Posted on 03/09/2005 6:15:28 AM PST by burlywood
An exploding supervolcano would be a calamity to dwarf an asteroid strike or the Asian tsunami
A VOLCANIC super-eruption that would threaten the future of modern civilisation is up to ten times more likely than a catastrophic asteroid impact, yet it has been ignored by the world’s governments, scientists said yesterday.
Vast volcanic blasts that cause global devastation occur on average every 50,000 years — and, as the last one struck 74,000 years ago, at Toba, Indonesia, another may be overdue.
The scale of such a cataclysm would dwarf that of the recent Asian tsunami: the eruption could kill millions and the final death toll could reach a billion as dust thrown into the atmosphere triggers a natural “nuclear winter”.
Among natural disasters, only the impact of an asteroid a kilometre (0.6 miles) or more across would be comparable, a new report from the Geological Society has found. Asteroids big enough to cause global effects strike at intervals of 400,000 to 500,000 years. Super-eruptions happen about ten times more frequently.
The new report, presented to the Government’s Natural Hazard Working Group, was published as the BBC prepares to screen Supervolcano, a two-part factual drama that charts the effects of a super-eruption at Yellowstone National Park in the United States.
Yellowstone has produced three super-eruptions in the past — 2.1 million, 1.3 million and 640,000 years ago — the first being the second-largest known to science. A similar event today would lay waste to most of the continental US.
In the BBC film, which strictly follows scenarios presented by expert scientific advisers, the eruption causes more than 25 million deaths in the first week alone. Eighty per cent of the US is covered in volcanic ash and 20 per cent, including most of the rich agricultural lands of the Great Plains, becomes uninhabitable.
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.
Steve Sparks, of the University of Bristol, a lead author of the report and an adviser to the BBC film-makers, said that governments needed to make contingency plans. “This is not just a scientific curiosity,” he said. “These events are rare on a human timescale, but in geological time they are common. The issues involved are similar to preparing for a nuclear war. Countries will have to make plans for food, shelters and evacuation. These sorts of events are extremely rare, and would require enormous investment of resources if we are to have any hope of coping.”
The dangers from a super-eruption are also greater than those from asteroids as there is no conceivable method of preventing the event.
“Humankind might develop the capability to deflect an asteroid, but we will never develop a way of averting a super-volcano,” Stephen Self, of the Open University, another of the report’s authors, said. “Damage-limitation is the only way forward.”
Super-eruptions are different in scale from ordinary eruptions: the first Yellowstone event ejected 2,500 times more gas and molten rock into the atmosphere than the Mount St Helens eruption of 1980.
None has taken place during recorded human history, though the Toba eruption may have come close to driving early Homo sapiens to extinction. The human population is thought to have dwindled to a few thousand soon after Toba, and some scientists think that climate change provoked by the volcano was responsible.
About 40 supervolcano sites are known, but most are extinct. Yellowstone is the site with the greatest lethal potential because of its position on a heavily populated continent.
Supervolcano will be shown on BBC1 at 9pm on Sunday, March 13 and Monday, March 14.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!
That's exactly what it is. Shameless. Scaring folks is one of the fastest ways to make a buck, or in this case a pound.
Ever notice how many goods and services warn people of the irresponsibility and danger you expose yourself to by not using their offerings?
Homeless come out as winners (or vinos), they are the only ones who lost nothing. Dan Rather reporting from inside of volcanoooo..
LOL!!!!
Really, I don't this catching us by surprise, nor do I see the end of the world as we know it ...
Stuff happens. That's why the Lord told us to increase and multiply. Eventually, something big happens to wipe out millions, perhaps billions. Then the cycle repeats.
>I'm not worried... the asteroid in 2026 will wipe us out >before the volcanoes will.
Its the asteroid that set off the volcanoes............Or is it the other way around...... At any rate the earth will end..........BFD I'm betting on the giant space goats......
Only after they put the volcano on trial for murder.
Another eruption will happen, Yellowstone is a massive and active caldera, but I don't think anybody can say if it's going to happen tomorrow or in another couple hundred thousand years. The same applies to asteroid strikes, changes in the earth's magnetic poles, etc.
That makes articles like this one interesting but almost completely useless for anything but making a few erstwhile ignorant people loose sleep over something they have no power to prevent.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Thanks for the memories, Yukua Migshidushu.
I saw the Discovery Channel program..we can't do anything
to stop it, when it decides to blow. But there's no sense
worring about this anyway, or the 2026 asteroid. The
Mayan calender ends in 2012, so we'll be dead from one
thing or the other unspecified means of destruction.
Supervolcano - Yellowstone National Park
While this site is one of those "end times" thingys, it does have other links to the USGS site, earthquake maps, diagrams and news stories. As with any such site, discernment is required.
Also found this old FR thread on the Discovery Channel documentary you mentioned. As with all FR threads, discernment is included : )
Not much they can do about it. Spending money on this would be a real boondoggle
Oh, I don't know. How much can a couple of virgins cost to toss into the volcano? That should do it.
If it is as major an eruption as predicted, you may not stay six feet under!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.