Is Yellowstone Waking Up?

[MA-Caver]

Quakes shake loose fears about Yellowstone volcano

By MEAD GRUVER, Associated Press Writer Mead Gruver, Associated Press Writer – Sat Jan 10, 10:44 am ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090110/ap_on_sc/yellowstone_volcano_hysteria


CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Run for your lives ... Yellowstone's going to explode!
Hundreds of small earthquakes at Yellowstone National Park in recent weeks have been an unsettling reminder for some people that underneath the park's famous geysers and majestic scenery lurks one of the world's biggest volcanoes.
In the ancient past, the volcano has erupted 1,000 times more powerfully than the 1980 blast at Mount St. Helens, hurling ash as far away as Louisiana. No eruption that big has occurred while humans have walked the earth, however, and geologists say even a minor lava flow is extremely unlikely any time soon.
Some observers are nonetheless warning of imminent catastrophe.
"To those of us who have been following these events, we know that something is brewing, especially considering that Yellowstone is over 40,000 years overdue for a major eruption," warned a posting on the online disaster forum Armageddononline.org.
Another Web site contained a page entitled "Yellowstone Warning" that encouraged "everyone to leave Yellowstone National Park for 100 miles around the volcano caldera because of the danger in poisonous gasses that can escape from the hundreds of recent earthquakes."


<snip> Park geologist Hank Heasler said the odds of a cataclysmic eruption at Yellowstone any time soon are astonishingly remote — about the same as a large meteorite hitting the Earth. The last such eruption occurred 640,000 years ago. The last eruption of any kind at Yellowstone was a much smaller lava flow about 70,000 years ago.
"Statistically, it would be surprising to see an eruption the next hundred years," Lowenstern said.
Much more likely, he said, would be a hydrothermal explosion in which underground water encounters a hot spot and blasts through the surface. Small hydrothermal explosions producing craters a few feet wide occur in Yellowstone perhaps once or twice a year. Large hydrothermal explosions leaving craters the size of a football field occur every 200 years or so, according to a 2007 paper co-authored by Heasler, Lowenstern and others.

One group says yes another says nay... who can tell...?
It'd be an awful disaster either way. The effects from a massive eruption could affect all of the U.S. in terms of food production and health concerns. My step-mother tells me that she smelled the ash from Mt. St. Helens when it blew-up, she caught the odor roughly two days after the eruption... this was way down in Tennessee. There was no fall out but still.

Hopefully the nay-sayers are right that it may be another 100 to 1000 years before another eruption.

 

[arnisador]

Sounds like concern is premature, but one never knows with volcanoes!

 

[Makalakumu]

Yellowstone is an active volcanic region. It's fun to walk through and see all of the cool far out sights, but people don't really get it. There are all kinds of different eruptions that can happen at Yellowstone that have nothing to do with a supervolcanic eruption. Heck, you could get massive steam eruptions and even the building of small cinder cones. If the big one were about to happen, I'd expect to see that first....but who knows with Mother Nature. She can surprise the hell out of you.

 

[Xue Sheng]

First, Yellowstone never went to sleep, it is just in a building phase since it's last eruption.

The ash from something like a Yellowstone eruption is about 2500 times that of Mt Saint Helens an we got a little bit of ash fall, enough to show up as small dots on a car hood, in New England

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_Caldera

http://www.solcomhouse.com/yellowstone.htm

And if we are still here to talk about it I am fairly certain global warming debate will be over because it is highly likely we would find ourselves in a catastrophic global cooling which would likely be similar to or worse than the mini ice age

How often do volcanic eruptions occur at Yellowstone?

Three extremely large explosive eruptions have occurred at Yellowstone in the past 2.1 million years with a recurrence interval of about 600,000 to 800,000 years. More frequent eruptions of basalt and rhyolite lava flows have occurred before and after the large caldera-forming events. For example, scientists have identified at least 27 different rhyolite lava flows that erupted after the most recent caldera eruptions, about 640,000 years ago, from vents inside the caldera. The most recent was about 70,000 years ago. Many of these eruptions were separated in time by several tens of thousands of years. Because the evidence of earlier eruptions may have been either buried or destroyed, we do not really know how often the volcano has actually erupted.

 

[Rich Parsons]

With the History Channel show and other channels having shows about 2012 and the end of the world or the end of calendars or what have you, ... . Some have also mentioned the Caldera in Yellowstone or better yet the Caldera that is Yellowstone and the possible issues around it.

One of the issues mentioned was the solar alignment with the center of the universe on the winter soltice that some have stated will cause a magnetic switch which could lead to volcanic activity and with YellowStone "being overdue" it was on the list of those to watch or be afraid of.



I hope to ride to it on my motorcycle either this summer or next.

 

[tellner]

One of the issues mentioned was the solar alignment with the center of the universe on the winter soltice that some have stated will cause a magnetic switch which could lead to volcanic activity and with YellowStone "being overdue" it was on the list of those to watch or be afraid of.

WTF? That has got to be one of the most errant collections of nonsense I have heard since the Harmonic Convergence. Did they actually say that crap on a supposedly educational channel?

