Eruption that could wipe out millions

Time (UK) ^ | March 09, 2005 | Mark Henderson

[ninonitti]

This is hugh and series.

Supervolcano predicted....women and minorities to suffer worst.

Greta will report....

[Wolfie]

I for one would like to see the funding behind the world's biggest cork.

[NonValueAdded]

Emissions of ash and sulphur dioxide bring global temperatures down by between 5C and 15C (9F and 27F), leading to the failure of the Asian monsoon and millions more deaths from famine.

So let's see ... eruptions happen every 40K years and we're long overdue ... I'd say let's really crank up this global warming thing and raise the average temps by at least 5C, maybe 10C to be safe, so when the big one does happen, it will restore things to normal. Heck, maybe we can get Ron Silver to construct another one of those global warming dohickeys and keep it on standby for just such an emergency.

[NonValueAdded]

Whoops, I'm repeating bikepacker67's comment. Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery ...

[bangor505]

"An exploding supervolcano would be a calamity..."

Thanks for the tip...sucker! This is gonna advance my DoomsDay project by ten years! With proper Federal funding, too.

For those of you who want to save the world, I suggest that you just use some big duct tape.

[technochick99]

Evidently the Discover channel (or something similar) had a show on the caldera. My mother saw it, and said she was deeply disturbed by it. I haven't seen it, but am interested in this. Nothing we can do about it, so I certainly won't waste time worrying...

[Mr. K]

This would make a good suspense novel- yellowstone erupts taking half the continent, the chinese seize an opportunity and overrun the land with 1 million troops.

Iran, Syria, Libya join forces and take over Iraq AND Iran with help from Russia (who needs the oil), which quickly realizes it is a mistake as muslim decide they no longer need them and turn to Sharia law partly to control their own masses and partly to motivate the extremists.

Then, when urged to do so, the muslims in Germany and France stand up and those two countries finally realize too late how many muslims are within their borders and how firmly entrenched as massive work strikes, along with strategic and plentiful suicide bombings, paralyze them into submission.

With China taking over the US and Muslims taking over Europe, India and Pakistan -fearing for their lives, join forces and threaten nuclear stikes within their own borders for any troops that think to try to enter.
This temprarily stuns both muslim europe and china, but then China realize this sounds like a good idea and nukes them first- India and Pakistan capitulate and surrender to China. The muslims freak out and order Russia to support them in all-out war with china
ummm..
Then the anti-christ comes from a rocketship launched from Nibiru (Planet X) which approached unnoticed during all this commotion.

[Flavius]

Boy someone is really eggin on for a grant.

Plus, "..a natural “nuclear winter”. Environmentalists(hippies) ought to be happy about this, its natural so has to be good for ya...

[JIM O]

Moral of the story: Buy farm land in New England

[KevinDavis]

We do have a device that will allow us to go to anohter planet in case something like this happens...

[silverleaf]

If it happens, its Bush's fault.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"Women, children and minorities hit hardest. Literally."

I saw something on the NG Channel the other night that they're predicting Yellowstone is gonna blow sometime soon, too.

I'm with the poster that said he's not starting any new projects, LOL!

[Savage Beast]

"Countries will have to make plans for food, shelters and evacuation."

All right, everybody. Let's get onto this right away.

“Humankind might develop the capability to deflect an asteroid, but we will never develop a way of averting a super-volcano."

Oh don't be so sure about that, Stephen. If we put our minds to it...you never know.

Maybe we could make something like a gigantic cork to stop it up like a wine bottle.

Or maybe the eruption will coincide with an asteroid collision, and we can deflect the asteroid right into the volcano and plug it up with that--kill two birds with one stone.

Or--I've got it! We could construct a gigantic generator around it and harness its energy to serve mankind until the next super-eruption!

You've gotta think positively, Stephen. No wonder you're in such a panic.

[DrDavid]

They already did that movie. Wasn't it called Planet of the Apes?

[The Great RJ]

I'm not worried... the asteroid in 2026 will wipe us out before the volcanoes will.

[kimosabe31]

Yellowstone has produced three super-eruptions in the past — 2.1 million, 1.3 million and 640,000 years ago...

What the "H" do these phonies know? They spit this crap out as though it were documented fact when in reality they don't know their "A" from second base.

[WillVoteForFood]

So does this mean I don't have to replace my piece of crap printer that broke down last night?

[dirtboy]

What the "H" do these phonies know? They spit this crap out as though it were documented fact when in reality they don't know their "A" from second base.

You might want to do a little research of your own before you belittle geologists. Volcanic ash of that age is pretty easy to date through potassium-argon analysis.

[uncbob]

What the "H" do these phonies know? They spit this crap out as though it were documented fact when in reality they don't know their "A" from second base.

Are you sure that is not true and if so based on what

[dirtboy]

This would make a good suspense novel- yellowstone erupts taking half the continent

I considered writing a Sci-Fi story based on that long before this series came out, based on a group of survivors clustered around a dam which provides the energy for them to survive and grow crops. Meanwhile, the rest of the human population continues to cannibalize itself and drops 60 percent each year.