Posted on 06/29/2017 9:50:33 AM PDT by johnk
More than 800 earthquakes have now been recorded at the Yellowstone Caldera, a long-dormant supervolcano located in Yellowstone National Park, over the last two weeks - an ominous sign that a potentially catastrophic eruption could be brewing.
However, despite earthquakes occurring at a frequency unseen during any period in the past five years, the US Geological Survey says the risk level remains in the green, unchanged from its normal levels, according to Newsweek.
The biggest earthquake in this swarm - which registered a magnitude of 4.4 took place on June 15, three days after the rumblings started. That quake was the biggest in the region since a magnitude 4.8 earthquake struck close to Norris Geyser Basin in March 2014. This magnitude 4.4 earthquake was so powerful that people felt it in Bozman Montana, about eight miles away.
A scientist from the University of Utah said the quakes have also included five in the magnitude three range, and 68 in the magnitude two range.
The swarm consists of one earthquake in the magnitude 4 range, five earthquakes in the magnitude 3 range, 68 earthquakes in the magnitude 2 range, 277 earthquakes in the magnitude 1 range, 508 earthquakes in the magnitude 0 range, and 19 earthquakes with magnitudes of less than zero, the latest report said.
An earthquake with a magnitude less than zero is a very small event that can only be detected with the extremely sensitive instruments used in earthquake monitoring.
The 'Sunset Lake' hot spring in Yellowstone National Park.
There is normally a rise in seismic activity before a volcano erupts. And scientists currently believe theres a 10% chance that a supervolcanic Category 7 eruption could take place this century, as pointed out by theoretical physicist Michio Kaku.
An eruption, Kaku said, is long overdue: The last one occurred 640,000 years ago.
To be sure, the swarm has slowed down considerably this week, and larger swarms have been recorded in the past, according to Jacob Lowenstern, the scientists in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.
Yet the possibility that the volcano could be on the verge of whats called a supereruption should be enough to give the government pause. But scientists have said recently that theres some evidence to suggest the next one could occur this century.
"Grand Prismatic" Hot Spring at Yellowstone.
So how would a supervolcanic eruption at Yellowstone impact the regional ecosystem, and the US more broadly? Well, as Liberty Blogs Michael Snyder points out, it would be nothing short of catastrophic. Hundreds of cubic miles of ash, rock and lava would be blasted into the atmosphere, and this would likely plunge much of the northern hemisphere into several days of complete darkness. Virtually everything within 100 miles of Yellowstone would be immediately killed, but a much more cruel fate would befall those living in major cities outside of the immediate blast zone such as Salt Lake City and Denver.
Hot volcanic ash, rock and dust would rain down on those cities literally for weeks. In the end, it would be extremely difficult for anyone living in those communities to survive. In fact, it has been estimated that 90 percent of all people living within 600 miles of Yellowstone would be killed.
Experts project that such an eruption would dump a layer of volcanic ash that is at least 10 feet deep up to 1,000 miles away, and approximately two-thirds of the United States would suddenly become uninhabitable. The volcanic ash would severely contaminate most of our water supplies, and growing food in the middle of the country would become next to impossible.
In other words, it would be the end of our country as we know it today.
The rest of the planet, and this would especially be true for the northern hemisphere, would experience what is known as a nuclear winter. An extreme period of global cooling would take place, and temperatures around the world would fall by up to 20 degrees. Crops would fail all over the planet, and severe famine would sweep the globe.
In the end, billions could die.
So yes, this is a threat that we should take seriously.
That’s funny.
Some people call them wieners... :)
BTW, how did you post a thread using ZeroHedge as a news source?
I just tried citing their story about Aetna leaving democrat run near bankrupt CT, and got a post refused message that said: Reason: ZeroHedge - No Thanks.
You’re right.
Because Bill Nye was busy?
“That thing will blow when it is ready.”
Exactly....
And since the solar activity is coming into a solar minimum, I don’t expect any major CME blasts for the next few years to shake things up here on earth. 2020-2021 might be a different story though as we are coming into a coronal shift moving into reverse polarity with the earth. Solar Cycle 24( which we are now in) has been a very unusual pattern in comparison to the previous cycles.
From the USGS link:
The most likely type of volcanic eruption at Yellowstone would produce lava flows of either rhyolite or basalt. These would be significant and produce flows with volumes greater than 1 km3, but all of these would most certainly remain within the boundary of Yellowstone National Park.Since Yellowstones last caldera-forming eruption 640,000 years ago, about 30 eruptions of rhyolitic lava flows have nearly filled the Yellowstone Caldera. Other flows of rhyolite and basalt (a more fluid variety of lava) also have been extruded outside the caldera.
That’s interesting information. Thanks.
I think it’s possible that we could experience an EMP generated by the sun-a CME. What are your thoughts?
Also-—ALL of Wyoming & All of Utah & most of Colorado.
That should royally piss off all the marijuana advocates......
“The rest of the planet, and this would especially be true for the northern hemisphere, would experience what is known as a nuclear winter. An extreme period of global cooling would take place, and temperatures around the world would fall by up to 20 degrees.”
