[Junior]

ITEOTWAWKI...

[spectre]

You got MY attention...Interesting post.

sw

[TADSLOS]

Somebody better call PETA and ELF to put an end to this. Hey, I know, Al Gore isn't doing much these days and his El Nino battles are behind him....

[Ken H]

Cancelling planned visit to Yellowstone this summer.

It's 40,000 years overdue, for cripe's sake!

[pabianice]

Tinfoil spelunking helmet alert...

[txzman]

Great Article. As with an atomic bomb attack, if the results of an eruption are truly this bad, I want to be visting Yellowstone when it goes off...lol.

[machman]

We're all gonna die!!

[det dweller too]

As an acronym neophyte, I'll ask the dumb question. What does ITEOTWAWKI mean?

[Ciexyz]

Cool. If it explodes, we'll be wearing winter clothes all year.

[El Sordo]

Cool!

Anyone ever wonder if another Harry Truman (of Mt St Helens fame) were living in the area, would the feds lay siege to his home and arrest him if he refused to flee an impending disaster?

[colorado tanker]

Well, it would sure solve the "global warming" problem for a few thousand years.

[TroutStalker]

We have been to Yellowstone a number of times. When you're heading towards the North entrance there is an overlook on one of the mountains that shows the entire caldera, and there is a display there showing the size of the area. When you have driven through it you can truly appreciate the considerable dimensions of it.

It is facinating to fish the rivers and see the many vents that are literally everywhere. It boggles my mind to think how massive this eruption will be when it finally occurs.

I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it though.

[Andyman]

. . . a cold wave lasting several years . . .

Better kick in that global warming, and QUICK!

[dead]

Cool stuff! Of course "in the next hundred thousand years" means that it could affect me or my kids, which would be awful.

More likely, it will affect my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren, and I really don't know them. They might be total jerks for all I know.

[lavaroise]

Oh, why don't you just go hug a tree. Nature cares for us after all and the Earth will always turn round. (Sarcasm)

[Junior]

This one might give the YEC the willies ...

[SengirV]

I saw the Discovery Channel show about this as well. The cycle is not exactly 600K years. It has gone off from 600,000 - 700,000 years intervals for the past 3 eruptions that we know of.

Granted, it's going to blow up but I wouldn't be canceling any planned trips there for the next 10,000 years.

[stripes1776]

I was in Yellowstone during the 1959 earthquake. Things were a rockin' and a rollin'.

[Junior]

Here's another one:

New research proves existence of super volcano beneath Loch Ness

Professor Tom Plume PhD (51) of the EU Volcanic Research Committee has warned that the famous fault-line, known as the Great Glen, may be about to rip apart as a result of a Super Volcano, which has lain dormant for millions of years.

"Loch Ness lies on the Great Glen fault-line and its incredible depth (over 2km) has severely hampered our research project", said Professor Plume. Unlike some other projects, we need to be able to see right down through the earth's crust, but until recently, we have been restricted to dry land. Fortunately new developments with satellite laser topography sonar side-scanning techniques have enabled us to penetrate through the thick sludge that lies up to 400m thick at the loch's bottom. What we found shocked us: nematode worms and zooplankton the size of a human fist that seem to be feeding on thermal vents."

Ironically it was the discovery of the sulphur-feeding creatures that prompted Professor Plume to hire a special robot submarine capable of dropping through a thermal vent and searching beyond. "We found a very active thermal rupture in the sub-base of the loch", said Professor Plume, "further sonar probing showed large lava-filled caverns and pressure readings suggest that a major volcanic event may be about to occur. Tremors have been felt recently in parts of the Highlands of Scotland and it is understood that small seismic shocks often precipitate a major or catastrophic eartchquake or volcanic eruption."

For now, however, this fascinating Loch Ness research project continues to probe its bottom. Professor Plume cautiously suggests that Nessie may have managed to survive the ice age by swimming around the warm volcanic vents and feeding on the monster sized sulphur feeding worms and plankton. The volcano may be a relic from the time this area was part of the super-sized continent Pangea.

"It's just a theory", he said, "but our research has shown that Loch Ness still holds some incredible mysteries and there is little sign that they will be solved in the near future."

The Highlands of Scotland Tourist Board (HOST) was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.

[Deguello]

Someone has been watching the Discovery Channel.

[Cleburne]

The south end of Yellowstone Lake is sagging, so that water has flooded areas that were formerly forest. And there are a slew of brand new thermal features up in the region north of Pelican Creek, lots of new hot lakes and such. Now, I certainly hope the good volcano limits itself to such displays for at least another century or so, or even just a decade or two, so I can go back up there again and get a good look before the scenery gets re-arranged. It's such a great place and all, I will really hate to see it go. Still, we can always hope even cooler stuff will show up after the thing blows. I can imagine a Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes only several hundred times larger. It will take a few centuries to replinish the underground water supply of course, but maybe the massive smoke and ash cloud will begin a small ice age in the area, and get some nice glaciers going. Which would be a real need, for the glacial lakes and such are a great part of the park as well.