Scientists Believe Mt. St. Helens Could Be a Supervolcano

reply to post by GenRadek


I dont know how the hawaii hot spot fits into the scheme of things, it could be the remains of and old impact hot spot that has yet to be identified.

The oldest volcano in the chain is 82 million years old and is just about to be subducted into the aluetian trench. Who knows how many have been already been subducted, or how old the hot spot really is. Since no part of the sea floor is more than 100 million or so years old, the really old impact sites will have been reclaimed by the earth already.

reply to post by Curious and Concerned


That was a cracker for sure. But even as big as it was it was still small potatoes compared to the toba lake eruption. If there were any humans there they would have been wiped out for sure.

just for comparison


ash fall patterns for

Long Valley eruption


The ash fall for the lava creek eruption at yellowstone

In doing the research for this I found

the La Garita eruption of 26-28 million years ago
from the wiki,

The scale of La Garita volcanism was far beyond anything known in human history. The resulting deposit, known as the Fish Canyon Tuff, has a volume of approximately 1,200 cubic miles (5,000 km3), enough material to fill Lake Michigan (in comparison, the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens was only 0.25 cubic miles (1.0 km3) in volume).

By contrast, the most powerful human-made explosive device ever detonated, the Tsar Bomba or Emperor Bomb, had a yield of 50 megatons, whereas the eruption at La Garita was approximately 105 times more powerful. It is possibly the most energetic event on Earth since the Chicxulub impact, which was 50 times more powerful.

Holy moly thats terrifying.

The wiki article about La Garita

reply to post by Kratos1220


So? Who said that it was a total eruption, it could have been only a "burp"

Hello guys I want to put in my ten cents. I am an up and coming geologist studying volcanoes. It is my theory that subduction volcanoes are always connected in their plumbing systems. It was only recently in Alaska that a volcanoe erupted and after it was done a different Alaskan volcano collapsed in on itself. This goes to prove that these systems are connceted intimately. I don't think these are the same as supervolcanoes. Yellowstone is a supervolcano and is thought to be a hotspot.

It is my theory, called the Vulcan Wise Hypothesis, that says that hotspot volcanism is caused by the fission of great quantities of Uranium, Thorium, and other fissile materials. In this hypothesis the earth started out as a fission fueled hydroponic system. There was in the base of the lithosphere a region of great caverns that were lined with great quantities of radio metals, these caverns were filled with water. The water would be heated by the fission of the surrounding fissile material (Uranium), this would cause the waters to percolate upwards and gently water the surface of the earth. Evetually there was a problem and these great fountains were penetrated.

This caused a great flood to occur on the surface of the earth. At the same time the surface of the earth was completely melted underwater by the runaway fission of these said caverns. If you take the coolant away from a nuclear reactor it will undergo thermonuclear meltdown and if there is enough fissile material fission will occur. That same thing happened to the earth, and I believe that these great masses of heavy radioactive material have concentrated themselves in great and massive clumps which produce volcanic plumes. This accounts for hotspot volcanism. Subduction volcanoes are very different but these melts do contain radioactive materials.

It is also my belief that the Juan de Fuca subduction slab is a construct that serves the Yellowstone Caldera. If you make a diagram and project the angle of subduction with its apparent arrival into the earths mantle you will find that it intersects the Yellowstone source at its prospective flood basaly region. These flood basalts cover land from central Oregon all the way to Spokane, WA. So, I believe that the subduction of Juan de Fuca plate is there feeding the Yellowstone source. There is always a source of material pushing down and scraping off the lithosphere of its heavy metals like Uranium. This materail eventually reaches the plume source and any Uranium it caries is added to its single mass. The more Uranium present the more volcanism is produced.

The material source would require perhaps millions of times more Uranium than say a nuclear bomb, because the pressures of depth must be overcome to produce a plume. This is a far better solution to the supervolcanic equation but it does not say that an impact cannot start or create the hotspot
volcanism. But impacts do not account for the kind of energy being released at Yellowstone today.

They cannot account for the helium emmisions there either, helium is very special as it is produced as a product of nuclear fission
and fusion processes. There is no better explanation for these events which can be measured. If my hypothesis is correct then forget about your radiometric dating as that is really just radioactive contamination. How silly will the greatest minds on planet earth feel when they have been using radioactive contamination to measure age, lol.

The reason the earth is said to be 4.6 billion years old is because the great flood fissioned approximately one halflife of all the Uranium on the planet in about one year. The half life of Uranium is approximately 4.6 billion years go figure. The heat of this reaction fueled the reaction of all other radioactive
elements present and also reacted anything that is reactive period.

I am the next mind to arrive on the scientific scene with a different way of thinking. No longer will people be able to say it isnt possible.