 

[Makalakumu]

WTF? That has got to be one of the most errant collections of nonsense I have heard since the Harmonic Convergence. Did they actually say that crap on a supposedly educational channel?

Yeah, that is pretty ****ed up. But what can you expect from a TV Channel that proclaims to portray "History"? It's one of the reasons I don't watch TV anymore...

 

[Rich Parsons]

WTF? That has got to be one of the most errant collections of nonsense I have heard since the Harmonic Convergence. Did they actually say that crap on a supposedly educational channel?

They covered the Nostradomas Book that was "recently" found.

They covered the Mayan Calendar and culture.

They covered the Bible Code - aka the special program that decodes special messages only in one book of the bible. But, if he same algorithm is applied to other books of the bible it does compute or as sucessful depending upon if you are the author of the algorithm or not.

They tried to mention multiple cultures with multiple points all pointing to the date in 2012.

They kind of took the worse case of all and kind of lead people to a conclusion without saying it. I think there was another show on another channel that others were talking about as well that covered part of the subjects.

 

[Twin Fist]

some predictions i head said that when yellowstone goes, there is a 50-50 chance it will be a super eruption that will cover half the US in ash.

they made amovie about it, very scary stuff.

 

[CoryKS]

I blame Bush. And Yogi - the buildup is probably from an accumulation of stolen picanic baskets. But mostly Bush.

 

[Makalakumu]

I blame Bush. And Yogi - the buildup is probably from an accumulation of stolen picanic baskets. But mostly Bush.

Yeah, that's why he keeps trying to open up our national parks for drilling! It's a secret plot to destroy the country!

 

[Xue Sheng]

I blame Bush. And Yogi - the buildup is probably from an accumulation of stolen picanic baskets. But mostly Bush.

I tend to think it is the fault of the bison and those damn elk

but I suppose Yogi and Bush could be in on it. However I am not totally convinced that Booboo and Ranger Smith are faultless

 

[elder999]

I tend to think it is the fault of the bison and those damn elk

but I suppose Yogi and Bush could be in on it. However I am not totally convinced that Booboo and Ranger Smith are faultless

Dude, I know for a fact that it's an arboreal conspiracy-Booboo, Ranger Smith, and Yogi are the fallguys....:lfao:


Bush? Well, obviously he's the tree's dastardly underling-just look at the name...:lfao:

 

[Tez3]

Yellowstone is an active volcanic region. It's fun to walk through and see all of the cool far out sights, but people don't really get it. There are all kinds of different eruptions that can happen at Yellowstone that have nothing to do with a supervolcanic eruption. Heck, you could get massive steam eruptions and even the building of small cinder cones. If the big one were about to happen, I'd expect to see that first....but who knows with Mother Nature. She can surprise the hell out of you.

Haven't you moved though to a place where there's far more volcanic activity? It certainly looks spectacular on the television!

 

[Xue Sheng]

Dude, I know for a fact that it's an arboreal conspiracy-Booboo, Ranger Smith, and Yogi are the fallguys....:lfao:

Now you see... I KNEW IT!!! I KNEW IT!!!! I KNEW IT!!!!! You just CAN'T trust a tree.... I just KNEW I should have gone to Jellystone...er...aaa.. I mean Yellowstone to keep those damn trees in line on my last vacation

 

[Makalakumu]

Haven't you moved though to a place where there's far more volcanic activity? It certainly looks spectacular on the television!

Yes and no. Oahu is pretty quiet. There is an off hand chance we might get a steam eruption on this island, but it's fleeting at best. There's a better chance that Maui would have an eruption because they are closer to the Hotspot. The action is mostly on the Big Island. Kilauea has been erupting since 1983 and doesn't look like its going to slow down. And then there is Loihi...

Hawaiian volcanism is completely different then Yellowstone's volcanism. You have a Hotspot in both cases but its melting different materials and this causes different kinds of eruptions to happen.

 

[Tez3]

Yes and no. Oahu is pretty quiet. There is an off hand chance we might get a steam eruption on this island, but it's fleeting at best. There's a better chance that Maui would have an eruption because they are closer to the Hotspot. The action is mostly on the Big Island. Kilauea has been erupting since 1983 and doesn't look like its going to slow down. And then there is Loihi...

Hawaiian volcanism is completely different then Yellowstone's volcanism. You have a Hotspot in both cases but its melting different materials and this causes different kinds of eruptions to happen.

Ah, thank you, I shall have a good look at your links when I've finished work. The nearest place to us with volcanoes is Iceland, somewhere I was planning on going until they went bankrupt! when the financial situation has calmed down and the exchange rate better, I'm going up there. Of course going to Hawaii would be pretty good but further and more expensive.

 

[Makalakumu]

Iceland and Hawaii are great places to go in order to see volcanoes, but, IMO, if you want to see the most kinds of volcanism crammed into the smallest area, I'd go to New Zealand. Hands down, it is one of the most geologically active areas in the world. Almost every kind of geologic process is evident in those small islands. Almost every kind of volcano is found. It truly is amazing.