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Yellowstone Supervolcano Making Strange Rumblings
Frosty Piss writes "Supervolcanoes can sleep for centuries or millennia before producing incredibly massive eruptions that can drop ash across an entire continent. One of the largest supervolcanoes in the world lies beneath Yellowstone National Park. Significant activity continues beneath the surface. And the activity has been increasing lately, scientists have discovered. In addition, the nearby Teton Range of mountains is somehow getting shorter. The findings, reported this month in the Journal of Journal of Geophysical Research, suggest that a slow and gradual movement of a volcano over time can shape a landscape more than a violent eruption."
"Teton" is french for booby.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
I mean it, I'm scared.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Better not happen before I find out what happens in Lost.
sacrifice a virgin! yeah, theres plenty of those here reading slashdot im sure..
-Dirtbag
I've read about the caldera previously. I wouldn't want to live close. I might live too close anyway (VA).
Last time I visited Yellowstone, I saw some people throwing half eaten burritos and other Mexican food loaded with refried beans into these blow holes, vents and what not. Told them it is dangerous, but no body would listen. People are senseless!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Here I was all smug living in the west thinking I was pretty immune to most natural disasters that you people on the coasts and in tornado alley set yourselves up for...
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I mean it, really hungry.
... and thanks for all the fish!
You need to get your Volcano software from a company that will be there to send you patches and keep your volcano humming along nicely. You can't trust those pesky Linux starups that last only until all the share options are cashed up.
You also need to consider Total Cost of Ownership. That is, beyond the ticket price you need to consider the costs associated with keeping your volcano up to date over the centuries. Independent analysis shows that Microsoft Windows for Volcanos is the best software choice for your volcano.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Judging by all the inflation, pressure and possible eruptions - scientists have concluded that Yellowstone really needs to get laid.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
The Lord Giveth and The Lord Taketh Away.
It's time for Yogi Bear to move out!
That rumbling is actually the burrito I had for lunch!
I am open source, and Linux baby!
Why worry about getting blown to bits by an asteroid when your friendly neighborhood super-volcano can do the job using indigenous materials?
Remember folks, when it comes to wiping out civilizations, think locally!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Anyone see the discovery channel Supervolaco edu-doc-drama show last year, or two years ago. I thought it was really frightening what the yellowstone volcano could do to the planet. It's too bad we are basically powerless to do anything about this massive 'caldera' --- not the linux type.
These scientists are just spewing a bunch of hot air. I think they are pulling it out of their ashes.
FYI, tornadoes are probably the easiest natural disaster to avoid; all you have to do is pay at least slight attention to the weather and have access to a basement or interior room. I've lived in Tornado Alley my entire life, and it's been 15 years since the last time a tornado came close enough to where I live that taking cover was justified.
On the other hand, even though it's very unlikely to happen in my lifetime, a Yellowstone eruption would almost certainly own much of North America. An eruption from that hot spot 10-12 million years ago killed wildlife halfway across the continent.
If the caldera was "formed by a super-eruption more than 600,000 years ago." and if "supervolcanoes can sleep for centuries or millennia" (FTFA) then how much time can we really have left?
How much warning will it likely give before it does erupt? Years, months, or days?
Apparently the script for the newest Michael Bay movie has made its way onto /.
Since the cat is already out of the bag, I can confirm that Oprah has signed on to play the Supervolcano and we are currently working out an agreement with Tom Cruise. Like all Holywood movies, we based everything on a ytmnd clip
[an error occurred while processing this sig]
Per the article, geoscientists only have detailed large-scale measurements for the last 17 years (which would roughtly correspond to the increasing availability of reasonably-priced GPS and comm units I should think). So how do they know that activity is increasing (or decreasing) on any kind of historical scale?
sPh
If I didn't live a stone's throw away from Yellowstone (by which I mean how far Yellowstone is going to throw stones when it goes) I'd be kind of cheering it on in that way I watch hurricanes or tidal waves and think "whoah, that's amazing."
If Yellowstone went, we might expect "some 2,000 million tons of sulphuric acid were ejected into the atmosphere to block out sunlight over much of the planet causing global temperatures to plummet by between 10C and 20C." from here.
WMD's in Jackson's Hole: who would ever have thought? (Cue the Taco Bell jokes...)
