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It seems wanton to you because the media article has spun it that way. In reality, seismic surveying occurred along the same US coastline decades ago (1970s, mostly) and the world didn't end. Modern techniques cover larger areas but actually pay attention to potential marine impacts and are designed to mitigate them. The risk is being exaggerated by people who don't want anything in their backyard from which they don't directly and obviously receive some benefit.

If you're curious, here's an archive of areas other than the Gulf of Mexico that have been surveyed historically. There are even ~50 exploration wells along the East Coast that were drilled mostly in the 1960s and 1970s.

It seems wanton to you because the media article has spun it that way. In reality, seismic surveying occurred along the same US coastline decades ago (1970s, mostly) and the world didn't end. Modern techniques cover larger areas but actually pay attention to potential marine impacts and are designed to mitigate them. The risk is being exaggerated by people who don't want anything in their backyard from which they don't directly and obviously receive some benefit.

If you're curious, here's an archive of areas other than the Gulf of Mexico that have been surveyed historically. There are even ~50 exploration wells along the East Coast that were drilled mostly in the 1960s and 1970s.

Confusing mercury chemistry with the essentially glassy behavior of uranium is a problem for you I think. As the USGS points out "The vast majority of coal and the majority of fly ash are not significantly enriched in radioactive elements, or in associated radioactivity, compared to common soils or rocks." http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/f... So, your claim of extra radioactivity as a result of coal burning would have to be the same as a claim of extra radioactivity from using a bulldozer on a construction site. Just moving stuff around with the same uranium content does not change the background level of radiation,

, You've misread the table you cited. Notice that in the first column Fe is already greater than 10% yet it is a minor constituent in table 2.

Does coal have a high uranium concentration?

Instead of doing a thought experiment, various sources can be used to look up actual values (e.g. this has a collection of quote a few sources on different things). Typical soil is 0.3-10 ppm uranium+thorium. Typical coal is given as 0.2-12 ppm. So the original coal has closer to the same concentration as soil, and the resulting ash will concentrate that by a factor of 10. This isn't even getting into the extreme cases, where higher end of soil is about 100-200 ppm U+Th, while coal is being mined in places at 1000-2000 ppm U+Th.

The problem is you can't just think of these elements as little marbles that get evenly scattered everywhere, as chemistry is involved. There are processes observed in peat beds where acidic compounds fix uranium and thorium in ways that cause them to accumulate there to levels above average from other soil types. And in that regard:

Since the uranium prefers to stay at the bottom, the escaping fly ash has a reduced concentration compared to even that soil,

You can find plenty of articles and sources around discussing the amount of uranium and other elements in the fly ash, or fly ash vs. bottom ash, where chemistry matters more than just the notion heavy metal should fall. For example from USGS, where note that the proportions in fly ash are in reference to original coal mass, so multiply by 10 to get proportions in ash. The fly ash in that case actually ends up with proportionally more uranium than the bottom ash that gets the remainder. If it worked as you suggested, you could have used your same reasoning to argue that mercury shouldn't be an issue from coal plants, because it would end up in the bottom ash only. Except that not only can it end up a lot more in the fly ash than the bottom ash (depends on plant though), some of it is elemental mercury that is not easily removed by wet scrubbers so you see coal plants adding halogens or catalysts specifically to remove the elemental portion of mercury so that it can be removed better by scrubbers, even though the initial coal starts out with levels similar to soil.

Pfft, old news. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...

By observation, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere has gone up considerably since 1850 (from 280 to 400 ppm), so the planet hasn't been regulating it. Also, this government site gives an average of 200 million tons of volcanic CO2 each year, as compared to well over a hundred times that much from human activity. Heck, coal production alone is in the billions of tons per year, and the carbon in coal produces over three times its weight in CO2.

So where did that water go, genius? Reservoir levels, Stream flow. Most of those numbers look well below long term median/average to me. So if the water isn't in the reservoirs or flowing in the rivers, where exactly is it?

