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To: blam
"If memory serves Yellowstone is a supervolcano."

Yup. Forty thousand years overdue too.

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Can you be more specific about when it's going to erupt?

I want to include it in my day planner on the right day.
19 posted on 12/23/2006 4:19:07 PM PST by Cheburashka ( World's only Spatula City certified spatula repair and maintenance specialist!!!)
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To: Cheburashka

America's Explosive Park
By Larry O'Hanlon
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/supervolcano/under/under.html

Yellowstone National Park sits atop a subterranean chamber of molten rock and gasses so vast that the region, known for its geysers and grizzlies, is arguably one of the largest active volcanoes in the world.

Granted, it's not your typical volcano, either in scale (it's huge), appearance (it's a vast depression, not a single mountain) or frequency of eruption (at least hundreds of thousands of years apart).

But it is active, and the evidence is everywhere.

A relatively close-to-the-surface magma chamber — as close as 5 miles underground in some spots — fuels thousands of spewing geysers, hissing steam vents, gurgling mud pots and steaming hot springs that help make Yellowstone such an otherworldly and popular tourist attraction, with 3 million summer visitors.

Molten rock and gas in a chamber near the Earth's surface is similarly present below "traditional" cone-shaped active volcanoes, like Mount St. Helens in Washington state.

But there are differences. Huge differences.

The crater atop Mount St. Helens is about 2 square miles. The Yellowstone "caldera" — a depression in the Earth equivalent to a crater top — is some 1,500 square miles.

(snip)


24 posted on 12/23/2006 4:25:51 PM PST by Valin (History takes time. It is not an instant thing.)
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