Situation X: Yellowstone Eruption, page 1

Okay, rather than necropost a 2 year old thread back to life, I'm going to just copy the relevant information from my previous posts, and re-organize it into a post for this thread. Here, for your enjoyment, is how badly we are screwed:

Originally posted by Countermeasures
If the american government would use halve the money and the effort put in the DOD , surely they could up something with a containment plan to limit some of the effects???

A valid question, but sadly, one where the answer is "no".

We're not talking about something like a drought, that has a solution, or intruding biology ruining an ecology, which can be prevented with controls on water-locks and customs.

We're talking about thousands upon thousands of cubic kilometers of superheated gas, that will belch out of the Earth and roll across the landscape, for hundreds of miles in every direction, incinerating everything it its path. This is actually the worst part of a volcano. What kills people is rarely the magma, it's the gas.

After that, there is a combination of massive earthquakes that rip the ground open for tens to hundreds of miles, all in an attempt to let the molten rock flow free, so the tension in the Earth can be relieved.

You can't stop the gasses; the normal temperature range is 800-1200 C, which at the high-end is enough to melt iron. You might, be able to build enough of a barrier out of tungsten (which requires 3399 Celsius to melt), but there is the sheer volume of gas to take into consideration. Considering the size of the Yosemite Caldera, and previous volcanic history, you would need to construct a wall, all the way around, taller than the tallest skyscrapers, that would measure roughly 500 miles in circumference, to contain the gasses long enough to cool. Failing that, I suppose if one could find a way to artificially induce a storm system powerful enough to pull down super-cooled air from the upper atmosphere, onto the caldera, within seconds of the gas eruption, that might stop the gasses and freeze the magma, but then you've just plunged America into the next ice age.

Even then, it only affects the surface, not the deep down problem, which is a pressure imbalance. At best, you stave off the problem long enough for it to erupt outside the known perimeter, where the ground is weak enough to allow it to happen all over again.

The idea that the U.S. Government is somehow responsible for Super-Volcanos erupting, or that they could somehow put a stop to it by cutting 50% of the defense budget, unfortunately just has no valid basis. A volcano is a force of nature, and can no more be stopped than the sun can be stopped from shining.

Originally posted by soficrow
Do you think that there will be an adequate warning before something happens? Like, enough time to evacuate people? ...Is there any point? Would we be looking at a kind of population triage?

Well, there was actually a special on Yosemite National park and volcanoes on Discovery or some such channel. They asked "So, would we get any early warning signs from the caldera before it blows?" The good news is that, yes, they would certainly see the early warning signs. The bad news is that the early warning signs started about 3 years ago.

The early warning signs are the part where you can predict that, yes, it's most likely going to blow sometime in the foreseeable future, but at that point everything is a guessing game. I believe that the average time from the "It's definitely happening very soon" and actual eruption is about 30-45 minutes. At best case scenario, maybe an hour or two.

The early warning signs (minor quakes, steam from vents, mudslides, etc) are usually when people keep a watch on the area, people living close to the volcano usually go on holiday, and those living in the vicinity keep watch on the area for the scientists to say "Okay, it's happening in about half an hour!"

The thing is, those early warning signs can last anywhere from days to years. And the late warning signs are sometimes skipped altogether, especially if the cone is going to explode.

So, technically, it could be tomorrow, or it could be 1000+ years from now. The only real "we should probably get out of the area" warnings are already happening, but the "Oh, crap, run!!!" warning will give everyone about 30mins to 2 hours warning...maybe... But considering that it takes time to go through channels, get the word out, the damage that will be done to infrastructure like roads, and the panic of the people, I'd say pretty much anyone living within 300 miles of Yosemite will not get out in time. They may die of old age before it happens, but when it happens, you can pretty much count on them being among the casualties that will never be found (gasses that can melt iron will pretty much disintegrate a human body no problem).

Those living 300+ miles away from the caldera I would give a 50/50 chance, but my money would still be on the volcano.

My instinct is that even if Yosemite blew in the worst way possible, the world would not end. Life wouldn't end (well, actually, a lot of lives would end, but not life as we know it).

For one thing, as a genus, we've been through this a lot. Depending on your scientific viewpoint of which genus constitutes humanity (Ardipithecenes
, Australopithecus or Homo), humans have been around for 2.5 to 5+ million years. At an average rate of one supervolcanic eruption every 200,000 years, we've been through it anywhere from 12-25 times. It's practically old hat!

So, as a genus, we'll probably survive. I think it's an interesting coincidence, though, that our hominid ancestors appear to have gone through a change roughly every 200,000 years once you get to the last 2 million years. Perhaps, as a species forced to adapt to new conditions after the supervolcano, a new species will develop, and Homo Sapiens will become another museum piece. Or maybe it's just coincidence.

