Posted on 01/30/2005 8:41:42 PM PST by HAL9000
SUPERVOLCANOES WARNING
Slumbering supervolcanoes powerful enough to wipe out much of the planet may awaken much sooner than it had previously been thought.
Experts believed it would take hundreds of thousands of years for reservoirs of molton rock, or magma, beneath a supervolcano to build for an eruption.
But a new study indicates the time between super-eruptions can actually be tens of thousands of years - and many are already long overdue.
A blast from a supervolcano would be strong enough cause mass extinction and change the world's climate.
The findings, published in the Journal of Petrology, are bad news for anyone living in the centre of the US.
An overdue monster supervolcano is hidden underneath one of the country's premier holiday spots - Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.
The last blast there, which occurred more than 600,000 years ago, covered half the US - around 3,000sq miles - with volcanic ash.
Researchers in New Zealand analysed zircon crystals, which grow within volcanic magma, to calculate how long build up takes before eruptions.
Their answer was no more than 40,000 years - a relatively short time in geological terms.
Supervolcanoes are estimated to carry a force thousands of times that of a normal explosion.
They spew thousands of cubic yards of ash, dust and poisonous sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere and create a giant crater, or caldera.
Recent measurements indicate that over the past century the earth above the Yellowstone magma chamber has risen almost 19 inches. Scientists say this is telling evidence of pressure building below.
This is what we should be scared of not freaking lieing Global warming."
Why be scared? You can't live your life being afraid of a measly supervolcano.
"The last blast there, which occurred more than 600,000 years ago, covered half the US - around 3,000sq miles - with volcanic ash."There is a blatant flaw in this sentence making it unbelievable to anyone with an IQ above 95.
Yep:
The United States has a total area of well over 3 million square miles, making it the third largest country in the world after Russia and Canada.
So far the the had been no pre-mature eruption from the planet? I'm impressed.
Got to get back and fish the Yellowstone River one last time before this happens.
"Why be scared? You can't live your life being afraid of a measly supervolcano."
I am more concerned about the possible eruption of Mount Hillary!
But wait, I thought us Humans were the only destructive force on the planet!
The last blast there, which occurred more than 600,000 years ago, covered half the US - around 3,000sq miles - with volcanic ash.
Researchers in New Zealand analysed zircon crystals, which grow within volcanic magma, to calculate how long build up takes before eruptions.
Their answer was no more than 40,000 years - a relatively short time in geological terms.
########3
the last blast 600,000 years ...
time it takes to build up ... no more than 40,000 ...
science at it's best ...
LOL!
Hey, easy for you to say. I live down hill from that thing. LOL
They spew thousands of cubic yards of ash, dust and poisonous sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere and create a giant crater, or caldera.
Duh.
Hush! The plan is that we'll keep broadcasting Green Peace and Earth First! literature through outdoor speakers over the entire Yellowstone area. Maybe the super volcano will believe it and cool off.:)
Yeah, that Sky News is really impressive, ain't it!
An area 3,000 miles x 3,000 miles is 3,000 square miles . . . isn't it?
Dang, yall sure are casual. I don't like this a bit, not one dang bit. We may just all die, at one time, and then what? We are all fried, just hanging there, dead, waiting for another half million years for someone to come by and wonder what the hell we were all doing with out fingers glued to funny looking boxes with little letters on the keys and screens. And we are all just dead, naked and dead, and they laugh at us.
The eruption that created Lake Toba on Sumatra is estimated to have ejected over 2000 cubic kilometers of rock and ash.
Criminy, we're the size of Rhode Island now ?
um no
Volcanoes and Earthquakes and Tsunamis...oh my!
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