Super + Volcano - To Be Stopped

Originally posted by apex

Off the top of my head, Long Valley Caldera in California (not technically a supereruption, 400 cubic kilometres too few).

Lake Taupo is another, in New Zealand.

And then the Famous Toba Eruption, which nearly killed the Human race.

And If you thought they were bad, I hope we never see anything like La Garita Caldera sized:

Wiki's behind the times, here.

The biggest are the Siberian Traps:
palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk...

And the Deccan Traps:
volcano.und.edu...

The Yellowstone volcano is a fraction of that size. It's still big, though.:
www.semp.us...

Originally posted by esecallum
we are drilling to relieve the pressure.

why do you people try to derail the issue with stupid questions like transporting molton rock using pipes...?

I think you may not have understood all the points raised. They were:
* the lava is too sticky and won't flow through drill pipes (the article you just pointed to said as much.)
* volcanic vents (the ones done by nature that release some of the pressure on volcanos) are huge... far larger than a hundred or a thousand of these drill holes you propose.

the molton rock is simply transported to the ADJACENT steam turbine power station as a source of heat and then used to mould for houses or mould for large size bricks...

Lava isn't easy to mold. It doesn't pour like steel. It's as sticky as thick glue.

if you really have a problem with transporting magma then JUST PUT THE BLOODY POWER STATION RIGHT OVER THE HOLE IN the GROUND DIRECTLY.

so as it comes directly from the ground in... gives off the heat/power...is poured into moulds.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

Seriously, no.

Lava fresh from the ground is so hot that it melts things (like cars.) You can't get near it. It would destroy the building. In addition it gives off poisonous fumes.

And one little hole ... or even a hundred isn't going to do a thing to relieve pressure on a volcano that's a hundred square miles in size. It doesn't even work with a much smaller volcano.

using simple physics its easy to calculate how many STANDARD SIZED drill holes you need to STABILIZE the pressure.I leave that to you to do the calculations

I'm afraid the math proof is in your court -- that's the way the game of science and theory works. We don't know what calculations you used when you came up with this... so you need to tell us how you modeled venting an 8,000 cubic mile sized volcano with drill holes, please.

We're all ears.

Found some interesting things on the USGS site:

vulcan.wr.usgs.gov...

I knew the term super volcano hadn't been around long. It was coined by the program I first saw it on, in 2000.

Just a thought: If this was possible, do you not think it might have occurred to the USGS already? I mean, part of the reason people are being... disparaging is because it seems a mite.. simplistic?

Also, do a little more reading on the sequence of a caldera eruption, and you'll see that the relief of pressure as magma escapes through small gaps is the trigger for all the dissolved gasses to escape, the BIG eruption.

But don't take my word for it: www.extremescience.com...

I think all our time would be better spent in coming up with workable solutions to the huge problems caused by the aftermath of one of these eruptions.

On the link above you can read about the Toba caldera eruption, 74,000 years ago. What it doesn't say is that a group of geneticists in the UK was looking into the reason that the distinct racial groups have very little shared genetic material. The only way the maths worked for them to work out how this diversity seemingly without common ancestry came about was if only a 1,000 or so individuals survived a cataclysmic event 70,000 to 75,000 years ago.... out of a global population roughly the same as it is now.


We are all descended from the 1,000 people who survived the eruption of Mt. Toba. Which, incidently, was smaller than Yellowstone's last burp.

We could be looking at a night lasting several YEARS, and a new Ice Age. That is what we should be worried about. Not coming up with... wait for it.... Pipe dreams....

We could be looking at a night lasting several YEARS, and a new Ice Age. That is what we should be worried about. Not coming up with... wait for it.... Pipe dreams....

I agree with you there..But either way were screwed.. Space exploration really might be the way to go..Time to think about finding some new real estate.. The whole ice age, no daylight,starvation and disease thing doesn't sound to pleasing to me...

Originally posted by Now_Then
I think the idea of producing power from the volcano is perfectly good, there are plenty of power stations that will use similar principles to heat water to turn the turbines

combine that idea of geothermic generated power with a mass-production-facility to cast volcanic ash+lime (aka Pozzolana/Roman concrete) into modular construction units and you have a viable eco-production-line that could offset many 000's of tons of co2 currently produced by the raw-material fabrication end of the construction industry

[edit on 22-4-2007 by citizen smith]

Originally posted by Byrd
Wiki's behind the times, here.
The biggest are the Siberian Traps:
And the Deccan Traps:
The Yellowstone volcano is a fraction of that size. It's still big, though.:

I know of those, and that they are theorised to be behind the Permian-Triassic and the Cretaceous-Tertiary(?) mass extinctions, but they weren't really explosive eruptions, to the best of my knowledge, and all things considered, are extremely unlikely so I didn't list them. I thought of it, but Yellowstone's bad enough, without having to worry about something capable of causing a mass extinction event.