Maybe there's a lot of room in certain people's posterior orifices that isn't accounted for here.

California is listed as having over 10,000 earthquakes a year. This figure is more than a tad shy of equaling that (by over 40 times, let alone out numbering it by a factor of two. To say it's double is rediculous.: To quote the USGS: "Each year the southern California area has about 10,000 earthquakes. ... If there is a large earthquake, however, the aftershock sequence will produce many more earthquakes of all magnitudes for many months." http://earthquake.usgs.gov/lea... "

I agree, we should stick to the science. Here you go:

• The peer-reviewed Journal "Nature Climate Change" includes and references thousands of scientific papers on the subject.
• The IPCC's 1,500-page "Physical Science Basis" report cites hundreds of references and is authored by hundreds of experts. It clearly states what we know, don't know, and how we know it. It reviews its past predictions, notes where its models have errored, and takes into account an incredible wealth and scope of scientific observations over 150 years.
• The IPCC also makes all of its data and models available for review. So you can see for yourself.
• The US Government also recently updated its regularly scheduled report written by over 300 experts.
• The USGS has a Climate Model Browser that lets you try out all the different simulated predictions for Global Warming. You'll notice the specifics vary widely, but they all predict dramatic temperature rises.
• The NOAA has a National Climate Data Center where you can watch the temperature trends. Here's a visualization based on the data.
• The United States Defense department has several reports on the risks posed by Global Warming (see here, here, here, and here).
• The Center for Coastal Resources Management (CCRM) has produced some excellent reports on sea level rise due to Climate Change to inform local communities like Norfolk VA, where flooding is already a major issue, what to expect in the near future due to Global Warming.
• You can also watch the sea levels rise at the NOAA's Sea-Level Trends website.
• If you don't trust the government, then I recommend The Berkely Earth Project. It was funded by the liberal's favorite bad guys, the Koch Brothers, but its results were so compelling that the lead Climatologist, Richard A. Muller, wrote a piece for the New York Times announcing he was no longer a skeptic.
• Of course, it's always good to have a contrarian viewpoint in the mix, and for that, I recommend AGW skeptic Judith Curry, who presents valid challenges to the consensus with her strong scientific background. I don't find her convincing, but her challenges make for good food for thought.

If you dispute this science, then I recommend publishing your own peer-reviewed papers, your own models, and your own alternative hypotheses in the scientific journals. I see a lot of skeptics nit-picking the science, but not many actually taking the effort to publish in the scientific forums.

I eagerly await one of the skeptics out there to please post an equally substantive list of references to "balance" my citations, so everyone can review and compare them.

What I loved aout Europe was there wasn't a need for a car - unlike here in the most of the States. Not having to worry about parking or getting booted or towed or feeding the meter or .....

People bitch about European taxes. Well, take you car payment, insurance, maintenance, gas, registration, emissions testing and eliminate them.

You now have how much left per month? $400 - $500 - more?

And let's mention the reduction of stress from having to deal with all the chores associated with that car. I have to make time to go and get my car checked for emissions - and it'll pass - but I have to do it for the "privalege" of driving - even though it IS a nessessity here in the States.

Back to taxes...

Add in a single payer medical system - not this Obamacare crap - and those high European taxes do not seem so bad.

They are not perfect, but they have solved some social problems a bit better than we have.

You do realize that the vast majority of Europe is MUCH more densely populated than the US, and most US cities, which makes it more economical to create a public transportation system that can get you just about anywhere efficiently. The closest analogy in the US would be NYC or LA.

Europe population density: http://kids.britannica.com/com...

US Population Density: http://image.lang-8.com/w0_h0/...

San Francisco Population Density: http://geography.wr.usgs.gov/s...

Injection wells are the cause, according to USGS.

Slashdot won't take this comment because I typed it too fast, so I'll type some more. Apparently Slashdot designers no longer use keyboards, because their new site is so cumbersome and slow to use with a keyboard, and they have no clue how long it takes to type a comment.