Seriously, if this happens, the entire world is screwed. Oh, humanity will certainly survive, just not most of the individuals comprising it. But there is just about nothing that any one person can do about it short of moving far, far away and stockpiling YUUUGE amounts of food and water (and where they go may be subject to other disasters, natural or man-made). IOW, keep on with your life, prepare for a few weeks of real bad trouble, but if it is more significant than that, bend over real far and kiss your Obama goodbye.
My personal thoughts... and only thoughts (not based upon evidence based research) are that the alignment of the earth’s magnetic north pole (representing the axis of the earth’s core) and the geographic north pole (representing the axis of the earth’s crust) are decreasing the dynamo output created by the friction of the two earth layers. The decreased dynamo output decreases our magnetosphere which protects us from the CME’s blasting at us from the sun.
The perfect storm is a weak magnetosphere at a time when the sun is at peak activity of a solar reversal when the shift is in opposition to the earth’s current polarity. I spoke with an astrophysicist who specializes in planetary field reversals and he told me that the mass of the earth is too great and thus stabilizes us from frequent shifts. I still have several research papers on this subject in my to be read stack.
If you track pole movement, the greatest opposition of the axis of the earth would create the strongest dipolar field and magnetosphere and cool the earth. Polar alignment then should cause global warming. Not sure what man is doing to cause polar alignment within the earth’s axis.
Thank you. You are very knowledgeable. Retired scientist?
I like your final sentence: “Not sure what man is doing to cause polar alignment within the earths axis”.
I am sure you were being facetious.
Earths magnetic field seems to be weakening and potentially migrating
Earth’s magnetic field is weakening, and may be getting set to flip—in just a few thousand years north will become south and south will become north, LiveScience reports. But before it can do that, the magnetic field may wander around a bit. Right now, say scientists with the European Space Agency, the Earth’s magnetic north pole seems to be wandering over to Siberia.
The strength of the Earth’s magnetic field is always changing, with patches of stronger or weaker shielding found across the planet. Right now, the weakest spots hover above the Western Hemisphere, whereas places around the Indian Ocean have been growing stronger. The wobbles in magnetic field strength, says LiveScience, could mean that the planet’s magnetic field is entering a period of flux that will last up to a few thousand years and may ultimately end in a flipping of Earth’s magnetic poles.
Researchers with the European Space Agency noticed the abnormalities in the Earth’s magnetic field strength while analyzing data collected by magnetometers attached to a new three-satellite system called Swarm. Here’s LiveScience:
Previously, researchers estimated the field was weakening about 5 percent per century, but the new data revealed the field is actually weakening at 5 percent per decade, or 10 times faster than thought. As such, rather than the full flip occurring in about 2,000 years, as was predicted, the new data suggest it could happen sooner.
The geomagnetic poles are antipodal points where the axis of a best-fitting dipole intersects the Earth's surface. This dipole is equivalent to a powerful bar magnet at the center of the Earth, and it is this theoretical dipole that comes closer than any other to accounting for the magnetic field observed at the Earth's surface. In contrast, the actual Earth's magnetic poles are not antipodalthat is, they do not lie on a line passing through the center of the Earth.
Owing to motion of fluid in the Earth's outer core, the actual magnetic poles are constantly moving. However, over thousands of years their direction averages to the Earth's rotation axis. On the order of once every half a million years, the poles reverse (north changes place with south).
That clip is actually wrong.
The ground will move up and crack the way dirt would separate if you inflated a balloon under it.
Then, as cohesion failed, the ground would FALL into the caldera, last, as it hit the molten magma, the dirt would cook off into gasses and ash and finally explode and smoke.
It has been long understood that dip poles migrate over time. In 1831, James Clark Ross located the north dip pole position in northern Canada. Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) tracked the North Magnetic Pole, which is slowly drifting across the Canadian Arctic, by periodically carrying out magnetic surveys to reestablish the Pole’s location from 1948 to 1994.
An international collaboration, led by a French fundraising association, Poly-Arctique, and involving NRCan, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris and Bureau de Recherche Geologique et Miniere, added two locations of the North Magnetic Pole in 2001 and 2007. The most recent survey determined that the Pole is moving approximately north-northwest at 55 km per year.
Four North Poles?
There are four “North Poles” that can be defined in the Arctic:
+ Geographic North Pole (also known as True North): The northernmost point of the Earth as determined by the northern axis of its rotation. It has a known fixed position, at latitude 90° North.
+ Magnetic North Pole: A moving location where lines of magnetic force enter and exit the Earth vertically. The north point of a magnetic compass points to this pole. It’s location was discovered by James Clark Ross in 1831.
+ Geomagnetic North Pole: The pole of the Earth’s geomagnetic field that surrounds the Earth and extends into space as the magnetosphere. This is the centre of the region in which the Northern Lights can be seen.
+ North Pole of Inaccessibility: At approximately 85°N-175°W, this represents the point on the surface of the Arctic Ocean which is the farthest distance (about 1100 km / 684 miles) from any coastline.
The North Geomagnetic Pole is the north end of the axis of the magnetosphere, the geomagnetic field that surrounds the Earth and extends into space. It is the center of the region in which the Northern Lights or “Aurora Borealis” are seen.
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