Originally posted by Karilla
We could be looking at a night lasting several YEARS, and a new Ice Age.

I know it blocks the suns rays, but I don't think it quite has the power to cause the world to have a permanent night. A new Ice age is quite certain though.

Originally posted by citizen smith

Originally posted by Now_Then
I think the idea of producing power from the volcano is perfectly good, there are plenty of power stations that will use similar principles to heat water to turn the turbines

combine that idea of geothermic generated power with a mass-production-facility to cast volcanic ash+lime (aka Pozzolana/Roman concrete) into modular construction units and you have a viable eco-production-line that could offset many 000's of tons of co2 currently produced by the raw-material fabrication end of the construction industry

[edit on 22-4-2007 by citizen smith]

yes you are right..the benefits are huge.

most people are against the idea because they are against all new ideas.

they want to sit on their backsides and store baked beans in their nuclear bunker hole for a few months in a post apoclyptic future instead of taking proactive action to avert it in the first place.

the architect poster above wants EVERY SINGLE PROBLEN RESOLVED before hand.

that is impossible.

one you start then you solve each problem as it arises.

does he really think for example in the microchip production in the 1960 and 1970's they had sorted every problem beforehand..?

or in ship building...

or 747 construction...

you simply adapt and come up with new solutions...

most people have diverted attention to moving molton lava which is not an issue...

the superheated gas and very high pressure will move the lava through the earths's crust and then through heat exchange pipes and then to the moulds for pouring on site.


a limitless supply of energy and construction material for all eternity...


the calculation is quite easy for the numbe of drill holes to STABILIZE THE PRESSURE.

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW IS THE rateOFINCREASE OF THE PRESSURE.

if the pressure did not increase the situation would be stable.

but the pressure is increasing that IS why the yellowstone area is tilting like a giant boil which will burst in a gigantic explosion which we must avert.

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW IS THE RATE OF INCREASE OF THE PRESSURE.

dp/dt>0 at present.

as this is greater than zero that means it will eventually explode but by making it zero then this will not happen.even making it closer tozero will mean a delay in it exploding.

check what the rate of increase of pressure is on the yellowstone site.


one you have that figure then you can deduce what rate of leakage in the form of drill holes is required to ZERO the RATE OF INCREASEof pressure.

dp/dt=0.

=================================================
analogy:-

you have a balloon which you inflate by blowing into it.

but suppose the balloon is leaky.then if you try to inflate it past a certain point then the balloon size will not increase very much as the more inflated the balloon becomes the rate of leakage from the leaks also increases.DO YOU SEE NOW?

Thus the size of the balloon stablizes.

do you see now?

================================================





now the next stage is to get millionaires and billionaires with a lot to lose in that area interested in financing this.



[edit on 23-4-2007 by esecallum]

[edit on 23-4-2007 by esecallum]

Originally posted by esecallum
the architect poster above wants EVERY SINGLE PROBLEN RESOLVED before hand.
one you start then you solve each problem as it arises.
does he really think for example in the microchip production in the 1960 and 1970's they had sorted every problem beforehand..?

Yes perhaps, but when you are designing a microchip or building one, and something goes wrong, nothing much happens, sure you might lose a bit of money, but other than that it doesn't matter. On the other hand, drilling into an active caldera would be very bad if something went wrong.

most people have diverted attention to moving molton lava which is not an issue...
the superheated gas and very high pressure will move the lava through the earths's crust and then through heat exchange pipes and then to the moulds for pouring on site.

As has been explained, you can't mould lava, and your pipes aren't big enough. And while you pipes might hold the pressure at room temperature, at 1000C they probably wouldn't, and you'll get an eruption.

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW IS THE RATE OF INCREASE OF THE PRESSURE.
dp/dt>0 at present.
as this is greater than zero that means it will eventually explode but by making it zero then this will not happen.even making it closer tozero will mean a delay in it exploding.

We can't just put pipes down there to tap off the gases or the lava, if it were that simple, why haven't we tried it? We can't do it for any volcano, so why do you feel it possible for Yellowstone?

...Thus the size of the balloon stablizes.