Wrong. It's much much more than simply 10^x.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/lea...

Energy in petajoules = ( 10^(11.8 + 1.5*Ms) ) * 1e-07 * 1e-15

Noah out in theaters March 28th.

Seriously, four days is NOT enough time.

Do not forget...

USGS says 8.2

Noah in theaters on March 28. I do not think that is enough time for the tsunami!

5.0 - deep Atlantic Ocean - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.8 - deep Atlantic Ocean - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.2 - 100 km east of Japan - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.0 - near New Guinea - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.2 - Nicaragua - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
and then there are the ones below magnitude 5

5.0 - deep Atlantic Ocean - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.8 - deep Atlantic Ocean - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.2 - 100 km east of Japan - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.0 - near New Guinea - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.2 - Nicaragua - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
and then there are the ones below magnitude 5

5.0 - deep Atlantic Ocean - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.8 - deep Atlantic Ocean - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.2 - 100 km east of Japan - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.0 - near New Guinea - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.2 - Nicaragua - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
and then there are the ones below magnitude 5

5.0 - deep Atlantic Ocean - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.8 - deep Atlantic Ocean - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.2 - 100 km east of Japan - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.0 - near New Guinea - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.2 - Nicaragua - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
and then there are the ones below magnitude 5

5.0 - deep Atlantic Ocean - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.8 - deep Atlantic Ocean - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.2 - 100 km east of Japan - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.0 - near New Guinea - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
5.2 - Nicaragua - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...
and then there are the ones below magnitude 5

> (if we don't use our water in ends up in the evaporating
> toxic waste pit called the great salt lake which means
> there is no reason not to use every drop).

Careful with that sarcasm. Some people will believe you mean it.
Those birds weren't created out of nothing, you know.

In other words, fracking is using up 0.14% of the amount of water used for agricultural irrigation. Most of that in dry parts of the United States (who would have guessed that?!).

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/w...

Shut the fuck up if all you have are not arguments but LIES!

1) We can safely ingest the water in the watermelon we grow.
2) Even agricultural run off pollutants aren't as unsafe as the heavy metals, benzene and other fracking chemicals.
3) Water used on a farm evaporates back into the atmosphere and is recycled (on average) every day.

Let's focus on #3. A watermelon might hold onto a gallon or two until I eat it, but the rest transpires out and the watermelon itself returns as well. Agricultural water is a closed loop.

Setting population growth aside, here's the equation for water available in an agricultural system after a century: (1^100 )=1
Now let's pretend there are ZERO leaks of horrifically contaminated fracking waste water. Using your 0.14% figure, after 36 years, we'd have permanently lost 5% of the water if there are an unreasonable 0 leaks. If there are leaks, we'll lose hundreds of times as much (at first, eventually we're capped at 20x5%=100%). That loss means California can't efficiently grow vegetables anymore, nor will much of the midwest, so we have to import them from Mexico (as if they wouldn't lose water as well), trucking them thousands of miles further.

Once the frackers have used up the region, they leave. 0 permanent jobs. Farming is a permanent, if seasonal employment demand. Even if those wells are perfect for 50 years without maintenance, they'll eventually leak and destroy the water table in the region ala West Virginia and Freedom Industries. The fracking company will be gone, assets stripped from and liabilities left to the community they destroyed. Try to think long term, as if your grandkids had grandkids that would be living there if you are an angry old fart, or just grandkids if you were in college.

Taken together, all the wells surveyed from January 2011 to May 2013 consumed 97 billion gallons of water, pumped under high pressure to crack rocks containing oil or natural gas.

Anyone using 'industrial' quantities of water should be charged in such a way as to discourage its use.

Hell yeah!

But not the farmers... they only use about 100-150 billion gallons per day. Says the USGS. But Willie Nelson says they're good people...

In other words, fracking is using up 0.14% of the amount of water used for agricultural irrigation. Most of that in dry parts of the United States (who would have guessed that?!).

