Posted on 10/12/2017 9:30:01 AM PDT by Red Badger
A new study of ancient ash suggests that the dormant giant could develop the conditions needed to blow in a span of mere decades.
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Steam rises off the Grand Prismatic Spring, one of the most stunning hydrothermal features in Yellowstone National Park. Photograph by Tom Murphy, National Geographic Creative =========================================================================================
If the supervolcano underneath Yellowstone erupts again, we may have far less advance warning time than we thought.
After analyzing minerals in fossilized ash from the most recent mega-eruption, researchers at Arizona State University think the supervolcano last woke up after two influxes of fresh magma flowed into the reservoir below the caldera.
And in an unsettling twist, the minerals revealed that the critical changes in temperature and composition built up in a matter of decades. Until now, geologists had thought it would take centuries for the supervolcano to make that transition.
A 2013 study, for instance, showed that the magma reservoir that feeds the supervolcano is about two and a half times larger than previous estimates. Scientists also think the reservoir is drained after every monster blast, so they thought it should take a long time to refill. Based on the new study, it seems the magma can rapidly refresh—making the volcano potentially explosive in the geologic blink of an eye.
“It’s shocking how little time is required to take a volcanic system from being quiet and sitting there to the edge of an eruption,” study co-author Hannah Shamloo told the New York Times.
Still, Yellowstone is one of the best monitored volcanoes in the world, notes Michael Poland, the current Scientist-in-Charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory for the U.S. Geological Survey. A variety of sensors and satellites are always looking for changes, and right now, the supervolcano does not seem to pose a threat.
"We see interesting things all the time ... but we haven't seen anything that would lead us to believe that the sort of magmatic event described by the researchers is happening," says Poland via email, adding that the research overall is "somewhat preliminary, but quite tantalizing."
The new paper adds to a suite of surprises scientists have uncovered over the last few years as they have studied the supervolcano. (Also find out about a supervolcano under Italy that has recently been rumbling.)
Today, Yellowstone National Park owes much of its rich geologic beauty to its violent past. Wonders like the Old Faithful geyser and the Grand Prismatic Spring are products of the geothermal activity still seething below the park, which is driven in turn by the vast magma plume that feeds the supervolcano.
About 630,000 years ago, a powerful eruption shook the region, spewing forth 240 cubic miles’ worth of rock and ash and creating the Yellowstone caldera, a volcanic depression 40 miles wide that now cradles most of the national park.
That eruption left behind the Lava Creek Tuff, the ash deposit that Shamloo and her ASU colleague Christy Till used for their work, which they presented in August at a volcanology meeting in Oregon. The pair also presented an earlier version of their study at a 2016 meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Based on fossil deposits like this one, scientists think the supervolcano has seen at least two other eruptions on this scale in the past two million years or so. Lucky for us, the supervolcano has been largely dormant since before the first people arrived in the Americas. While a handful of smaller belches and quakes have periodically filled the caldera with lava and ash, the last one happened about 70,000 years ago.
In 2011, scientists revealed that the ground above the magma chamber bulged by up to 10 inches in a span of about seven years.
"It's an extraordinary uplift, because it covers such a large area and the rates are so high," the University of Utah's Bob Smith, an expert in Yellowstone volcanism, told National Geographic at the time.
The swelling magma reservoir responsible for the uplift was too deep to create fears of imminent doom, Smith said, and instead the caldera’s gentle “breathing” offered valuable insights into the supervolcano’s behavior.
In 2012, another team reported that at least one of the past super-eruptions may have really been two events, hinting that such large-scale events may be more common than thought.
But almost everyone who studies Yellowstone’s slumbering supervolcano says that right now, we have no way of knowing when the next big blast will happen. For its part, the U.S. Geological Survey puts the rough yearly odds of another massive Yellowstone blast at 1 in 730,000—about the same chance as a catastrophic asteroid collision.
Its got to be the right kind of lava.
“If it blew, we would all die in something like a Cosmic Winter.”
OTOH, we wouldn’t have to listen to the left bitch about `global warming’.
