but one of them - Discovery, Science, etc., recently did a show where they talked about mapping of the inner earth crust, mantle and core. IIRC, the show indicated that major magma flows from outer core/inner mantle up to outer mantle/lower crust existed at a number of locations around the globe. One was the Hawaiian islands hotspot. Another was under Yellowstone ..

waddles for desert wrote:Not every eruption was a super volcano. MAYBE without the overburden of glaciation, the cork pops before cataclysmic forces develop. Or not. We know too little to know if it is for better or for worse.

Its an interesting idea, but the nearest glaciers, (Glacier National Park), are at least 30-40 miles
distant from even the southern boundary of the caldera.