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/w...

Shut the fuck up if all you have are not arguments but LIES!

Except that human contributions have only been going one way: increasing over time. Gas due to volcanoes is random.

Oh, also, you're wrong about the magnitude. According to http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php, "all studies to date of global volcanic carbon dioxide emissions indicate that present-day subaerial and submarine volcanoes release less than a percent of the carbon dioxide released currently by human activities."

There is a nonzero chance that your third possibility is correct. But nonzero is all I'm going to give you. Have a look at the amounts of greenhouse gasses put into the atmosphere by a large natural phenomenon, vulcanism

Looks like the numbers are from 2009 or so. Summary: It takes ~3 days of humans' output to equal one year of volcanic greenhouse gas emissions.

The factors that are out of our control contribute a tiny fraction of our total.

People must take precautions to avoid breathing ash. While even wet cotton can help, the use of respirators is recommended because the finest particles can be as small as 10 microns.

While dry ash is not conductive, even a small amount of moisture produces a paste that is conductive enough to cause high voltage flash-overs. Tall pylons with ceramic insulators may manage to stay clean but electrical substations where ash can form piles, are especially vulnerable.

And if insulators accumulate ash after a rain or already have ice on them it's pretty much flash-pow grid down.

BBC did a great two hour docudrama depicting possible effects, Supervolcano [2006] along with a companion program Supervolcano.The Truth About Yellowstone

Beyond the ash fall there are long-term climate concerns. There have been two major eruptions that have affected climate severely in the Northern Hemisphere with a clear historical record, Tambora (1815) and Krakatoa (535AD). I cover these in this recent Slashdot post.

My plan, and I am being pretty annoying about it in the hope that it becomes everyone's plan -- is to fast-track the two-fluid Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor to commercial deployment in North America AS SOON AS IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE, specifically the 1GW unit design with multiple on-site units sharing core salt reprocessing infrastructure -- that is a best-fit for our base load grid supply. These plants would deliver an unprecedented level of safety even if they are modularly constructed and mass-produced, will continue to operate even if rail or roads are damaged, and can store years of fuel on-site.

In short, a best hope for survival under many disaster scenarios, both natural and man-made.

The electrical grid is more of a problem since its points of failure cover a wide area and the vulnerability extends to the transformers in your neighborhood. For the grid I advocate a build-out of buried High Voltage DC conduits to interface between the three major North American interconnects, and to progressively deliver bridge junctions that can route around regional failures.

In short, we should be powering up new base load energy and building cross-country energy pipelines -- in addition to oil pipelines.

Re-tooling the grid will take much more time and capital than the deployment of LFTR but it is no less important. One of the advantages to LFTR is that it need not be sited near a large source of coolant water, so (unlike water reactors) there is NO region of North America that cannot accommodate this technology, and these plants can be built as far away from population centers as desired.

But it cannot and will not happen without your help.

See my letters on energy,
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate

And see the fascinating Thorium Remix 2011 presentation.

Also, here is an excellent overview on HVDC pipelines: Roger W. Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security

People must take precautions to avoid breathing ash. While even wet cotton can help, the use of respirators is recommended because the finest particles can be as small as 10 microns.

While dry ash is not conductive, even a small amount of moisture produces a paste that is conductive enough to cause high voltage flash-overs. Tall pylons with ceramic insulators may manage to stay clean but electrical substations where ash can form piles, are especially vulnerable.

And if insulators accumulate ash after a rain or already have ice on them it's pretty much flash-pow grid down.

BBC did a great two hour docudrama depicting possible effects, Supervolcano [2006] along with a companion program Supervolcano.The Truth About Yellowstone

Beyond the ash fall there are long-term climate concerns. There have been two major eruptions that have affected climate severely in the Northern Hemisphere with a clear historical record, Tambora (1815) and Krakatoa (535AD). I cover these in this recent Slashdot post.

