Seismic changes are being detected in and around Old Faithful geyser that's indicating it may be bracing for another volcanic eruption - not at some distant time in the future.

Could global warming be speeding this along, like climate change?

"Scientists working in and around Yellowstone National Park say that the supervolcano sitting under the tourist attraction may blow sooner than thought, an eruption that could wipe out life on the planet.

According to National Geographic, the researchers, from Arizona State University, analyzed minerals in fossilized ash from the most recent mega-eruption and found changes in temperature and composition that had only taken a few decades. Until now, the magazine reported, geologists had thought it would take centuries for the supervolcano to make the transition.

The discovery, which was presented at a recent volcanology conference, comes on top of a 2011 study that found that ground above the magma reservoir in Yellowstone had bulged by about 10 inches in seven years.

"It's an extraordinary uplift, because it covers such a large area and the rates are so high," the University of Utah's Bob Smith, an expert in Yellowstone volcanism, told the magazine at the time....

The researchers, The New York Times reported, have determined that the supervolcano has the ability to spew more than 1,000 cubic kilometers of rock and ash — 2,500 times more material than erupted from Mount St. Helens in 1980 — an event that could blanket most of the United States in ash and possibly plunge the Earth into a volcanic winter.

The theory of a much shorter timeline than expected was developed by Hannah Shamloo, a graduate student at Arizona State, and several colleagues who spent weeks at Yellowstone’s Lava Creek Tuff — a fossilized ash deposit from its last supereruption.

According to The Times, Shamloo later analyzed crystals from the team’s dig that recorded changes in temperature, pressure and water content beneath the volcano — much like a set of tree rings.

“We expected that there might be processes happening over thousands of years preceding the eruption,” Christy Till, a geologist at Arizona State who is Shamloo’s dissertation adviser, told the paper. Instead, the crystals revealed an increase in temperature and a change in composition that had happened more quickly....

“It’s shocking how little time is required to take a volcanic system from being quiet and sitting there to the edge of an eruption,” Shamloo told The Times, cautioning that more research is necessary before definite conclusions can be drawn."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/12/yellowstone-supervolcano-may-blow-sooner-than-thought-could-wipe-out-life-planet/757337001/

More likely by nukes with two nuclear armed crazy world leaders who hate each other.

Tectonic shift happens/.

What's with all this "cleansing" superstitious religious stuff?

God been talking to you again?

Lordy. The Earth will eventually be engulfed by the Sun when the Sun, toward the end of its life, morphs into a red giant and transforms our little speck into a dead charcoal briquet.

Sorry to burst your bubble--or, better yet, vaporize it.



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2017 11:15PM by steve benson.

steve benson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tectonic shift happen.
>
> What's with all this "cleansing" superstitious
> religious stuff?
>
> God been talking to you again?


Thats what I was going to ask .... What god?

What, so God was vacuuming in California? What's with the "cleansing" terminology?

Yellowstone could blow. I figure if it happens in my lifetime I will be living so close I won't even know if it happens. It could impact life and food chains in a big way.

There is no shortage of things to worry about! If it's not a super-volcano, tornado, fire, hurricane, plague, war or overpopulation, we can always worry about zombies, aliens and stupid humans.

I love you Dagny, and your answer to this "Apocalyptic" prediction is one of the reasons why, well this and the picture in my mind of God vacuuming.

Ha! Love back!

I picture God bowling with tornadoes. Tornado Alley.

hahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha. Yes.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2017 10:14PM by steve benson.

I don't often worry about outside forces that I can't control anyway. What will be will be.

But this year has seemed to be frantically disastrous. I understand people getting a bit 'superstitious' about things.

I have always felt for people living in less fortunate places than I do, with their famine, disease, wars, dictators. It's hard to picture being in such situations. Recent current events have brought disaster a lot closer, with people and circumstances more in our faces and perhaps easier for me, at least, to personally relate to (like being worried about friends in California this week or my sister's home flooding in Minnesota or the insane beings that rampage against innocent people. Or our fate at the hands of intemperate leaders).

As for the 'paradise' in which I gratefully live, I have (somewhat smugly) never worried about Dagny's "super-volcano, tornado... hurricane...". Of course, on the west coast of North America, we do get regular warnings about "the big one" headed our way. I finally have an emergency kit ready in case of earthquake. A scary proposition as it is actually quite a reality. We had a precursor last year, a quite small quake but scary nonetheless.

