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.
Me either.
Let me see now . . does this mean that none of us are actually getting out of this life alive in the strictly physical sense?
Natural disasters of such a scale only kill those who live in grass or mud huts........like New Mexico's Old Hippies !
Direct quote from : "Tres Pequeños Cerdos"........Honest !
I'm not scared , I have one of them Baygen windup radios with a light so I see whats not transmitting that I'm trying to listen to !
The Colorado River, supposedly over a period of millions of years, gradually wore down the rock until it formed the Grand Canyon. It used to be a regular river, but it has been around a long, long time and supposedly had longer than say, the Tennessee River, has had to dig a huge hole in Tennessee which can be called the Grander Canyon when it gets finished.
It usually shows up under the title "Supervolcanoes",and runs periodically. You'll enjoy it.
Dream on, leftie Brit Eoruweenies.
Maybe Mammoth will go too - that should get the other 20% of the country.
Paul Bunyan.
Glaciers launched by super volcanos, like bowling balls down the alley.
"Actually the problem is we have a "natural" cork in the bottle already. What we need to do is release the pressure before it can blow. I suggest we drill down to the magma and let it ooze to the suface before it reaches critical pressure. Of course drilling might be a problem what with the drills melting before we can get deep enough, but what the hey, americans are inventive I am sure we can figure it out!"
Hey, great idea........no wait, we are not even allowed to drill for oil any more.
Hmmmmm, maybe we could prevail upon Ted Kennedy to donate himself as the great cork to save Americs!
Drilling is the worst thing to do, imagine a pressure cooker, the fact that you can heat water to way over its natural boiling point is because it is under pressure. When you flip the little nozzle on it, it allows the water to instantly vaporize, so as the volume of water in the cooker decreases it actually creates more room for water to vaporize a faster rate. Now if you create too big of a hole in the pressure cooker or just flip the lid off, the super heated water will instantly vaporize creating a violent explosion. Thats why your grandparents were so nervous when you were little and hanging around the pressure cooker. If you vent a volcano the same thing will happen the gases will violently expand expediting the eruption, either way there is nothing anyone can do about super volcanoes.
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