My plan, and I am being pretty annoying about it in the hope that it becomes everyone's plan -- is to fast-track the two-fluid Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor to commercial deployment in North America AS SOON AS IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE, specifically the 1GW unit design with multiple on-site units sharing core salt reprocessing infrastructure -- that is a best-fit for our base load grid supply. These plants would deliver an unprecedented level of safety even if they are modularly constructed and mass-produced, will continue to operate even if rail or roads are damaged, and can store years of fuel on-site.

In short, a best hope for survival under many disaster scenarios, both natural and man-made.

The electrical grid is more of a problem since its points of failure cover a wide area and the vulnerability extends to the transformers in your neighborhood. For the grid I advocate a build-out of buried High Voltage DC conduits to interface between the three major North American interconnects, and to progressively deliver bridge junctions that can route around regional failures.

In short, we should be powering up new base load energy and building cross-country energy pipelines -- in addition to oil pipelines.

Re-tooling the grid will take much more time and capital than the deployment of LFTR but it is no less important. One of the advantages to LFTR is that it need not be sited near a large source of coolant water, so (unlike water reactors) there is NO region of North America that cannot accommodate this technology, and these plants can be built as far away from population centers as desired.

But it cannot and will not happen without your help.

See my letters on energy,
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate

And see the fascinating Thorium Remix 2011 presentation.

Also, here is an excellent overview on HVDC pipelines: Roger W. Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security

I experienced something similar in the UK, other than the time aspect.

I was sitting on a bed, in a flat, back to the wall. Then the wall kind of 'waved' and I was like, what the fuck, the neighbours just pushed the wall.. wait they couldn't do that in that way.

Next day I saw the news of a minor earthquake a couple of hundred miles away - notable earthquakes are rare in the UK.

You probable felt a local earthquake, see:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/mag_vs_int.php

Kilauea discharges between 8,000 and 30,000 metric tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each day. That is a single volcano. Roughly 20 volcanoes are erupting at any given time. That would mean that between 160,000 and 600,000 metric tonnes of CO2 are being put into the atmosphere by volcanoes every single day.

Global emissions of carbon dioxide by people in a recent year totaled over 30 gigatonnes (or 30 Gt), That is roughly 82,000 metric tones per day from humans. That is between one half and one seventh the amount put out by volcanoes. While the GPAC overstates the amount, he is not as wrong as you are.

Sources:
http://www.volcano.si.edu/faq.cfm#q3
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/archive/2007/07_02_15.html
http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/insights/authors/derektaylor/2011/11/11/how-much-carbon-dioxide

Millions of tons of various gas are dumped into the atmosphere daily as they rise from the crust of the Earth.

Once again, we see that slashdot aonymous cowards confuse millions with billions.

Volcanoes emit millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Humans emit billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/archive/2007/07_02_15.html
http://news.discovery.com/earth/weather-extreme-events/volcanoes-co2-people-emissions-climate-110627.htm

Consider Land Subsidence

We've seen in the past that pumping this water out lowers the ground level. No big surprise there (not now, at least). Try and work out what will happen if coastal/off-shore aquifers are pumped instead. One could suppose that some type of "ocean subsidence" might occur, so the ground level of the ocean floor will lower.

This might be a convenience when it comes rising sea levels, but you might also want to consider how the relationship between coastal and off-shore aquifers might change. With a lower ocean floor from subsidence, will coastal aquifers simply start "flowing downhill" to fill in off-shore aquifers, causing additional land subsidence? Will there be saline contamination between the two?

At one time, I'd wager someone penned the words, "I haven't read the paper discussing this, but since Antarctica is way at the bottom, I'm pretty sure it's melting ice has got nothing to do with the Gulf Stream way at the top."

According to this document linked to from your page world production of gold has increased by a factor of almost 7 over the last century, which is a significant increase, especially since as you say, price has not changed really at all (ignoring the large increase in the last five years, the price/ton in 1900 was the same as in 2005). This seems to indicate price is set by the demand side; also it seems to show consumption has increased by a similar factor, so more gold mined means more gold used.