Anyway, here's what little reputable material is found in regards to what we can expect from a Yellowstone blast:

First, the pyroclastic flow (superheated gas and ash) would play havoc with the western half of the U.S.:
1. It would kill all life within roughly a 300 mile radius, in a matter of minutes.
2. It would most likely melt or incinerate anything with a boiling point equal to or less than that of iron.
3. After about 300 miles the heat would gradually start dying out, leaving people alive, but suffering first, second, and third degree burns.
4. About that time, the shockwave should hit. There's really no way to predict what kind of damage will happen, but it will likely leave almost anyone in the western half of the U.S. deafened, or with severely damaged hearing. Ironically, this will be the least of the troubles, because...
5. Though the gas has cooled enough to only scald people, for the remainder of the roughly 600 mile radius, people will have to also deal with their air being poisoned and acidic. Those not killed outright will soon have a very bad day, however, because...
6. The next effect will primarily cover twice the 600 mile radius in ash, most likely in an eliptical pattern to follow windflows, up to about 4 meters. A good portion of this ash will also come from the previously incinerated landscape. Those not killed by heat, poison, and acid, will now find breathing and moving extremely difficult as they wade through a 12-foot sea of fine powder.
Global Effects would be felt the same day and continue to worsen for the next 3-14 days, depending on the weather patterns. The would include things like.
1. Little, if any, government assistance. The largest disaster FEMA has ever had to face is 9/11, which stretched their resources to the limit. The affected area of the supervolcano is an estimated 10 million times greater than that of 9/11. To date, FEMA does not have a contingency plan for a disaster on the scale of a supervolcano. Though they have shown an interest in developing one, it is doubtful they will ever have the resources capable of dealing with such an event. So you might want to be prepared, either with supplies, with guns, and/or with your god.
2. Another problem that will have to be dealt with is the gas sulphur dioxide which forms sulphuric acid when it gets into the stratosphere. This has two main effects, one is blotting out the sun, the other is, of course, sulfuric acid rain.
3. Within a day or so, temperatures would plummet 15-20 degrees, on average, across the globe. While this wouldn't exactly cause the end of the world, it is likely to turn many temperate climates into arctic ones. Strangely, the greatest differences would be in the southern hemisphere, though thanks to the normally high temperature, it would probably make them a cool average of 72-degrees year-round, thus remove San Diego's monopoly on such temperatures.
4. Since most foodcrops depend upon a particular temperature and sunlight range, and most foodcrops are grown in temperate climates, and the breadbasket of the U.S. will be under a 12-foot layer of ash, and the damage to global infrastructure, one can expect that a lot of people will starve--roughly 1 billion, at best estimates.
5. Travel using engines would be severely limited for a while, though the time and location would depend largely on the ashfall. The enormous amount of particulates in the air would not only impair visibility on an unprecedented scale, but also clog air filters within a very short amount of time.
6. Anyone with breathing problems or allergies can count on a miserable life. Those with perfectly healthy lungs can count on developing breathing problems and allergies.
7. Most of North America would become uninhabitable until the ash had been beaten down by the acid rain, and hardened enough to walk on. Even then, the poisons within the ash, the topsoil covered with volcanic rock, combined with the blotted out sunlight and lower temperatures, would prevent any sort of serious agriculture and turn most of America and Canada into 3rd world countries.
8. Global weather patterns would undoubtably change dramatically, though the full extent can only be guessed at. Between the temperature drops, the addition of acid and particulates to the atmosphere, the sheer loss of plant life, animal life, refreezing of polar caps (resulting in increased saline density in the ocean, thus changine the trade currents), there are too many variables to take into consideration. Suffice it to say that one man's trash will be come another man's treasure, and vice versa.
9. Economic Devastation. The majority of the world's wealth and commerce is concentrated in America, Europe, and China. America will be mostly destroyed and uninhabitable Much of Europe will be emmigrated from due to the artic change in climate, and the same can be said of China. Smaller economies will find their cash crops die off, tourism will practically cease to exist, the loss of infrastructure and communication, complete burial of solid assets under tons of ash, and the sheer loss of human life (including their knowledge, skills, labor, etc) will cause an almost total collapse of the global economy.

Conclusion: The human race will continue, but the habitable areas of the planet will be greatly reduced, countless lives and resources will be lost, and entire countries will fall.

As for the food problem, I would say hydroponics will play a large part in the process, as fish will likely be poisonous, or die out from some key part of the food chain gone missing. A bigger problem is going to be fresh water, which again, is going to be hard to predict, given the change in weather patterns.

Going by the previous established Situation X Scale, this would almost certainly qualify as a weaker Class 5 Natural Disaster event. The death toll pan-species across the globe would be so massive that it would probably have to be approximated in terms of percentage of life on Earth, but I'm pretty sure "humans" and life on Earth would continue in some form or another.