Wow that is pretty interesting! I hope to god we're not around
when that sucker decides to go off though, as an ice age just does NOT sound appealing to me

S&F, good stuff!

Just a quick question for anyone who has a quick answer: How long is the estimation when it comes to the ash blocking out the sun? Also, would it be global or cover the Earth in bands of blockage, dictated by global wind currents?

What would be the total area of direct devastation from a supervolcano? I see some sources state that up to 50,000 direct deaths will be attributed to this event, and that's only from the direct disaster.

It wouldn't take that long to cause mass extinctions I suppose.

It could take just a year or two for people to start dying by the masses from starvation as crops wither and die from lack of sunlight.

Humans are not dinosaurs though, and it's likely that a percentage will survive albeit with a lot of difficulty


[edit on 14-6-2009 by star in a jar]

[edit on 14-6-2009 by star in a jar]

I'm no expert on volcanos, but I think we would have known by now whether St. Helens was a supervolcano or not. We definitely would have known when it erupted in 1980, that's for sure. It's possible that Yellowstone could set it off, but an eruption of the same magnitude? Something tells me no. Perhaps this is just a distraction? Yellowstone is more than enough cause for concern by itself.

To my knowledge, the strongest eruption from a volcano that wasn't "super" was Krakatoa and based on what I've read about that one, Mount St. Helens was nothing compared to that. If one of the world's supervolcanos erupted, the effects would be felt worldwide. Take Toba for example. It erupted around 73,500 years ago and is said to have nearly caused the extinction of humans. It erupted for two weeks and recieved the highest Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) rating of eight. As far as I know, this is the only eruption to have ever rated an eight on the VEI in recorded human history. Mount St. Helens was only a five.

Well, mechanical death (blown glass, heat, etc.) aside, I think humans would fare ok from an event like this in the long run. We have the capability to make grow lights a other things that can help grow plants. Make no mistake, this would be a bottleneck event, though. We migth even fall down to just a handful of genetic lines again as we have in the distant past. But this sort of cleaning of the gene pool is probably a normal occurrance.

The only downside, of course, is that most of our history will be wiped out and 1000s of years from now there will be unbelievable legends of global empires fighting each other with amazing weapons that would burn the skin off of man and harness the power of the sun... oh wait, those legends already exist...

Originally posted by muzzleflash
and i QUOTE from your article

"That would make it one of the largest Supervolvanoes in existence,"

That is utterly absurd

Olympus Mons on mars is easily superior.

Even ignoring Mars, it wouldn't be. To erupt on a scale larger than Yellowstone, maybe, if it has a large enough chamber. But Iceland (viewed as a whole) is pretty much a Large Igneous Province, and that is even bigger than Toba. It is, in fact, constructive.

I do not think it likely that The St Helens - Rainier - Adams system is capable of a super eruption. It could be, given that we have no idea what a super volcano looks like prior to it's first VEI 8 eruption, but I doubt that it will happen any time soon. Just because they are connected to a magma chamber which is Yellowstone sized, doesn't mean it is eruptible. And to join all three, it would need to be really large, and assuming each has their own individual chamber, a large scale eruption would be unlikely.

I dont think it qualifies as a super volcano, but Mt St helens is one of many volcanos around the cascadia subduction zone.

Mt St helen's erution in 1980 was small potatoes compared to other notable eruptions, since weve been walking around.

The long valley caldera in ca. , when it erupted 780k years ago, it left a caldera 11x 20 miles and expelled 600 cubic kilometers of material.
It flung rocks as far away as kansas


toba lake, 75k years ago left a caldera 19 x 60 miles and expelled 3000 cubic km of material, and plunged the earth into the ice ages.
It buried india in 6 inches of ash, and was for times bigger than the eruption at yellowstone 680k years ago.


krakatoa's 1880's eruption was a lady finger blast that only expelled 21 km^3 of material and nobody knows how big its 536 eruption that started the dark ages was.

Thera boomed to the tune of 100km^3 , when it wiped out the protype civilization of plato's Atlantis, the minoans.

Tambora was big as well but a 100km^3 it is still micro sized compared to toba lake.

Mt st helen only expelled 1.2km^3 of material.

Originally posted by star in a jar
Just a quick question for anyone who has a quick answer: How long is the estimation when it comes to the ash blocking out the sun? Also, would it be global or cover the Earth in bands of blockage, dictated by global wind currents?

What would be the total area of direct devastation from a supervolcano? I see some sources state that up to 50,000 direct deaths will be attributed to this event, and that's only from the direct disaster.

It wouldn't take that long to cause mass extinctions I suppose.

It could take just a year or two for people to start dying by the masses from starvation as crops wither and die from lack of sunlight.

Humans are not dinosaurs though, and it's likely that a percentage will survive albeit with a lot of difficulty


[edit on 14-6-2009 by star in a jar]

[edit on 14-6-2009 by star in a jar]

Better question....Is there any way to clear up the sky faster than normal once this does happen? Like a wind tech or something that we can put in the sky to make the stuff rain down so it clears up faster? Or like 20 HUGE air filters around the world ?

Originally posted by rogerstigers
Well, mechanical death (blown glass, heat, etc.) aside, I think humans would fare ok from an event like this in the long run. We have the capability to make grow lights a other things that can help grow plants. Make no mistake, this would be a bottleneck event, though. We migth even fall down to just a handful of genetic lines again as we have in the distant past. But this sort of cleaning of the gene pool is probably a normal occurrance.

The only downside, of course, is that most of our history will be wiped out and 1000s of years from now there will be unbelievable legends of global empires fighting each other with amazing weapons that would burn the skin off of man and harness the power of the sun... oh wait, those legends already exist...

I disagree with your assesment. We have history to provide a clue to what would happen. The History or Discovery channel just ran a special on super volcanos, and when they talked of Toba, and the problems it created, the logical progression could be made to today. because of the weather change it created, many thousands of people died of starvation. Yes, today we have technology to grow food in greenhouses, but there is no way in heck there is enough of that supply to feed the world. Millions are starving now all over the world. If one weather changing event happens like the eruption of a super-volcano, we are screwed. there's barely enough food to go around now.
With no growing season for at least a year, the whole earth is screwed big time. the volcanos are mother nature's way of thinning the population. It's happened before, and it will again--just a matter of time.