The last few years however show a huge increase in price without any increase in production or usage, which does indicate to me that speculation was driving the price - the recent crash supports this.

First, you may want to dig into Goldsheet’s primary source, the U.S. Geological Survey. I found that more interesting. If you look you can see gold production has been basically constant even as gold prices shot up so I will stand by my point that production has a low impact on the price and price has a low impact on production.

http://minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/

Secondly, you might want to dig into them a bit more. They are not that solid – which is partly the nature of the beast. Getting good numbers are hard.

Goldsheet says that ½ of the gold mined was after 1969 when the starting point is 1900. Another way of putting that is that in the 110 year history half of the gold produced was mined in the last half. (well, third). That is not exactly a compelling case. There is a factoid rattling in the back of my brain that says more than half of the gold in existence today was mined before 1900 but I can’t remember where that is but there is a 2000 year period where a lot of gold was mined.

I though the second article you pointed to was more interesting. It was interesting how the author pulled apart gold mining, recycling, and reserve sales. However, I came away that the author’s impressions was that it was the demand side (i.e. buyers) that determined the price, not the supply side. Or did you get something different?

but a volcano, in a week puts more there then man ever in the past could.

That's not true. According to the USGS:

Human activities, responsible for a projected 35 billion metric tons (gigatons) of CO2 emissions in 2010 (Friedlingstein et al., 2010), release an amount of CO2 that dwarfs the annual CO2 emissions of all the world’s degassing subaerial and submarine volcanoes (Gerlach, 2011).

This reminds me of the arguments over acid rain (and leaded gasoline, and CFCs / ozone depletion, and climate change). In each case, industry bitches and moans about how expensive it is, how it isn't the fault of their industry (i.e. it's natural, it's the volcanos, it's not really bad for you, etc.), but the evidence is strong and so the government acts. People complain about how government is killing jobs, over-regulating, and intruding on their civil rights. In the later analysis, it turns out that the enviro-wackos were right, and the industry FUD was a bunch of crap.

Do you remember acid rain? I sure do. Industry had lots of excuses, the most strongest being how expensive it would make everything. Heres' a document discussing the current status. Bottom line: things are much, much better; prices haven't gone up due to it; large economic benefits.

Here's an important point: environmental regulation of a particular industry can cause pain for that specific industry. However, we (as a country) are much better off, because we live in a better environment (both medically and economically). The industry complains about being repressed, but it's really about making sure the externalities are included in the price of their industry.

No, places I would never expect would be Kansas, Siberia and the middle of the Sahara. If cable television has taught me anything, it's that the sea is out to kill me. If I can smell saltwater in the air, I'm expecting some explosion of deadliness.

who says they have to be marine only? bioinvasive, freshwater jellies have been found:

Hamilton County
Erie County, Ohio
Trenton, Ontario
Hoosier county (aka Laporte), Indiana

Back in the 1960's this was brought up with wastewater wells.

Geologists are not sure if the small quakes prevented a larger one, or lead up to a larger one.

On a somewhat related note, if you want to see why wastewater wells near fault lines are bad, ask Oklahoma with 300+ earthquakes in just a few years.
http://www.usgs.gov/blogs/features/usgs_top_story/man-made-earthquakes/

I'm afraid that I know essentially nothing about what plants crave; but this has 'Table showing concentrations of leachable constituents in ashfall from historic eruptions (all concentrations in mg/kg)'

My assumption would be that, given that ash consists of mineral/glass particles, of varying sizes(but all pretty small), it has excellent surface area, and so provides a fast-enough-to-be-useful (unlike larger rocks and bedrock); but long-lasting-enough that it counts as a soil property (rather than just a sprinkling of Miracle-Gro).

As for which of those components are vital and would otherwise limit plant growth, which are neutral, and which are harmful, I'm afraid you'd need somebody who knows something about plant biology, or gardening.