Yellowstone is fed by a mantle plume, which has been going for a long time, look at this image I took from google earth:


You see the curved line coming off the Cascade range? That is the path of the Yellowstone plume/hotspot. It is massive, and you can't beat it by removing the contents of the Yellowstone magma chamber.

Apart from anythi else, your analogy of a gradually deflating balloon is erroneous. A much better one is a vast bottle of a generic cola drink, being shaken constantly. Now come up with a way of relieving the pressure in the bottle without having the gasses come out of solution and spray coke, or molten rock, in your face.

In Hawaii, years ago, US scientists tried to divert a small lava flow away from a populated area. They failed miserably. Scale that up, ooh, say a quarter of a million times and you'll see whyyour plan is unfeasible.

Look, its no big deal. Try coming up with a better idea, its pointless sticking with one that won't work. I know. When I was 13 I came up with an idea for a frictionless bearing, using a magnetic central shaft surround by magnet of the opposite polarity, meaning the shaft is being repelled in and from every direction simultaneously. As long as the magnets are of sufficient power to overcome the effect of gravity on the shaft and its load, hey presto! a frictionless (or a less friction) bearing.

The only problem was, I showed it to a guy who used to be an engineer at Lotus and he said: we tried that. The only problem is air acts differently in a magnetic field, and the heat build up pure from the friction created in the air-gap turns all the components to slag in a few minutes of rotation."

So back to the drawing board. Was I discouraged? Yes! Did I keep banging on about it? No! Not even when they discovered super-conducters a couple of years later and made a bearing on the same lines work. I also envisaged the magnetic railway too! Am I bitter?

Originally posted by Karilla
Apart from anythi else, your analogy of a gradually deflating balloon is erroneous. A much better one is a vast bottle of a generic cola drink, being shaken constantly. Now come up with a way of relieving the pressure in the bottle without having the gasses come out of solution and spray coke, or molten rock, in your face.

In Hawaii, years ago, US scientists tried to divert a small lava flow away from a populated area. They failed miserably. Scale that up, ooh, say a quarter of a million times and you'll see whyyour plan is unfeasible.

the lotus guy was a lier....air friction will not turn it to slag unless it was spinning at a million revs per minute...nd even then it would take a while./...


your hawaii scientists were not smart.

scientists in iceland controlled lavea simply by spraying sea water at the sides of the lava making artificial channels automatically to guide the lava flow many MILES TO THE SEA!!!!!


again you are wrong on every single count.


your bottle analogy:

it's true that if the CAP is removed after shaking you will get a violent spraying out of gas+fluid.

THIS BECAUSE THE SIZE OF THE HOLE IS RELATIVELY LARGE IN PROPORTION TO THE SIZE OF THE BOTTLE.

now suppose you made a pin prick hole instead.

you will get a very easily controlled flow of gas+liquid....which can easily bleed away the excess pressure.

VERY EASILY CONTROLLED.


these pin prick holes over a long time period are the answer to bottle analogy.

try it.




drilling the bore holes in yellowstone will be similar to above.
as the size of the bore holes is very small compared to the vast size of yellowstone.


you dont need to be scared.most drill operations are done remotely nowadays with integral valves embedded to control outflow AND AS I POINTED OUT ABOVE BY CONTROLLING DEPTH OF DRILL HOLE WE CAN CONTROL OUTFLOW PRESSURE AS NO DEFINITE BOUNDARY EXISTS.TRY TO REMEMBER THIS FACT IN FUTURE.



NO DRILL BITS DONT MELT JUST BECAUSE OF HOT ROCK.IF THIS WAS THE CASE THE DRILL BIT WOULD MELT FROM DRILL FRICTION ALONE WHEN DRILLING.
TRY TO REMEMBER THIS.


i have an answer to every question.


[edit on 29-4-2007 by esecallum]

Look guys to beat the rush when this volcano blows and the world is plunged into darkness in 2012, I thought I'd auction off my spare room here in New Zealand. Of course I need some cash up front to buy in 2 year's supply of sliced peaches, potato mash flakes, tinned sardines and bully beef.

So to get ahead of the queue lets start the bidding off at $20,000 ?

Sorry to be pedantic, but air friction in a magnetic field is the problem. It behaves differently. You need the speed of re-entry to turn metal to slag otherwise.

If the USGS don't know the exact size of the magma chamber how would you calculate pressure release?

