Scientists find missing link in Yellowstone plumbing: This giant volcano is very much alive.

"Florida Man" (that's me) survives unscathed.

Maybe tomorrow, maybe not for thousands of years. But it's overdue now, and it will eventually happen. Sooner rather than later, likely.

history. It spewed out so much ash and other stuff into the atmosphere that there was no summer in 1815... The sun could not penetrate the volcanic cover.

By all accounts, Yellowstone makes Tambora look like a pipsqueak... It might be preferable to be in the immediate kill zone, because when Yellowstone goes, there won't be any place on Earth uaffected.

Now that I've given everyone food for nightmares, I'm off to bed... No sense in worrying about things that might not happen in my life time or my 10x great-grand children's life times and have no control over anyway.

there were articles about a Russian scientist recommending the Russians target Yellowstone
with a nuke should war break out between us. This theory was that the nuke explosion could open the magma chamber starting an eruption.

hemisphere?

He's a few beakers short of a chemistry set or, as my son says, a few bazingas short of a Sheldon...

(it isn't Mt St. Helens) but I can't remember which one.

Mt. Rainier, Glacier Peak and Mt. Baker in Washington, Mt. Hood in Oregon, and Lassen Peak in California.

to go. Steam plumes all the time. Rainier would be the most devastating because of its proximity to populated valleys and rivers. (also has one of the largest glacial systems in the world) Lets see.....there is Rainier, Adams, Hood, St. Helens, Three Sisters, Shasta, Lassen Pk., Whitney, and Glacier Peak (which also seems to have a little activity.

None of these come close to comparing with Yellowstone which would be devastating to the whole planet.

The reason I mentioned it is I was wondering if Yellowstone blew of there would be some kind of chain event setting off other volcanoes.

Personally I think since they don't believe in global warming we should sacrifice Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz by throwing them down the pit and see if that calms it down.

We are supposed to make an offering .. not dump garbage

There are so many things I could say about that, but I'm not because it would be an automatic hide.

Of course, we'll all starve due to no crops being able to grow, but at least we'll get some folks in that know how government is supposed to work for solving problems.

Martial law indefinitely, literally concerned were our food, energy, and housing is coming from

Dick (dick) Cheney would feel right at home

Good luck growing wheat, corn and soy beans under a meter of corrosive, stifling ash.

I did a brief search to see if drilling could help relieve the pressure here and the responses were not only no but hell no, it would be like deploying a flea to stop an elephant.

Even with the asteroid threat there are a number of mitigation strategies available, given enough lead time.

So now as you drift off to sleep at night you can add a catastrophic volcanic eruption in your (virtual) back yard to the things that could kill you and your children instantly at any time along with asteroid/comet impact, terrorist attack, and North Korean nukes...

live life while you're alive.

It doesn't take a volcano or nukes to kill you and/or loved ones in a heartbeat. It could be as simple as not waking up after an overnight heart attack (any age), a car moves a few feet over and hits you head-on, an aneurism, a fall in the shower...

I don't worry about any of the more existential threats to life because any of the others I listed is far more likely and honestly, as much as nobody likes to think about it: We All Die. Some at 6 hours old, some at 6 days, 6 years, 26, 46, 66, 86. The only question is when -- as there is no escaping it.

Nothing new, obviously. But few people stop and actually think that we begin dying the moment we are born.

Which I will be in 2 weeks. So thanks!

You know what album that's on right?

The greatest album ever pressed to vinyl. DSOTM.

The one scientist screaming, "I know what a harmonic tremor means!!!"

Earth thrown into a new ice age as volcanic ash kills millions who breathe it in causing them to drown in liquid concrete.

Everyone else having to evacuate to Mexico.

a "super Paricutin" rises up out of another corn field...

Ashfall by Mike Mullin

It's a pretty interesting dystopian novel and shows how drastic a Yellowstone eruption could be.
It's about a 15 year old boy in Iowa who is alone for the weekend while his parents visit relatives when Yellowstone erupts.
He must make a terrifying journey across the devastated, freezing landscape to try and get to his parents.

It was well researched so the how the world is effected is based on science.


http://www.amazon.com/Ashfall-Trilogy-Mike-Mullin/dp/1933718749

I live right on top of it so when it goes, I won't have to watch much. From all the geologists I know, the basic idea is that the entire planet will become uninhabitable for most organisms who require air and moderate temperatures above deep freeze.

I always suspected there was a larger pool of magma down below... it is one of the major "hot spots" on the planet. Hawaii being one of them. If you look at the Hawaiian Island chain, they are just magma that has punched up through the ocean floor and up above the ocean surface at intervals. It's the same with Yellowstone only under a continental plate. If you look at the Snake River Plain in southern Idaho you can see that it looks smooth yet surrounded by mountains. That's because the "hot spot" currently under Yellowstone oozed magma in many places-there are visible cinder-cones rising up from the floor of the SRP that are roughly 10 million years apart in age... all created by the same "plumbing" network, the Menan Buttes near Idaho Falls being two of the most recent. The Idaho Batholith is probably from the same network too... maybe (my speculation).

Most folks who live here figure heading toward the caldera will be the best way to go since you can't run far enough fast enough to survive it when it does blow.

The year without a summer was 1816, after the Tambora volcano erupted in 1815, in what is now Indonesia. Read up on the "year without a summer". Europe was especially hard hit with civil unrest.

your post.

https://

It will cut down on bear attacks in Yellowstone.

That will be one of the FIRST lists they try to preserve for when they rebuild society.

I read about this briefly once, several years ago and found it fairly disturbing. The eruptions in the future - their size, and when they will (or may) take place, to my knowledge, cannot yet be known. So while this is an interesting mixture of fascinating and frightening, I don't think I'm going to lose any sleep over it. I'm far more concerned about climate change and the effect it is already having on the world. Every year it seems, the weather is showing us something different, something unexpected, something new (at least, to the present generations living with it). It is a strange time to be living in - to be aware of all of these things happening, but not really on their overall effect, what will happen, or when.

I guess it's all part of the mystery of being human. There's just so much we don't know and can't predict - but this is the way I'd prefer it. Ultimate knowledge, or the knowledge of our own fate, the when and how... that would suck. Me, I prefer to be endlessly clueless and fascinated by the world around me - and to leave behind as much kindness and good feeling as I can.

I think that humanity will continue on, in one form or another, for time beyond our imagining, in the grand scheme of things, in the ocean of space and time, each one of these events is much smaller than it seems when considered on the surface.

The volcano will erupt sooner or later, but sooner or later, humanity will also be colonizing other planets. The future is unknown, but there is as much light as darkness, as much that is beautiful as there is that is frightening.

In any event, I think I'll keep on keeping on.

Florida survives.



Only kidding, Florida. The sea will probably get you first.

blew. Scientist showed how it killed off humans worldwide and the bottleneck of just a few women who then had children. We are all related to those few humans - 500,000 k +/- worldwide - who survived.

The entire US would be covered in ash. Even Florida

I can picture some asshole capitalist trying to clean up on the clean up.

transportation and other essentials.

Of course the states nearest the eruption would be devastated, and I have no doubt it would cause an economic depression, but that would be the least of our problems

everywhere would be affected

It would be a doomsday event

I don't want to survive that explosion. No thank you.

get the bison out.

Good luck with the food supply.

These eruptions occur, on average, every 700,000 years. We have 60,000 years to evacuate the state of South Dakota.

Run away!

Legislation to allow mining and timber companies to extract as much as they can as quickly as they can while there is still time.