Obviously, in the short term, the mixture of mechanical suffocation and nontrivial emissions of sulfur compounds that crater the pH, is Not Helpful for crop yields, so you can pretty much write off at least that season, if not longer; but apparently the 'moonscape' appearance wears off pretty quickly.

Puts the caldera well into Montana and Idaho*

[*] - http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs100-03/

whoops, got a tag improperly ended in there and lost some text. Not crazy, I promise

the second link:
http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/impacts/hydrology/state_fd/azwater1.html

Evolutionary paths.

Insects on average are smaller than most mammals. Mammals too come in all sizes.

Analysis of air trapped in amber fossil shows that oxygen ratio in that period was higher, which may have permitted evolutionary path of such giant creatures.
http://minerals.cr.usgs.gov/gips/na/amber.html

Squishy joints? Considering how cause and effect get frequently confused, it seems more likely that the joints may have became "squishy" in order to support the larger size permitted by the oxygen-rich high-metabolism environment, not necessarily actually the cause.

Interesting... See #18 here:
https://geonames.usgs.gov/domestic/faqs.htm

I listened to the NPR piece by Diane Rehm and it is SOOOO horribly biased. She only asks the one not very official spokesperson for fracking loaded questions and then cuts him off and lets the director of GasLand (and sequel) pretty much give a sales pitch on his movie. I'm not saying there aren't environmental consequences from fracking, but when the director of the documentary is saying the EPA, USGS, and other government studies showing the fracking isn't to blame can't be believed, then who DO you believe?

http://www.iogcc.state.ok.us/Websites/iogcc/Images/2009StateRegulatoryStatementsonHydraulic%20Fracturing.pdf
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3489

Now I'm not saying oil and gas extraction can't pollute the water supply. It can and frequently does. But even if there is contamination around fracking sites, it isn't due to the fracking itself, but poor environmental controls in the supporting operation. The key here is not to fight fracking, but to fight to keep all the processes associated with well drilling within the rules of existing environmental regulations.

Blaming fracking for well contamination is equivalent to blaming GM because your gas tank leaks. (Obligatory Slashdot car analogy)

In case you are interested here are three stream guages in the area:

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?06752260

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?06741510

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?06730200

Note the log scale on the discharge. 1 m^3/sec = 35.31 cfs for people with a civilized unit of measurement system.

In case you are interested here are three stream guages in the area:

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?06752260

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?06741510

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?06730200

Note the log scale on the discharge. 1 m^3/sec = 35.31 cfs for people with a civilized unit of measurement system.

In case you are interested here are three stream guages in the area:

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?06752260

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?06741510

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?06730200

Note the log scale on the discharge. 1 m^3/sec = 35.31 cfs for people with a civilized unit of measurement system.

Geologist have though of this too.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/324/5931/1175.full

http://energy.usgs.gov/Miscellaneous/Articles/tabid/98/ID/64/Oil-and-Gas-Assessment-of-Northeastern-Greenland.aspx

The earth is not the center of the universe. It's a smallish planet in the solar system. It's part of the universe. Just like man. Eventually the sun will red giant. If we don't go outside - leave the womb - we're finished. A fruit that died on the vine. Seems like we should be working on that problem now.

And the problem if mankind dies on the vine? Are we that critical to the universe that the universe will suffer if the human race is no longer here?

Of course our existence doesn't matter to the universe, it matters to us. Why not make the best of it??

The earth is about 4.5 billion years old. We've got about 300-500 million years before it becomes uninhabitable for us. So, 90 percent of the megafauna era has passed. Mankind needs to look up now if he wants more time.

It could just as well be proof of their stupidity.

Hold on there, now you're saying they're stupid, instead of saying they're scammers. Is it possible that you simply don't like the concept and are making up reasons that support your feeling?