The main eruption in a caldera volcano comes when a certain (relatively small) amount of the gaseous magma escapes through small fissures near the edge. This release of pressure can lead to the massive area above the chamber to collapse, forcing a huge eruption through the weakest point, the centre. By the time the chamber has emptied, the rock above it sinks down a hundred metres or so and you have the caldera. Look at the size of the caldera formed in the initial eruption. Its truly vast, but the second and third happened in different areas and were of differnt sizes.

I don't mean to be negative, but if I pick holes it will force you to come up with solutions. If I can't pick any more holes, then I would be the first to suggest you get in touch with the USGS (United States Geological Survey). I would also be the first to congratulate you when they give you their highest civilian honour. I think they would be quite grateful as you would probably be saving the country.

Originally posted by Karilla
Sorry to be pedantic, but air friction in a magnetic field is the problem. It behaves differently. You need the speed of re-entry to turn metal to slag otherwise.

If the USGS don't know the exact size of the magma chamber how would you calculate pressure release?

The main eruption in a caldera volcano comes when a certain (relatively small) amount of the gaseous magma escapes through small fissures near the edge. This release of pressure can lead to the massive area above the chamber to collapse, forcing a huge eruption through the weakest point, the centre. By the time the chamber has emptied, the rock above it sinks down a hundred metres or so and you have the caldera. Look at the size of the caldera formed in the initial eruption. Its truly vast, but the second and third happened in different areas and were of differnt sizes.

I don't mean to be negative, but if I pick holes it will force you to come up with solutions. If I can't pick any more holes, then I would be the first to suggest you get in touch with the USGS (United States Geological Survey). I would also be the first to congratulate you when they give you their highest civilian honour. I think they would be quite grateful as you would probably be saving the country.

but i never suggested drilling a mile wide pipeline hole...AND CAUSING AN EXPLOSION
i am saying a series of pinprick sized holeS RELATIVE to th size of th volcano.

look at a balloon... it deflates over time due to gas escape due to leakaGE...AS gas leaks from the microscopic holes in the material....

only if you stab it with a pin does it explode.

THE SIZE OF THE PIN BEING THOUSANDS OF TIMES LARGER THEN THE MICROSCOPIC HOLES ALLOWING LEAKAGE...

MY IDEA IS THE SAME..

INCREASING PRESSURE LEAKAGE TO STABILIZE PRESSURE...

Originally posted by esecallum
but i never suggested drilling a mile wide pipeline hole...AND CAUSING AN EXPLOSION
i am saying a series of pinprick sized holeS RELATIVE to th size of th volcano.

You don't need a mile wide hole, Lava will quite happily flow up a smaller one, for example the vent on Kilauea is really quite small. And once your lava is coming up, the magma chamber will no longer be as stable, as suddenly it can decompress, and start an explosion. In fact, it is like explosive decompression on an aircraft. If you get a hole, escaping fluid will try to make a bigger hole, and with high pressure lava, that would happen very quickly, as it is heavy, under high pressure and as well as that, the heat makes it easier for the rock to deform, fracture etc.

look at a balloon... it deflates over time due to gas escape due to leakaGE...AS gas leaks from the microscopic holes in the material....

only if you stab it with a pin does it explode.

But a) with a balloon the small holes are there before pressurisation, and b) a caldera isn't made of stretched rubber.

Your main problem with your plan is that you haven't really fully addressed step number one, tapping the pressure. All the other aspects are debatable, but they rely on the ability to drill down to the pressurized area and control the outflow.

Originally posted by esecallum
you dont need to be scared.most drill operations are done remotely nowadays with integral valves embedded to control outflow AND AS I POINTED OUT ABOVE BY CONTROLLING DEPTH OF DRILL HOLE WE CAN CONTROL OUTFLOW PRESSURE AS NO DEFINITE BOUNDARY EXISTS.TRY TO REMEMBER THIS FACT IN FUTURE.

.

Any valves you embed in the bore hole are going to fail during the initial release of pressure. There isn't a control valve available that can withstand the heat and pressure that would be released. The idea of controlling the pressure by controlling the depth of the drill hole doesn't work either. If you drill just far enough to release minimal pressure, what good are you doing? You aren't generating enough pressure for any part of your plan to work. Drill a little farther for a pressure increase, now you've got a weak point in the containment. The pressure will increase the size of this weak point. next thing you know, BOOM, face full of lava. Besides, unless the bore hole was huge, it would close off eventually, the heat from the flowing lava (assuming you could even get it to the surface without a huge containment failure) would slowly leach into the surrounding solid rock/earth. This would cool the lava to the point that it would solidify from the outside in, eventually plugging your hole. Unless you plan to create some new super dense, heat traced piping material. Anything on the market now would be turned into slag pretty quick.