WAT YOU SAY? The volcano gods would say, WTF! Now you are gonna pay! And blow up bigger and more nasty than they would have ever done.
Yellowstone Supervolcano May NOT Rumble to Life Faster Than Thought
No it isnt the biggest, and no, we all wouldnt die. Those who are left might kill each other off in a war though. So you could be close to being right on that one.
.......OR, it could be right on time....................
Culturally imprecise. Pele, the god of volcanoes, is Hawaiian. Don’t throw in alGore, throw in Obama!
World’s Largest “Supervolcano” Is Even Bigger Than Previously Thought (Yellowstone)
When conditions are right, it doesn’t take any time at all for a mountain/caldera to fill...
Remember Mt. St. Helens?
Whenever it blows, it’s right on time. Mother Nature’s timetable is the ruling authority here.
And when I say Mother Nature, it’s with the understanding God did His work, and subsequently earth coasted along doing it’s own thing.
Mother Nature,... addressing the natural occurrence of Earth’s dynamics post creation.
Late Pleostocene Human Population Bottlenecks. . . (Toba)
"The last glacial period was preceded by 1000 years of the coldest temperatures of the Late Pleistocene, apparently caused by the eruption of the Mount Toba volcano. The six year long volcanic winter and 1000-year-long instant Ice Age that followed Mount Toba's eruption may have decimated Modern Man's entire population. Genetic evidence suggests that Human population size fell to about 10,000 adults between 50 and 100 thousand years ago. The survivors from this global catastrophy would have found refuge in isolated tropical pockets, mainly in Equatorial Africa. Populations living in Europe and northern China would have been completely eliminated by the reduction of the summer temperatures by as much as 12 degrees centigrade"
Yellowstone is much larger than Toba.
Reminds me of the joke:
A great thunderstorm and flash flood was threatening a man’s home and family.
There was a call to evacuate by the authorities.
The Sheriff and his deputies came around in boats to rescue them.
He turned them down, saying, “The Lord will provide and protect me and my family.”
The rain got even worse and began to rise so that they had to all get up on the roof.
The Coast Guard sent a helicopter to rescue them from the roof.
He again turned them down, saying, “The Lord will provide and protect me and my family.”
Eventually, the house and all the family were swept away by the flood and perished.
The man awoke at the gates of Heaven, where he met God.
“Why didn’t you save us from the terrible storm and flood?” he asked.
“I sent the Sheriff and his deputies with boats and later I sent the Coast Guard with a helicopter, but you would not listen.” He replied.................
“Come what come may,
Time and the hour run through the roughest day.” —Macbeth
Well Brother - you read my mind!
I’m of the opinion that the Rapture will be the catalyst for all of the destruction that Daniel and Revelation talks about, along with the Ezekiel 38 & 39 war.
Joel Rosenberg has a novel out where Russia or some other rogue nation unleashes a nuclear volley on America and simultaneously the Rapture happens as those missiles hit.
Very interesting times we’re living in! Hopefully we’ll be meeting very soon!
Only Jesus Saves!
John 14:16
John 6:29
Acts 16:31
Maranatha!
Stephen Crane summed that thought up perfectly:
A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."
It matters not one bit HOW BIG the magma chamber is. What matters is how much material is blasted out and what kind.
The model on this site tells the story as far as the size of past volcanic eruptions.
And yes, Yellowstones chamber is the biggest, but it really is mathematical impossible for it to expel all that magma-according to geologists who have studied it. The chamber cap will collapse long before as the pressure drop will not be able to hold the surface up. The best guesses I have seen is that about 1/3rd, or so, of the magma would be released. After the cap drops, the remaining pressure releases and the volcano is done...for a while.
The result? Worldwide devastation. It is not the ash that causes the problem, although bad in itself, ash would cover much of the USA. But, the gases would envelope the earth causing huge climatic change.
The Long Valley caldera is acting up. If you have interest in these things, take a long look at whats going on there these past weeks/months and years. The magma there is ABOVE the valley floor. Its up into the hills and mountains and a side eruption is going to happen. Think Mt St Helens. That was a side eruption caused by a unstable surface that slid and allowed the eruption to happen.
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