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'Geospeedometer' Confirms Super-eruptions Have Surprisingly Short Fuses (vanderbilt.edu)
Science_afficionado writes: Super-eruptions – you know, those gigantic prehistoric volcanic outbursts that throw 100 times more superheated gas, ash and rock into the atmosphere than run-of-the-mill eruptions like Mt. St. Helens — tend to pop-off within a few hundred years after their underground body of magma reaches a high enough proportion of molten rock and low enough proportion of crystallization to become explosive. That's a much shorter time than geologists had thought. That means if the hot spot under Yellowstone, for example, were to turn explosive, then we would only have couple hundred years to prepare for an eruption that could blanket the entire continent with up to 3,600 cubic miles of ash and rock!
Where did the 3,600 cubic miles of ash and rock figure come from?
The largest 3 previous explosions of the Yellowstone caldera happened 2m, 630k, and 1.3m years ago releasing an estimated 600, 240, and 67 cubic miles of ash and rock. That's a combined 907 cubic miles, a quarter of what the summary suggests could happen. I can't find that number in the article anywhere. 3600 cubic kilometers converts to approximately 863.7 cubic miles which would be more believable. The largest volcanic eruptions ever believed to happen top out at 8,600 cubic kilometers, ~2063 cubic miles.
It was precisely calculated by taking the realistic number and adding the "scare multiplier" to it in order to increase page views.
That flood happened during the end of the last ice age, when a lot of glacial lakes were breaking free in cataclysmic fashion due to insane amounts of melting glaciers that covered all of Canada
Wait, you mean to say that Canada isn't still covered in glaciers?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
As opposed to the wankfest that is climate change denial, possibly? Relax, Jesus will save us...err...anyone got his number, just in case?