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Visitors to Yellowstone National Park in the north-western United States know not to be careless about the bears that roam its pines or the many hissing and sizzling geysers that dot its magnificent landscape. Few ever worry about being blown into space, though.
Startling new geological data published in the journal Science suggests that it might be a good idea for most of us – and certainly those living in the region – to be aware that there is more to Yellowstone than grand vistas and abundant wildlife. The hot springs are a clue to what lies beneath: seething layers of molten magma, super-heated gases and hydrothermal liquids.
“Our best evidence is that the crustal magma chamber is filling with molten rock,” Professor Smith explained. “But we have no idea how long this process goes on before there either is an eruption or the inflow of molten rock stops and the caldera deflates again.” In other words, something is afoot, but no techniques exist to forecast what comes next. The prediction is easier for single-channel, cone volcanoes. At a caldera such as Yellowstone, the magma could suddenly blow through at any number of locations. “We use the term ‘restless’ to describe these systems.”
And what if the ground at Yellowstone does not start to go down? Well, these calderas, he admits, “occasionally they burp”. Let’s hope the park’s belly-ache resolves itself – such a “burp” would shake half of the planet.
That’s OK. Since the studies come from scientists, half of America won’t even glance up from watching “reality” TV.
Oh NO!!! Get out your tinfoil hat!! If this happens the whole of humanity will be in a world of shit. The last things we’ll need to be worried about is global warming or whether that idiot Clinton gets into the White house again!
It’s ok……I saw this happen in a Sci-Fi movie a couple years ago and we survived very nicely…..so don’t worry….just go shopping!!! 🙂
Not sure why this is “startling new geological data”. Scientists have known of the Yellowstone Caldara and its implications for YEARS.
time to build a fence around it to keep the illegal magma out.
New data? Maybe *some* is new, but I saw a documentary on this some years ago.
#4: time to build a fence around it to keep the illegal magma out.
Illegal? It’s American magma!
Anyway, according to New Scientist, it’s not necessarily about to blow. It already did “burp” once, 642,000 years ago, and covered half of the US with “tens of centimetres” of ash. Get your brooms ready, just in case.
#3 – click the link, read the article.
Ed’s right. This has been known and talked about for years, especially in the “Right Wing Survivalist/Militia” (LOL) culture. There’s several maps around showing a string of craters wandering off sort of westerly; some show only a half dozen, others show nearly 3 dozen.
I never cross checked exactly how many date back to the dinosaurs, but there’s a bunch. The danger exists, but is not pressing at this moment.
There’s another caldera, Long Valley, sort of north east of Bakersfield that would cut off water to LA and mess up a bunch of desert, no damage to anything important.
@#5
I believe the PC term would be “Undocumented Magma”
Yes, an old yet important story. Some estimate a magma bubble under Yellowstone Lake to have grown to 100 feet above the lake floor. The good news will be if this blows after Dick Cheney retires back to his Wyoming digs near Jackson.
So when are you Al Gore-esqe fuit cakes gonna start your line of- how man is responsible, must stop SUVs, need more taxes, blah blah blah crap?
#11. How did you slip by the StupidFilter? I think some tweaking is in order.
OMFG! Run for your lives!
My oh my, I never knew how much politics there was in a geologic story, because this story is about stone (molten and solid) does not mean the data is forever un-changing, as to the rather over the top movie we all love a worst case scenario yet a small event can have large effects. But it would give those to the east some chance to use all that plastic sheeting and duct tape you have stock piled.
#11 – Mark, “100 feet /above/ the lake floor”?
Rich city people (not just Cheney) are buying up a lot of that land and the country people who used to live there are being shoved out of the country. Taxes are going up, prices in the stores are going up, the children of the rich and powerful are getting away with murder, and so on.
I hope it blows soon. That would be cool.
where do all these inverse chicken littles come from. Relax there is not even a script on Bruce willis’s desk yet, chill. Besides pumice makes a wonderful exfoliant.
What some may not know, is that this is a SUPER Volcano…
Its about 50 miles wide at the mouth.
the Flows tend to go across Southern idaho.
The average time on these eruptions is 30,000-50,000 years(?) And we passed the 30,000 year mark Long ago.
NOW if you know much about S. Idaho, you know that MOST of it is Volcanic ROCK. And this stretches from Yellow stone to the West to the Upswing of the snake river.
I remember seeing this on Discovery years back. If it were to go all of a sudden it could do some serious damage.
Not really worried though. It has till Dec. 21 2012 to kill us…..
It’s important we chop down the national forests in the vicinity, and build pressure relief valves on open clear-cut land. OK, maybe the science isn’t 100% decided, but we can’t afford to take the chance.
#21. Wouldnt it be great if we could devise a way to harness the energy from this caldera, it would probably solve all of our energy concerns.
I remember when only nerd’s (and a few geek’s) knew about this. Mom had a big section on this when we studied plates and abduction and earthquakes.