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Maybe toss some concrete balls in it. A lot of 'em. In the volcano. just like Indone..... n/m
BIG! I'm no volcanologist but I do know that the ground above this volcano is seriously distended already, and has been for some time. And that this is no ordinary volcano. I suppose the big question is there anything anyone can do to stop it? Is there a patch or anything? Can we just lance the surface and let some of the lava out? But it will be really interesting to see how long they encourage tourists to visit the place!
"The last eruption was 640,000 years ago... so the next is overdue."
That's kind of like saying "it hasn't rained in a couple weeks, so it'll probably rain today". There is a very small chance this thing will erupt in your lifetime. We should be prepared anyway, though.
I wonder if it would be a good idea to discuss ways to relieve some of the pressure through drilling or mini nukes or something.
And I'm split. Should I run around worrying that it might go off, or should I get the popcorn ready for one helluva show?
This is obviously due to human activities. Probably the weight of all the SUV's people are driving there on vacation is compressing the magma resulting in increased volcanic activity. There's no way this is natural.
I love quantum theory.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
The volcano god is angry! Quickly, we must sacrifice all virgins to appease it!
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Has Al Gore been alerted about this? He's our only hope!!!!!!
What can you do about it.
Odds are very good that it will not happen in your life or you children's, or their children's. It may never happen.
This is a great example of an unreasonable fear.
You are far more likely to die in a car accident than from Yellowstone erupting as a super-volcano.
If you want make an effort to live a long happy life the best things you can do are.
Exercise at least 30 minutes a day.
Eat a good diet.
Don't smoke.
Don't drink and drive.
Don't drive late at night.
Oh and put aside money for your retirment and stay out of debt. That is for the happy part a long and happy life.
You should fear a sedentary life style and tobacco a lot more than volcanoes.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
We should change the name to "el Grande Teta!"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But I warn you, there will be casualties. Everyone but the romantic leading man and the vulnerable-but-tough woman will be in real mortal danger. But I know we can do it!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
holy crap!
i don't own emergency pants!
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
The BBC recently estimated the force of a possible Yellowstone eruption in the following colorful terms: "It will explode again with the unimaginable force of a thousand Hiroshima bombs per second... And the eruption will last for days."
I should have been an astronaut.
I beleive you are thinking of Paricutin
And the knowledge that they fear is a weapon to be used against them...
If the Yellowstone Supervolcano blows, the last forecast I heard was that it will be about 100 times as powerful as the Thera/Santorini explosion. The sound alone will probably kill everyone in the contenental US instantly. It's only the rest of the human race that has to suffer and die during the resulting ice age.
Have a nice day. =)
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
If it blows, there's a good chance the park won't be so crowded that year. I could finally go!
You are trying to erupt, cancel or allow?
Get your Unix fortune now!
when he claimed that God is not neutral.
The full journal article is available here.
Do not anger the worm.
If this thing blows in my lifetime I, for one, blame Canada.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
If the volcano is coming alive, perhaps, we can dump some of the heat off by simply doing a lot more geothermal power plants. So far, the ones that they have set up there are wet ones that waste the water there. But if they build it so that it recycles or simply is treated as a dry plant, then we can use it to create giga watts of energy AND escape the heat from below.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Has no one ever seen "The Core"? OK. Dumb question. But the solution lies in this movie. Take some really dumb "scientists" (Al Gore), put them in something resembling a suppository made from a new material called "unobtanium" and have them drop nukes in the core of the earth. Come on!
Stupid popup boxes, always distracting me...
*goes back to reading slashdot*
Bwrrrrrrrrrppp! 'Scuse me, had humans for lunch again.
Table-ized A.I.
I live in Bozeman, MT just North of Yellowstone and I haven't felt anything... And whenever it erupts I hope that, because I live so close, I still won't feel a thing, if you get my drift.
I would be interested to learn exactly how they collected this data. From what I understand, GPS instruments are much less accurate on the vertical (altitude) than they are on the horizontal... the reason is simple geometry with the satellites. It takes days of data collection by top grade survey equipment on a tripod (along with a good churn through the NGS computers to correct for known atmospheric flux) to get millimeter accuracy for one latitude/longitude location.
The magma has gas in solution. Opening the magma chamber is like taking the top off a soda bottle. The gas comes out of solution, the molten rock mixed with gas comes flying out like crazy. This is what I've been told. It makes sense.
