Scientists closely monitoring Yellowstone. 200 degree ground temperatures reported.

Idaho Observer ^

[al baby]

[Happy2BMe]

Must be a lot of hits right now on Yellowstone's web site.

It's not responding. .

[WackyKat]

When Yellowstone does blow, some geologists predict that every living thing within six hundred miles is likely to die.

Oh, please! What a crock of used food. This guy never heard of the inverse-square law.

It's not the blast they're talking about, it's the ash fall.

There's a site in I believe Iowa or Kansas in which hundreds of large animals such as camels, rhinoceros, etc were found buried in many feet of ash.

This is believed to have been caused by the last major eruption of the Yellowstone caldera.

[Kevin Curry]

A massive eruption would likely be preceeded by waring signs, including some powerful earthquakes.

These "warning" signs could begin at any moment--some scientists believe the bulge under Yellowstone Lake is one such warninig sign. The powerful Hebden Lake earthquake in 1959 is very recent in geological terms (I have visited the area near Mount Borah in Idaho where an entire valley lifted several feet as a result of this earthquake, and have seen the evidence of the shift as a lateral line in the earth, north and south, as far as the eye can see--very impressive and humbling).

Or, nothing significant might happen for 2 million years or longer.

Yellowstone is a highly geologically active area. A mega-eruption will take place there sooner or later. It is wise to plan for the worst while expecting the best.

I wonder whether an eruption could be triggered by the detonation of a nuclear device in the park? My gut reaction is that it would not work. But suppose an enemy had a nuclear device and tried to bring it off?

Seems to me this is the plotline of an old Superman comic book episode.

Still . . .

[Think free or die]

"Hell getting too full?"

LOL! Let's hope it's not reaching capacity just yet - there are plenty more candidates we need to dispatch.

[AppauledAtAppeasementConservat]

You mean like the warning signs for Sept 11th? I don't put my faith in a liberal stacked government bureaucracy.

Maybe with 4 more with Bush I'll have a couple grains of faith in the competency but it's gonna take a conservative packed senate to even get a head start.

[xp38]

I say refugee further south. Famous last words from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid...Australia...they speak english there.

[Husker24]

Okay, guys...which ranger drew the short straw to pour in the jar of Metamucil?

you know I saw that commerical months ago, and then a while later I say it and there was a disclaimer that ran across the bottom of the screen that said "Please obey all park regulations" So you know some dumbass must have actually poured some Metamucil down Old Faithfull......lol

[Happy2BMe]

LoL!

[Elliott Jackalope]

Actually, as I understand it, Old Faithful is going off on a slower schedule now. It used to go off about once an hour or so, now it takes three or more hours to blow. Bottom line is that things are getting pretty interesting in Yellowstone park.

[MarkeyD]

There was a program on Discovery channel about this about 2 months ago. And damn, I'm in the 600 mile radius!

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

The animals are literally migrating out of the park.

The animals have it figured out. As the old Imperial margerine commercial used to say, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." Why should we even try? ;-)

[Happy2BMe]

Figures and pictures used with permission from "Windows into the Earth, The Geologic Story of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park", Robert B. Smith and Lee J. Siegel, Oxford University Press, 2000.

Figure 1. Path of the Yellowstone hotspot. Yellow and orange ovals show volcanic centers where the hotspot produced one or more caldera eruptions- essentially "ancient Yellowstones"- during the time periods indicated. As North America drifted southwest over the hotspot, the volcanism progressed northeast, beginning in northern Nevada and southeast Oregon 16.5 million years ago and reaching Yellowstone National Park 2 million years ago. A bow-wave or parabola-shaped zone of mountains (browns and tans) and earthquakes (red dots) surrounds the low elevations (greens) of the seismically quiet Snake River Plain. The greater Yellowstone "geoecosystem" is outlined in blue. Faults are in black.

[Billthedrill]

I really can't find anything much in the conventional literature to support the claims of a doom that is any more impending now than it was a few thousand years ago. Yellowstone's been like this for a long, long time.

I did find some interesting background information HERE. Great pic of Yellowstone falls (which I filched) as well. The bottom line is that yes, Yellowstone could blow tomorrow with no warning or keep us flinching for a millennium. Or it could blow slowly. Or any one of the other dozen or so "hot spots" near the peripheries of the tektonic plates could do the same thing. It's happened before and it will happen again and there isn't a durn thing we can do about it.

But if it does happen, I'm blaming you, disturbing the magma flow with your dang lures and hooks smacking the water all the time.

[#3Fan]

See my #43.

Well hell, the article made it look like it raised 100' in a few months. By that standard Everest has raised 29,000 feet. lol Thanks for the clarification link.

[PAR35]

There were 52 in the month of November alone.

56, but who is counting. Read on down the page:

"During the month of November 2003, 56 earthquakes were located in the Yellowstone region. The largest shock to occur during this report period was a magnitude 2.2 earthquake on November 20th at 14:26 UTC, located about 8.3 miles south southwest of Madison Junction, Wyoming.

"Earthquake activity in the Yellowstone region is at background levels."
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/activity.html

[MarkeyD]

I think it was Nebraska. I saw that on Discovery channel.

[HiTech RedNeck]

One of those super-burrowing bunker buster mini nukes. The former USSR would be the only non-US power I would expect to have one at this time.

[Axenolith]

The inverse square law isn't applicable to being covered in feet of finely ground powder composed primarily of silicates. Additionally, past explosions of Yellowstone have been way bigger than Mammoth here in CA, and that released multiple times the entire world potential yield of nuclear weapons...

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

The great news is that the falling ash from this volcano will nicely fertilize the entire midwest's farmland for corns and soybeans ;-).