Then I noticed it has made it into a few disaster movies(catagory 10 to name one), but the women from the old show NYPD saved us….or at least MOST of us. 🙂
http://www.solcomhouse.com/yellowstone.htm
Lets put this in perspective…
THIS thing is about 10+ times LARGER then the Volcano in Hawaii..
Its estimated to explode 6000 times MORE Ash into the air then saint helens. AND this is a LAVA volcano like in Hawaii..
“Super explosions, about 1,000 times more material erupted than Mt. St. Helens in 1980, happen about every 600,000 years at Yellowstone,” Wicks says. “And it’s been about 620,000 years since the last super explosive eruption there.”
Opps my numbers are off…
The main concern comes in 2 places.. IF/when it happens, look at the 2 Major rivers in the area. The Snake/columbia river and the Mississippi will be Filled with Ash.
http://tinyurl.com/26doft
http://tinyurl.com/yqahr8
Could the undocumented magma be from CHINA?
Perhaps a few thousand geothermal installations spread around the area would cool the top layers a little bit over a few decades. And we’d have all that energy!
Okay, I don’t know what we’d do with it all, aluminum refining maybe?
This is a good argument for increasing geothermal energy exploitation of the earth. The more heat we tapped from the earth’s crust, the cooler and more stable it will become. Though I’m sure that some purist fanatic will say that reducing the heat of the earth’s crust is somehow a bad thing for nature. While it’s always a good thing for mankind, if it reduces catastrophic geological events. But yeah, you can be certain that some obscure little plant or microbe depends on earthquakes and eruptions. So farming the earth subsurface heat will get a bad rap, on some stupid pro-nature channel. One that’s probably funded by big oil, that wants to prevent Geothermal wells from competing with their product. Places like Yellowstone could easily be tapped for its excess heat. Thus preventing a future destructive event. And still leave it pristene enough for the tourist trade. Just like how NIagra Falls has been developed to produce hydroelectic power. Very few ever notice (or know) that the falls aren’t as powerful as they once were. But some purist would grouse about drilling too close to (read “anywhere near”) the geyser field.
I spent 3 summers of my youth working in the park. At the time, I was pursuing a degree in Geology. What better place to see Geology first hand than Yellowstone? That being said, allow me to make a few observations.
First off, the land beneath Yellowstone is in a conastant state of shift, due to the geological forces underneath. As a result, for instance, Old Faithful has lost it’s clock and goes off within a timeframe, not the every hour on the hour that most people think of from those old Warner Brothers cartoons. Other results are that former geysers that were just as “faithful” have grown dormant and silent, while other vents have formed elsewhere.
Second, and most importantly, when scientists that are studying this phenominon are discussing “soon”, they are talking in terms of geological time. To them, soon includes the years 2007-12,007 AD. Chances are that none of our great great great great grandchildren are going to be around when this goes burp.
Remember, the “Big One” in California was supposed to have already occured back some 15-20 years ago, according to the geological time-table. As I write this, it hasn’t happened quite yet. Geologists know for absolute certainty that it will eventually happen, just not the exact day.
Try to keep things in perspective before believing all these dire warnings. In fact, I would be surprised if any rational Geologists would tell anyone to cancel their trips to Yellowstone over the fear of it going boom.
Why is it all of a sudden so en vogue to create these huge, insurmountable boogiemen and fears in things that we neither have any control over, nor any realistic chance of falling victim to?
this is not NEW (athough I guess if all you watch is Fox News & lying affiliates, it might be)…
The geological record shows that, like clockwork, approx every 640,000 years the yellowstone caldera goes BA-BOOOOM!!… and we’re 2,000 years overdue… sure 2K years isnt much geologically speaking – but just look at current data (aka the gradual rise of the land over the caldera, swelling like a huge blister just waiting for the most inopportune moment to burst and spew its love everywhere)…
Wind patterns will likely blow the majority of the ash east, as current models suggest… so it might not be a bad idea to visit/move to the west coast – incase it does blow soon & turn you into Mr. Crispy.
And tinfoil? bah that shit will just melt – go get some flame-retardant fire-fighter gear
#29, Eric,
Thank you for the insight.
Why is it all of a sudden so en vogue to create these huge, insurmountable boogiemen and fears in things that we neither have any control over, nor any realistic chance of falling victim to?
While that is a reasonable question, I have two answers.
It is always better to be prepared. We can’t control a Hurricane, but knowing it is coming allows us to take evasive action.
People fall victim to natural disasters all the time. A very good example would be the Great Tsunami of 2004. No one there thought they had much chance of dying either.
No, we should not allow our lives to be run by fear (as I think you meant). To be aware and respond intelligently is always wise. Such as building your home on a fault line or repairing your antenna during a lighting storm might be stupid but that does not mean you can’t build a home or repair your antenna ever.