OTOH, pumping water into the rocks might help stave off the eruption by cooling the magma chamber. It would also provide geothermal power. I'm not sure if we could pump enough water to make a difference, and if we drill into the rocks and hit the magma chamber... see the previous paragraph.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Horizon- End Day
It's actually a pretty entertaining and somewhat enlightening video. A few end of the world scenarios- earthquake/tsunami, meteor, supervolcano, pandemic, and a supercollider creating a black hole and destroying the world. Yep, that last one if included.
J
"In addition, the nearby Teton Range of mountains is somehow getting shorter." I thought that was just gilligan moving his fish trap further out in the lagoon to catch more fish. Oh, I feel so old...
Aren't the sacrificial virgins supposed to be female? I'm pretty sure most /. virgins are male or some semblance thereof.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
What gave you that impression? Conservatives have no problem blaming Clinton for everything that goes wrong today.
Just wait. The Yellowstone supervolcano and the New Madrid fault are both overdue. Comes 2036, asteroid Apophis hits the Earth, triggering the New Madrid fault which in turn pushes Yellowstone over the edge.
On the upside, we won't have to worry about the 2038 unix/linux clock rollover.
-- Alastair
Normally, won't feed a troll, but this one *admitted* it ;-)
And it's suprisingly pretty good. http://www.myspace.com/musicforendtimes
You are all welcome at my place, 38 S 144 E
http://michaelsmith.id.au
if it takes out microsoft there is hope
This is obviously a job for Superman.
because then you would get a very large geyser that shoots WHITE HOT LAVA into the stratosphere. Which is probably better than having the whole thing blow and destroy North America, but still not nice.
At what point in all of that do we get the plagues of locusts and the rivers turning to blood?
We need as many of them as possible to stand on park itself, providing extra weight to keep the ground down. We need the equivalent of about 20 metric-Oprahs per acre over the long term. This will cause the magma bubble to recede, and bulge somewhere else. The Bush administration is doing research (on cable tv) to see if that bulge will happen in Iran.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
last I read the Yellowstone Super Volcano becomes active every 600000 years or so. Sure it has been about 650000 years since that happened last so we are in for a good one soon...but relative to human time scale this is not likely to be tomorrow...or next month...or anytime in the next several millennia for that matter.
*cough* sensationalist media *cough*
Moments before the big eruption, billions of gallons of water come rushing south from the melting arctic glaciers and cool the volcano.
Global warming saves the day!!!
Thanks Al
What? ®
Without sophisticated equipment simple observation indicates recent geologic change. The Southern fingers of Lake Yellowstone are flooding their banks and drowning trees as the entire Southern flank is tilting down while the bulge in the center of the lake is pushing upward. I have a favorite off trail place down there where I take a cup and a tea bag. Really cool... Er uh, HOT.
When Old Faithful stops faithfully erupting every 65-92 minutes on average, the I'll be scared...
What you need is more pressure. Put the Rockies on top of it to keep the bugger down!
Wasn't there something about the lava being particularly explosive on account of having a lot of gas mixed in. And, I don't think a nuke is a good thing to be setting off there. Kind of like shaking your coke bottle before you open it.
640,000 years ought to be enough for everybody.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm
My other SIG is a Sauer.
Yes, but isn't the volcano goddess Pele female? I think she'd probably have more fun with male virgins.
Pele is the volcano goddess, get it right. Sheesh. Since she often appears as a beautiful young woman, there should be lots of /. readers volunteering to be virgin sacrifices. That's probably the only way the most /. readers will ever get lucky. Of course, they're in trouble if Pele prefers quality over quantity.
I mean it, really dronk.
The Yellowstone Caldera is in Wyoming. That's the state that also produced Dick Cheney and sent him to Congress.
Just more evidence that Cheney is the devil.
--
make install -not war
...and smile.
Maybe this is where they hid the weapons of mass destruction
If it solves global warming then the loss of the USA is a cheap price to pay.
No sig today...
that they have that name?
Clear, Dark Skies
A 300foot wave heading for America at 500mph? Life could be interesting...
i dal.wave/index.html
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/08/29/t
No sig today...
Because it's a cycle, duh!
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
If you had a Nuke and you either 1) detonated it above ground or 2) dug hole and buried it.