Now to the list of things I do occasionally think about as being quite undesirable (understatement), thanks to Dagny's list I have (somewhat OCD-ishly) added "...plague, zombies, aliens", none of which I have previously considered.

As for "...stupid humans", yes, they do seem to abound in this, our 21st century. A reasonable cure would be to elevate the anti-stupid ones.

The only trouble is how to decide amongst us, divided as we are, who is stupid and who wise. I used to think wisdom would naturally rise to the top. Now, I think not necessarily. Sad.

When I was a kid I used to wonder why, if things weren't going well, didn't people just move. Now I am older and perhaps a tiny bit less clueless. I am smack in the middle of an earthquake zone and disaster is lurking, say the experts. Still, I stay. I love it here. And where can we realistically go to avoid all possible disastrous events? Until I lie buried under 10 feet of rubble I will continue to enjoy the great Pacific and the vast forests and the glorious mountains. And a relatively stable (and boring!) national government that at least tries to preserve the status quo which for many of us is working out okay. I like that we try to expand its reach so more people can enjoy better lives. That's the kind of approach that makes me love my country, its people, its ideals, its boringness and niceness, as well as its abundant natural resources and treasures such as the seas, the trees and the peaks.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2017 03:15PM by Nightingale.

I wouldn't mind living in Vancouver, BC owing to its temperate climate and beautiful scenery.

The cost of living seemed very high when I was there. Housing especially. I don't know how young families or adults make it starting out these days, or anywhere for that matter.

It's getting expensive everywhere. But Vancouver is still one of the prettiest places on earth, IMO.

As for it being on the Ring of Fire - guess it's one of the hazards people are willing to put up with to live there despite the risk.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2017 03:22PM by Amyjo.

Right re cost of living. Astronomical! And young families aren't making it in the city in this housing market. They have to move away, increasing prices in other areas, so spreading the problem further out into other areas. There are a lot of overseas buyers which keeps prices and speculation up and further erodes the ability of first-time buyers (young families) to get into a home. The rental market is thus saturated and there is less than a 1% vacancy rate in the city and this also spreads to the suburbs. I don't know what the solution is. It's the first time I've known of that people born/raised in Vancouver cannot purchase a home of their own there. The prices have not only increased to average $800K-$1M for an average-sized family home but have done so rapidly. One generation will perhaps benefit, middle-aged or seniors who bought decades ago, but their children can't stay nearby if they want to own or even rent and they themselves can't easily find a new place to buy/afford if they do choose to sell. So they may get a lot more than they paid for their house but then what do they do? Condos now cost what houses used to.

So, some lucky people at the beginning of the boom who sold for a lot more than they paid, thus paying off mortgages and having $$$ left over and buying smaller places for reasonable prices, then still having $$$ in the bank, did well. That cannot now be easily or widely replicated the way things are.

Worse to me even than the rapidly rising prices is how quickly the city is changing with unceasing new development including condos and other multi-family dwellings that is weekly changing how the city looks. We used to have protected view corridors where some streets with iconic "old Vancouver" views could not be impeded (by highrises, for example). You could also identify which neighbourhood you were in by the style of the homes and other buildings. That is all rapidly changing/disappearing and it's hard to adjust when you see it happening so quickly right before your eyes. I have even got lost driving around when suddenly landmark areas have changed so much I don't recognize where I am (I have always been geographically challenged but still, the change is so fast and drastic that it could happen to anybody, I'm thinking!)

Of course, increased density causes more headaches like roads wearing out, so there is never-ending construction (good for the job market though) and amazingly awful traffic jams in areas that were previously suitable for a medium-sized, kind of old-fashioned type of city. I used to commute into Vancouver from an outlying area and it took 20 minutes to arrive at the clinic. Now it takes me up to 1.5 hours to get to the same place! That change happened in not so many years. It's very difficult to get used to it. I had thought that infrastructure and architectural changes happened slowly over time. Now it's every few years, it seems. It also actually hurts to see areas and buildings I've loved turned into temporary-looking multi-family dwellings without yards, facing onto busy roads, and lots of trees removed. I am afraid that within not many years they will be run-down, despite the eye-popping price tags - more now for a small unit than an entire family home with big yard used to cost.

I guess I'm officially old, talking about times past. But in this case, the change is so rapid that it's very disconcerting.

Too bad I don't have a million dollar home to sell. I wasn't thinking fast enough to be a speculator, or whatever, to profit from the world suddenly discovering what we've always known. This is a pretty darn nice place to live. I hope we don't change it too much.