[edit on 5/11/2007 by yadboy]

Originally posted by yadboy
. This would cool the lava to the point that it would solidify from the outside in, eventually plugging your hole. Unless you plan to create some new super dense, heat traced piping material. Anything on the market now would be turned into slag pretty quick.

[edit on 5/11/2007 by yadboy]

You seem to have a vested interest in wanting destruction.
Your points are trivial engineering issues.

You seem to be confused by molton lava.You should watch some documentaries on lava.

I never laughed so much when you said lava cools down very quickly and would block the bore hole.

You also think a 2 mile thick crust is gonna burst like a rubber balloon if you pierce it. You are ignorant.

EseCallum i love you.

I think you are wonderful.
A hero against these retrograde elements and barbarian lovers.
I admire you.I think you are awesome.

Bold.

Brave.

A champion of the people.

Originally posted by beckybecky
You seem to have a vested interest in wanting destruction.
Your points are trivial engineering issues.

You seem to be confused by molton lava.You should watch some documentaries on lava.

We're not talking nice, peaceful flowing lava from Kilauea, we're talking about sticky, viscous pressurised lava in a caldera. To sum up the difference, Kilauea lava, erupts like this:


Whereas the type in Yellowstone, if it erupts will look like that from St Helens:


You seem to think that as its lava it will be of the nice runny type which can flow down the path you give it. You also forget that even without it being pressurised, the heat will still cause deformation of metal, and with pressure as well, your going to have an explosion, which is exactly what you are trying to prevent.

You also think a 2 mile thick crust is gonna burst like a rubber balloon if you pierce it. You are ignorant.

No, we think that you would destabilise the magma chamber and cause an eruption. It would also probably cause multiple fractures in the rock, causing possible routes for magma to get to the surface. Rock isn't like hardened steel, you can't drill a hole and get no other cracks anywhere else on it.

EseCallum i love you.
I think you are wonderful.
A hero against these retrograde elements and barbarian lovers.
I admire you.I think you are awesome.
Bold.
Brave.
A champion of the people.

You know, your posts are also remarkably similar.

I have an idea...

What if we could use robots (humans would die immediately) at the very moment of the eruption that would pour a million (#?) tonnes of "liquid nitrogen" (or another freezing agent) into the caldera.

What effect would a large amount of liquid nitrogen have on the magma?

...

Originally posted by Where2Hide2006
I have an idea...
What effect would a large amount of liquid nitrogen have on the magma?

...

The liquid nitrogen version of a Hydrothermal Explosion, only with a super eruption as well?

Originally posted by esecallumscientists in iceland controlled lavea simply by spraying sea water at the sides of the lava making artificial channels automatically to guide the lava flow many MILES TO THE SEA!!!!!

It wasn't that neat and it wasn't that far, either. They lost a lot of the town because the lava was hard to stop and hard to guide. The lava there was also a lot more runny than the Yellowstone type.

And Yellowstone is very large and a very long way from a huge source of cold water.

now suppose you made a pin prick hole instead.

you will get a very easily controlled flow of gas+liquid....which can easily bleed away the excess pressure.

You might want to actually try that one for yourself. It comes out with a lot of force and a lot of energy.

You might also look up oilfield blowouts. Frankly, we don't have the equipment to control something like that. Lava's a lot hotter than oilfield gas, and those are extremely destructive to the rig and often kill a number of crew members.

drilling the bore holes in yellowstone will be similar to above.
as the size of the bore holes is very small compared to the vast size of yellowstone.

You'd hundreds of thousands of them to release any amount of pressure. Yellowstone is huge.

NO DRILL BITS DONT MELT JUST BECAUSE OF HOT ROCK.IF THIS WAS THE CASE THE DRILL BIT WOULD MELT FROM DRILL FRICTION ALONE WHEN DRILLING.
TRY TO REMEMBER THIS.

I can see you haven't been around the Texas oilfields much. The reason they don't melt is because they're pouring mud down the drill well to cool the bit and reduce friction. Muds aren't rated for high temperatures:
www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com...

Muds are only rated to about 193Celsius to 227 Celsius
www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com...

Lava is CONSIDERABLY hotter... it's 900 Celsius to 1500 Celsius:
volcano.und.edu...

So, yes, it would melt the drill bit, the casings, the oil rig, and anyone near it.