Yellowstone : No Place to Run!
Ernie Fitzpatrick asked:
Supervolcanoes are not your average bear (no pun intended), nor volcano, as Toba proved some 70,000 years ago catapulting us into the last ice age that lasted nearly 60,000 years. The hundreds of small earthquakes at Yellowstone National Park in recent weeks have been an unsettling reminder.
Scientists believe it wouldn’t take much to set this hot spot off.
So, tell me, why has George W. Bush authorized some 10,000+ drilling rights (for oil)? It’s not like letting off a little steam is going to be helpful. In fact, just the opposite is the case. Underneath the park’s famous geysers and majestic scenery lurks one of the world’s biggest volcanoes and we shouldn’t be messing with it.
Explore it only!
In the ancient past, the Yellowstone 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. Supervolcanoes have their own dynamic and if this one goes, well, let’s not go there.
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.
While we need serious attention to what lurks beneath the national park, we need not go ballistic and irrational. One 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.”
Listen, if Yellowstone activates no one in America is safe, let alone those within 100 miles!
Earthquakes are hardly unusual in Yellowstone. Hundreds occur in the park every year. Earthquake “swarms” like the recent activity also aren’t uncommon, although the 900 or so quakes that began Dec. 26 and significantly tapered off about a week later appear to have been the most energetic swarm in more than 20 years. The most powerful temblor was magnitude 3.9, just short of being able to cause moderate damage.
Scientists knowledgeable about Yellowstone’s geology aren’t publicly speculating about what caused the swarm before they can analyze data and that will take months. “I could come up with 100 different theories without any evidence for them and they would all be equally likely,” said Jake Lowenstern, the Menlo Park, Calif.-based scientist in charge of Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. “Unless you have some reason to say that’s what’s going on, then you’re not going to get a whole lot of people convinced by your speculation.”
Hydrothermal explosions in which underground water encounters a hot spot and blasts through the surface isn’t uncommon. Small hydrothermal explosions producing craters a few feet wide occur in Yellowstone perhaps once or twice a year. But with such a testy environment as we have with Yellowstone, any increased activity from afar; pulsars, and hyper sun spot activity, would be bad news.
So, maybe we can cool out jets until December 21, 2012 or thereabouts. Maybe!
Supervolcanoes are not your average bear (no pun intended), nor volcano, as Toba proved some 70,000 years ago catapulting us into the last ice age that lasted nearly 60,000 years. The hundreds of small earthquakes at Yellowstone National Park in recent weeks have been an unsettling reminder.
Scientists believe it wouldn’t take much to set this hot spot off.
So, tell me, why has George W. Bush authorized some 10,000+ drilling rights (for oil)? It’s not like letting off a little steam is going to be helpful. In fact, just the opposite is the case. Underneath the park’s famous geysers and majestic scenery lurks one of the world’s biggest volcanoes and we shouldn’t be messing with it.
Explore it only!
In the ancient past, the Yellowstone 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. Supervolcanoes have their own dynamic and if this one goes, well, let’s not go there.
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.
While we need serious attention to what lurks beneath the national park, we need not go ballistic and irrational. One 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.”
Listen, if Yellowstone activates no one in America is safe, let alone those within 100 miles!
Earthquakes are hardly unusual in Yellowstone. Hundreds occur in the park every year. Earthquake “swarms” like the recent activity also aren’t uncommon, although the 900 or so quakes that began Dec. 26 and significantly tapered off about a week later appear to have been the most energetic swarm in more than 20 years. The most powerful temblor was magnitude 3.9, just short of being able to cause moderate damage.
Scientists knowledgeable about Yellowstone’s geology aren’t publicly speculating about what caused the swarm before they can analyze data and that will take months. “I could come up with 100 different theories without any evidence for them and they would all be equally likely,” said Jake Lowenstern, the Menlo Park, Calif.-based scientist in charge of Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. “Unless you have some reason to say that’s what’s going on, then you’re not going to get a whole lot of people convinced by your speculation.”
Hydrothermal explosions in which underground water encounters a hot spot and blasts through the surface isn’t uncommon. Small hydrothermal explosions producing craters a few feet wide occur in Yellowstone perhaps once or twice a year. But with such a testy environment as we have with Yellowstone, any increased activity from afar; pulsars, and hyper sun spot activity, would be bad news.
So, maybe we can cool out jets until December 21, 2012 or thereabouts. Maybe!