To mention a few things in the article about the scariest one IMO, Yellowstone's supervolcano, in case you are too lazy to read.

-Yes. It is real.
-"Only a handful exist in the world but when one erupts the explosion will be heard around the globe. The sky will darken, black acid rain will fall, and the Earth will be plunged into the equivalent of a nuclear winter. It could push humanity to the brink of extinction."
-This volcano is crater shaped called "calderas" and are filled with hot magma.
-A huge bulge under Yellowstone has grown 100 feet from the lake floor and is 2000 feet long and can explode at any time.
-This volcano has been on a regular eruption cycle of 600,000 years. It's been 640,000 years since the last eruption. Way overdue.
-Magma would be flung 50 kilometres into the atmosphere. , lava flows and the sheer explosive force of the eruption. Within a thousand kilometres virtually all life would be killed by falling ash
-One thousand cubic kilometres of lava would pour out of the volcano, enough to coat the whole of the USA with a layer 5 inches thick.
-The eruption would be the loudest noise heard by man in 75000 years.
-America's Midwest Breadbasket of the World would be completely gone.
-You heard about them closing parts of Yellowstone because the ground was getting too hot? Well, the steam pressure is apparently building again, which means steam is working its way up through cracks and vents, making a continuous pathway for pressure release to be established in the magma chamber. If that happens, the pressure in the magma chamber will continue to drop until it reaches a critical stage when the superheated water within the magma explodes. This may trick people because they will see the steam go away and think the problem has fixed itself, until BAM it explodes and everyone around there dies.
So if you hear about more steam vents appearing in Yellowstone, and you live somewhat close to it, I'd get the fuck outa there if I were you.

___________________
The time flies. The time flies feed on rotting clocks.

easy... just send a team of 8 miners, 2 astronauts to fly up a spaceship built in 2 weeks, drill a hole to the center of the astroid, and then blow it up while sacrificing the main character who doesn't make it back on time while Aerosmith music plays...

aka, "armaggedon"


don't know how to solve the other problems yet... they haven't made movies about them yet

Crazyness. The most savage being the supervolcano. WTF is that thing Its like a giant reset button. Although 600,000 year cycle is pretty insane. Being 40,000 years overdue seems like alot, but not so much when compaired to 600,000. Hopefully I wont have to hear that thing while im still alive, Talk about some serious bass.

ON a side note what was so loud 75000 years ago?

quote:

Originally posted by kewlness don't know how to solve the other problems yet... they haven't made movies about them yet

rofl, that's such a great line, i'm gonna use it all the time now...

"i can't solve that multivariable calc problem, they haven't made a movie about it yet!"

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quote:

ON a side note what was so loud 75000 years ago?

The last supervolcano to erupt was Toba in Sumatra 74,000 years ago.

^that, more than likely

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If you choose to pull the trigger - should your drama prove sincere - do it somewhere far away from here.

Thats what i was thinking but i couldnt find it anywhere.

although I found this chart

It should be noted that the "Online Journal" webpage seems fairly fanatical. Just read their homepage and you'll see for yourself.

I saw that article around the time it was posted, and yet, even at the time of its posting, I could find NO other stories on the web of closings in Yellowstone due to high ground temperatures.

Given that this thing has a cycle of roughly 600,000 years, and that it seems to be in a waning cycle, I'd say the odds of it exploding in our lifetimes, even in the next 1,000 years, are incredibly small.

And I'm no geologist, but how does soil, of all things, reach temperatures of 200 F? Thats hotter than a pan frying an egg. Its dirt, I can't imagine that happening. Even if it did, you have to understand this is an area that shoots water out of the ground hundreds of feet into the air regularly, has bubbling mud pits, hot springs, and other absurd acts of geology. I wouldn't consider the occasional ground-heating too out of the norm.

I also found that Yellowstone has its own little online newspaper, which is updated several times daily. Looking through I can find NO reports of closures due to ground heating. There is a story about the buldge under the lake, which they attribute to a pocket of steam or gas, which is not uncommon and has happened in the past. You can also read that at the time, there were many wildfires burning throughout the park, and many areas were closed due to them. Maybe this is what they were talking about? And the news articles are not shy of addressing the Caldera, just read around and you'll find it talking about it often.

You'll also notice through a quick look of the USGS' website that earthquakes are quite common around the area, and have been so since we began recording them some 120 odd years ago. The article makes it sound as if they were a rare occurance - quite the contrary.