Would it/Could it cause the caldera to explode?
ohshit!
Good God! A casual look at the Snake River Valley in Jackson Hole shows that there are many terraces - former valley floors that have risen due toregional uplift. Almost any popular picture of the Grand Teton with the Snake River in the foreground shows them. Nothing new here folks. Geomorphologists have observed them forever. The main fault that controls the Teton topography is still a reverse fault. It is certainly not offsetting in the wrong direction! The Yellowstone region is underlain by a well described hotspot which adds a dynamic element to the topography.
an ill wind that blows no good
The Discovery Channel's website has a pretty neat and informative Flash presentation on the Yellowstone hotspot.
If you're dumb, surround yourself with smart people. If you're smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree
It is normal for volcanoes to move in this way. But this tells how the magma is actually moving in the magma chamber beneath the surface. But there also appears to be some magma buildup in the magma chamber, that can be seen by the fact that the crust is rising upwards over a long period, but the movement up is 4mm a year. That is not a lot, but over a long period of time, it adds up. It doesn't mean that the volcano is going to erupt today, tomorrow or even this year since the magma might just build up for short period of time until it starts to drop. It is quite impossible to tell in the long term when a volcano is going to erupt. The long terms signs can tell when a volcano is ready to erupt, but the only real sign that I know of about when volcano is ready to erupt is the appearance of harmonic tremors, along with more intense earthquake activate and surface change due to the magma being higher up in the crust, heating up the groundwater, creating new hot springs , mud pits etc.
It is save to say that I don't expect the Yellowstone volcano to erupt in my live time.
we're all gonna die!
(Those of us living in the US, anyway. The rest of us will just have to stock up on pop corn and fight for a good spot in front of the TV...)
You'll also need at least Samuel L. Jackson and Chuck Norris.
I hate to be the Religious one in the crowd, but the Bible does make reference to a man who had a vision that in the last days there would fall "hail, mingled with fire", "sun/sky dark as ash". Pretty good description for someone unfamiliar with a super volcano....
Coincidence? One may wonder...
"It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
We find a way to induce global cooling. A glacier a mile or so thick sitting atop Yellowstone ought to be enough to contain the blast, don't you think?
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
Don't forget to add bug-eyed world leaders with nukes. to that list. I'd much rather die by way of giant volcano, meteor, or Vogon construction project than because some a handful of rich crybabies can't leave each other alone.
It'll probably be the end of USA as we know it.
"Sein" is the french for breast, teton is more or less the breast point.
OTOH in this case it might be a reference to an indian tribe : http://www.bartleby.com/61/98/T0129800.html
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Quit your bickering, you fools. I have already taken my delorean with flux capacitor into the future and let me assure you that McDonalds is not going to let a volcano blow up in McYellowstone McPark.
music lover since 1969
Perhaps now is the time where I should buy my mother in law that trip to see Old Faithful...
I grew up a few hours away from Yellowstone (Bozeman, MT). I've since moved, but on my last visit which would have been somtime around the sumer 1998, it was obvious that activity was picking up. Several geysers with historically low activity have been going off more frequently.
...the outflow from Chuck Norris's toilet flows directly under Yellowstone - which is why we're in this mess in the first place.
he'll devastate whole ecosystems...
aka tragedy of the commons. ie if no one owns whats being used then everyone has an incentive to take as much as possible without any care for the long term. For example farming vs hunting, we have no shortage of cows but lots of animals are hunted to extintion on common land.
That sounds like an address in Utah.
Where else are there addresses as simple as the cartesian coordinate system?
(Maybe other Mormon-settled western places?)
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Which one has a higher probability of ruining your whole day?
ok, and what if the wind was blowing east that day, out to sea? why has no one thought to consider that? yes it would have to be a somewhat strong wind, but if a large amount (or as small as 5%)of the ash blew into the ocean, the long term effects would be a wee bit worse than "oh noes our land is bad! now how can we ford the river!?"
oh marmalade.
have you ever wonder if this thing broke lose? practically will be some thing decent to see on tv. Now it might be classified like act of terrorist act but no one to blame. :) ........ Say it was mother nature contribution to global warming and half of usa under ash. But if happen it will happen and no word or lie will change that. But have the pop corn ready same like happen to the atlantians of the menos civilization on Grete. Sit and see the fireworks go and more if it is on a 4th july.