To directly address your concerns, I'm reading through the extended FAQs.[1]
First off, I have to admit that what I thought I read was Cryonics Institute being based where they are due to low geological risk. However, it seems I read that about Alcor Life Extension Foundation, which is the other non-profit Cryonics preservation service in the US. They detailed their location decision here: [2] Summarizing, it's because of very low risk of natural disaster, availability of major airport facilities, favorable weather (no winter blockages), and low crime. See the link for extended information.

Doing some quick research, it seems that in terms of seismic activity, Michigan is even safer than Arizona.[3,4] You mention geological stability is your territory, so I'll defer to your opinion on that.

Why not the North of Canada or the center of Australia?

I would think the main reasons are: The North of Canada is hard to get to, and frequently inaccessible, which is a problem when time is of the essence. Australia is not populated enough: People from the USA would find it hard to get to, and there may not be enough people in Australia to warrant a Cryonics center there. Australia's laws might also create a hurdle, although I'm not too familiar with that.

As a final note, I'd suggest interested people have a look around through the public information. All financials are public,[5] the cryopreservation methods used are well detailed,[6] and for every person cryopreserved there is a case report available, detailing both the things that went well and the things that need improvement.[7]

Cryonics is a thing. The people involved are intelligent, and are working to give the preserved patients the best chance they can at a future. Cryopreservation seems odd at first glance, raising a lot of concerns that need to be addressed. Luckily, these have indeed been addressed. Have a google through the information available, and perhaps you'll find your view shifting!


[1]
Cryonics: A basic introduction
Cryonics: A basic introduction (Continued)
Cryonics: A basic introduction (Continued 2)
Cryonics: Why don't we?
Cryonics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

[2] Why Scottsdale?
[3] Arizona Seismic Hazard Map
[4] Michigan Seismic Hazard Map
[5] Cryonics Institute Financial Statements
[6] Outline of CI Cryopreservation procedures
[7] The Cryonic Institute's 110th Patient

It could just as well be proof of their stupidity.

Hold on there, now you're saying they're stupid, instead of saying they're scammers. Is it possible that you simply don't like the concept and are making up reasons that support your feeling?

To directly address your concerns, I'm reading through the extended FAQs.[1]
First off, I have to admit that what I thought I read was Cryonics Institute being based where they are due to low geological risk. However, it seems I read that about Alcor Life Extension Foundation, which is the other non-profit Cryonics preservation service in the US. They detailed their location decision here: [2] Summarizing, it's because of very low risk of natural disaster, availability of major airport facilities, favorable weather (no winter blockages), and low crime. See the link for extended information.

Doing some quick research, it seems that in terms of seismic activity, Michigan is even safer than Arizona.[3,4] You mention geological stability is your territory, so I'll defer to your opinion on that.

Why not the North of Canada or the center of Australia?

I would think the main reasons are: The North of Canada is hard to get to, and frequently inaccessible, which is a problem when time is of the essence. Australia is not populated enough: People from the USA would find it hard to get to, and there may not be enough people in Australia to warrant a Cryonics center there. Australia's laws might also create a hurdle, although I'm not too familiar with that.

As a final note, I'd suggest interested people have a look around through the public information. All financials are public,[5] the cryopreservation methods used are well detailed,[6] and for every person cryopreserved there is a case report available, detailing both the things that went well and the things that need improvement.[7]

Cryonics is a thing. The people involved are intelligent, and are working to give the preserved patients the best chance they can at a future. Cryopreservation seems odd at first glance, raising a lot of concerns that need to be addressed. Luckily, these have indeed been addressed. Have a google through the information available, and perhaps you'll find your view shifting!


[1]
Cryonics: A basic introduction
Cryonics: A basic introduction (Continued)
Cryonics: A basic introduction (Continued 2)
Cryonics: Why don't we?
Cryonics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

[2] Why Scottsdale?
[3] Arizona Seismic Hazard Map
[4] Michigan Seismic Hazard Map
[5] Cryonics Institute Financial Statements
[6] Outline of CI Cryopreservation procedures
[7] The Cryonic Institute's 110th Patient