Geologists identify trigger for apocalyptic 'super eruptions'

Char-Lee
reply to post by ketsuko

 

Considering that they warn people about hurricanes now and try to evacuate them, I'm guessing that there are even odds that they would try to do something to warn people about an impending eruption of one of these.

I hope you are right, but this is a much greater responsibility to be right if you warn. Masses of people would have to be moved not seek shelter.

It would be ugly, no doubt, because we're talking about evacuations for people who aren't used to doing it in regions that aren't set up for it.

The major cities and regions around Yellowstone don't have anything like hurricane evacuation routes and it's bad enough in places where hurricane evacuations are reasonably routine. And that's supposing that they have enough advance warning to try for that style of evacuation.

reply to post by gatorboi117


I thought it was rather interesting that every MSM site I was on today had an article about a Supervolcano today. Wonder if that is part of our "warning"..

crazyewok

Wrabbit2000


I wonder....If Yellowstone dropped deposits of ash in modern Kansas up to 20 ft deep for spots (they mine it in places, from what I've read)...what would that power do if unleashed 20,000 feet down in the mid Pacific or some other BIG body of water? Water doesn't compress..it simply moves..right? So would that be a 0 warning to the biggest Tsunami imaginable or ..?

I hear drowning is one of the most peacefull ways to go.


Beats the slow painfull hell of a life in a world after a super volcano!

Oh, I dunno. I live 80 miles from the rim of the Yellowstone Caldera, and a significant enough pyroclastic flow would snuff you out pretty quick. The thermal shock will only hurt for a second... But, geeze... What a thing to see, and what a way to go.

reply to post by gatorboi117


Great find. I like reality and am addicted to finding out what's real and true. Don't understand people who prefer to hide from hard truth. ...Sometimes I just like to know how things work, other times I have a sense that if I know what's up I have a better chance of getting ahead of it. At the very least, living right so I can die well. What an interesting world we have here.


F&S

Hmm, I'm not in the habit of paying for science articles, but I must admit- that one is tempting. S&F

It's hard to tell from the preview of the article alone if the full paper will dive deeper into magma composition, chemical processes, and how this buoyancy manifests in large magma chambers. And what about partial magma crystallization, such as is suspected at Yellowstone? How does this interact with buoyant magma, and to what degree can crystallization prevent or impede the upward flow of eruptible, buoyant magma? What ratio of buoyant magma to crystallized (more hardened) magma needs to exist before an eruption can be predicted? I got lots of questions.

Compounding this problem is the issue of super and smaller volcanoes having different types of eruptions (both effusive and explosive) during their lifetimes. This implies different and varying states of magma chemical composition over the volcano's eruptive cycle.

I was just reading about how at Long Valley supervolcano, that is exactly the case. I also just posted a thread about it here:

The Ongoing Long Valley Supervolcano Threat- and What Happened There in the 1980's-90's

And is there a way through seismic tomography to gauge the degree of magma buoyancy? They often draw inferences that lower velocity zones are likely more melted, because of the seismic propagation properties of molten rock versus solid rock. But they are also finding out that low velocity zones can mean fractured, loose rock, too- again, compounding the problem. I just read a USGS article about them finding fractured loose rock like that through tomography some 100 km below the New Madrid fault.

I guess what I am getting at is that it would seem buoyancy would be extremely difficult to ascertain some 10 to 25 km down (or much deeper). If they try to do it based upon CO2 emissions, well, I don't see how they could rely much on that either- I mean read over in that Long Valley thread- magmatic CO2 was saturating the ground in that case of the massive unrest in the 80's-90's, and Yellowstone is also producing huge amounts of it- but, no eruptions.

And further, you still have the problem of caldera uplift and subsidence (ground deformation). Is that caused by buoyant magma or steam (hydrothermal) ? Granted, each volcano has its own unique properties, and that is why usually there are dedicated teams to study them each separately. Maybe 1000 years from now they'll finally figure this all out buried under a kilometer of ash.