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.
Oh honey,,the hot ash is gonna burn off your pjs and mine and we are gonna be found nekkid and be so embarassed cause they are gonna bring in reporters to take pics of the dead people glued to their keyboards, there are gonna be pics of you all oveer the world and they are gonna laugh. That is a given. Didn't you laugh at the mummies we used to see as kids. We are humiliated.
I was very disappointed to see your name as the poster of this thread.
I was hoping it was some kooky new poster with no track record for credibility.
Now I'm worried.
:-)
On O&G downhole well logs you can trace a signature 'spike' several feet thick across Nebraska, the Dakotas, Utah, Nevada, Montana etc. The 'spike' is caused by a layer of volcanic ash and it's so widespread that it's used as a correlation marker for widely separated oil and gas wells.
It will be global warming's fault Yellowstone erupted! Just like we somehow caused the tsunami.
Just to give an example of how the MSM mutates science articles...
Here is the abstract to the journal article this story is based on (notice not a mention of Yellowstone; as I suspected they were looking at Taupo.)
Magma Generation at a Large, Hyperactive Silicic Volcano (Taupo, New Zealand) Revealed by U–Th and U–Pb Systematics in Zircons
B. L. A. CHARLIER1,2,*, C. J. N. WILSON3, J. B. LOWENSTERN4, S. BLAKE2, P. W. VAN CALSTEREN2 and J. P. DAVIDSON1
1 DEPARTMENT OF EARTH SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM, SOUTH ROAD, DURHAM DH1 3LE, UK
2 DEPARTMENT OF EARTH SCIENCES, THE OPEN UNIVERSITY, WALTON HALL, MILTON KEYNES MK7 6AA, UK
3 INSTITUTE OF GEOLOGICAL & NUCLEAR SCIENCES, PO BOX 30368, LOWER HUTT 6315, NEW ZEALAND
4 VOLCANO HAZARDS TEAM, US GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, MAILSTOP 910, 345 MIDDLEFIELD ROAD, MENLO PARK, CA 94025, USA
Young (<65 ka) explosive silicic volcanism at Taupo volcano, New Zealand, has involved the development and evacuation of several crustal magmatic systems. Up to and including the 26·5 ka 530 km3 Oruanui eruption, magmatic systems were contemporaneous but geographically separated. Subsequently they have been separated in time and have vented from geographically overlapping areas. Single-crystal (secondary ionization mass spectrometry) and multiple-crystal (thermal ionization mass spectrometry) zircon model-age data are presented from nine representative eruption deposits from 45 to 3·5 ka. Zircon yields vary by three orders of magnitude, correlating with the degrees of zircon saturation in the magmas, and influencing the spectra of model ages. Two adjacent magma systems active up to 26·5 ka show wholly contrasting model-age spectra. The smaller system shows a simple unimodal distribution. The larger system, using data from three eruptions, shows bimodal model-age spectra. An older 100 ka peak is interpreted to represent zircons (antecrysts) derived from older silicic mush or plutonic rocks, and a younger peak to represent zircons (phenocrysts) that grew in the magma body immediately prior to eruption. Post-26·5 ka magma batches show contrasting age spectra, consistent with a mixture of antecrysts, phenocrysts and, in two examples, xenocrysts from Quaternary plutonic and Mesozoic–Palaeozoic metasedimentary rocks. The model-age spectra, coupled with zircon-dissolution modelling, highlight contrasts between short-term silicic magma generation at Taupo, by bulk remobilization of crystal mush and assimilation of metasediment and/or silicic plutonic basement rocks, and the longer-term processes of fractionation from crustally contaminated mafic melts. Contrasts between adjacent or successive magma systems are attributed to differences in positions of the source and root zones within contrasting domains in the quartzo-feldspathic (<15 km deep) crust below the volcano.
KEY WORDS: zircon; U-series dating; rhyolite; Taupo Volcanic Zone; Taupo volcano
3,000 square miles might be correct. After all, 600,000 years ago, the United States was still in its infamcy!
time it takes to build up ... no more than 40,000 ...
science at it's best ...
I'm sure it makes perfect sense in the paper it was taken from, when its in its proper context. I'm pretty sure the blame here lies with the Sky News reporter. They did after all equate 3000 sq. miles with half the area of the continental US!
The Sky News article appears to be pure garbage; however the full text of the Original Journal of Petrology article requires a subscription.
One tipoff is their claiming Yellowstone is "overdue." It certainly is not.
I thought about the poor children without insurance and the homeless.
Teddy's face is a supervolcano waiting to happen...
"...An area 3,000 miles x 3,000 miles is 3,000 square miles . . . isn't it?..."
No, but it IS 3,000 miles square.
Go figure.
"The earth was a lot smaller then"
Yeah, the universe is expanding. As proof, I give you Hillary's butt.
I swear, you have got me laughing out loud, and I woke up the dog, now I have to let him out, and then back in again, and then the OTHER dog will want out! ;-D
Check out my post 68. The whole U.S. was affected by the yellowstone event. Kinda blows a hole in your west to east theory.
aHA!~!!
YOU'RE BUSTED!!!!!!
HEY everybody... Judith Anne is USING HER COMPUTER IN PAJAmas!!!
EVERyBoDY CALL DAN RATHER, RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!
Don't say "illegal" or he'll show up. LOL
I was referring to the Long Valley Caldera. Ash from the massive Caldera blast 600,000 years ago did not reach San Francisco.
Anyway, the activity there has really declined, so not like it's about to happen.
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