I wouldnt let the Yellowstone thing spook you. You've got to realize how large that Caldera is... when its getting ready to blow, the signs are going to become blaitantly obvious. It wont suddenly one day start to go, geology works much much slower than that.

Even if it did explode, its not the end of the world. Many would indeed die, and there would be some tough times, but they would not last more than a few years. Theres a 2 day warning from when the thing starts to empty its steam, to when it explodes. When it does, it will probably indeed cloud up the sky and cause massive plant deaths across much of the northern hemisphere. But within 2 years the sun would be back shining again. Volcanic ash also helps make for some of the most fertile soil in the world. Why do you think that major cities throughout civilization have been founded under threatning volcanos? And why have people kept coming back again and again after they explode and destroy everything? Just read on how fast the area surrounding Mt. Saint Hellens grew back, and how it came back 10 fold.

Sadly, this falls under the typical human pattern of impending doom at every turn. All of these gobal hazards we've come to understand in the last century; meteors, nuclear weapons, global warming, global cooling, overpopulation, deadly viruses, aliens, supervolcanos, etc, have been ranted and raved upon that the end at their hand was impending. It's common for things that are only recently discovered to become the new buzz thing for our impending doom. I dont think yellowstone was common knowledge till that History channel documentary a couple years back. So dont start writing that will just yet

Face it, your gonna die some day, somehow. On the list of things to knock you off, I'd rank this one pretty far down.

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NEW MIX [Feb/March 2008]

Last edited by nrjizer on Nov-04-2003 at 08:17

quote:

Originally posted by Trazedict To mention a few things in the article about the scariest one IMO, Yellowstone's supervolcano, in case you are too lazy to read. -Yes. It is real. -"Only a handful exist in the world but when one erupts the explosion will be heard around the globe. The sky will darken, black acid rain will fall, and the Earth will be plunged into the equivalent of a nuclear winter. It could push humanity to the brink of extinction." -This volcano is crater shaped called "calderas" and are filled with hot magma. -A huge bulge under Yellowstone has grown 100 feet from the lake floor and is 2000 feet long and can explode at any time. -This volcano has been on a regular eruption cycle of 600,000 years. It's been 640,000 years since the last eruption. Way overdue. -Magma would be flung 50 kilometres into the atmosphere. , lava flows and the sheer explosive force of the eruption. Within a thousand kilometres virtually all life would be killed by falling ash -One thousand cubic kilometres of lava would pour out of the volcano, enough to coat the whole of the USA with a layer 5 inches thick. -The eruption would be the loudest noise heard by man in 75000 years. -America's Midwest Breadbasket of the World would be completely gone. -You heard about them closing parts of Yellowstone because the ground was getting too hot? Well, the steam pressure is apparently building again, which means steam is working its way up through cracks and vents, making a continuous pathway for pressure release to be established in the magma chamber. If that happens, the pressure in the magma chamber will continue to drop until it reaches a critical stage when the superheated water within the magma explodes. This may trick people because they will see the steam go away and think the problem has fixed itself, until BAM it explodes and everyone around there dies. So if you hear about more steam vents appearing in Yellowstone, and you live somewhat close to it, I'd get the fuck outa there if I were you.

Yellowstone is perhaps the most beautiful and amazing place on Earth, and I swear it's like being inside Disney's "Fantasia." I hope to go back soon before the joint blows up again and we all die.

Here's my fave pics that I took there:

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?...1345581&size=lg

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?...1370588&size=lg

I have not updated my photo.net in forever so sorry about that, but I'll put some up of the chisos mountains soon.

Some pics courtesy of google:






Old Faithful Inn (next to old faithful gyser) was built in 1904 entirely of logs and stone.












I stayed here a few years back with my family, and actually had the honor of raising one of the flags at the very top. I believe it was the Wyoming flag, and I put it up backwards. I had to take it down and reverse it hehe. It's something I will never forget.

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Last edited by DaveSZ on Nov-04-2003 at 09:20

-I forgot to mention that I (and dozens of other people) also witnessed a large bison fall through the thin ground into a geothermal pool of scalding water below. He was scalded alive. I don't have pics because I was so shocked I forgot about taking pics. One of the park rangers had told us earlier that they had never seen a bison fall into a thermal pool before and that they knew how to avoid them. I guess that was a rare site that we all witnessed.

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Yogi to the rescue!!

quote:

The volcano is so huge that when it does blow all life will be extinguished within a 300-mile radius, leaving vast swathes of the US devastated.

300 sqr miles of the US of A gone in an instant