One of the biggest regrets of the changes for me is the Death of the Lilac. My absolute most favourite of all things is a lilac blossom. Every spring/summer I would enjoy seeing all the lilac trees growing in gardens and green areas and even roadsides in the city. I would rate them and had a list in my head of the very best of the bunch and would make sure to drive or walk by every year to savour them. I had two of my absolute favourites that I never missed checking out each spring. The medium-tall trees with the darkest lavender-coloured blooms were the best.

Now they have all gone! I read that the soil in this area has changed and they don't prosper any more. Also, the construction and new-builds have uprooted most of them.

You know the classic "Where have all the Flowers gone". I sing "Where have all the Lilacs gone" and it's so disappointing.

What a crazy world, in so many ways. Why did they kill the lilacs?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2017 04:12PM by Nightingale.

Actually, if I understand correctly, a massive volcanic eruption like this will actually make things colder. The earth will not be cleansed by fire. It will experience a mini-Ice Age.

So are you saying it could reverse global warming?

I guess the unknown factor is the response of humans to the event- which will depend an a lot of other unknowns. Humans might opt to burn lots of fuel to counteract the cooling, which will exacerbate the global warming trend. Lots of possible outcomes.

But to the main point, the caldera blowing up will certainly not lead to devastation by fire.

Since there is nothing that I can do about it I think I'll not let it be my main point of focus. I feel that my time would be better spent capturing beautiful images on my camera.

And if it does happen, imagine the images we will all record as the nightmarish maelstrom bears down on us! Let's hope our SD cards survive for the Krilbk (from planet Kblirk) to decipher and enjoy.

I just won’t stay in that rickety Yellowstone Lodge—made outta kindling and plopped on the most unstable ground in the US. Creepy thing. That pyroclastic flow problem—I’ll just have to deal with that later.

Grew up near Lassen Peak. Spent my youth planning escape routes. Ain’t gonna spend one more nanosecond worrying about volcanos—not even Yellowstone.

You grew up closer to there than I did. I grew up in the shadow of the Grand Tetons in SE Idaho.

My "escape routes" unfolded as I grew up.

I don't mind visiting there these days. Would I want to live there again? Nope. Nada.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2017 11:07PM by Amyjo.

It's said there's enough molten lava inside Old Faithful to fill several Grand Canyons. That's a whole lotta lava! I wouldn't want to be sittin' on it either when it blows.

I remember the old Yellowstone Lodge. :)

Methinks the heathen gods of ole Japan might be pissed at Steve for questioning Amjo's muse.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/japans-shinmoe-volcano-alert-level-raised-small-eruption-024820129.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2017 09:02PM by Shummy.

That occurred in a southern prefecture of Japan. It's been six years since it last erupted.

Japan alone has more than 100 active volcanoes, all along the Ring of Fire.

Yellowstone is not a part of that, but still is the biggest and most contankerous one of them all.

When it blows it isn't going to matter where we are or what we believe. It will still be doomsday for the planet.

Dire
Dire
Dire
Dire
Tryna live here!
Dire
Dire
Dire
Dire

Russia has stated that the Yellowstone Caldera is their number one nuke target to cause a chain reaction destroying our nation.

Fortunately they won the war without firing a shot and installed their puppet American president, so we will wait for nature to take her time.

Oh, so that's their military strategy?

Why spend a fortune on arsenal if they don't have to?

Damn, damn, and damn.

Let's hope our military's strategy is superior to theirs and that NORAD is on top of such things.

A man who has managed to gut FEMA and Homeland Security.

Nuthin to worry about.

Believe me, I can tell you that.

He hasn't had one single piece of legislation pass in the ten months he's been in office.

He's just been undoing Obama's legacy as fast as he can.

He's breaking all the molds of what it means to be presidential.

At the rate he's going he won't need to run for a second term because by then there isn't going to be a country left to govern.

Having a Congress that's at odds with the President is always the best case - they end up doing the least damage.

Yellowstone is not going to blow. Just relax.

I heard it from Bednar himself. This caldera is totally straight.

It blows....I'm on the edge of being toast. Nuclear winter and pestilence will ensue.....and Al friggin' Gore will blame on the Alberta Oil Sands....guarandamnteed.

I have about ten years left so it can hold off that long if it likes!

If it blows, I'm going to shot it!! I'll sneak up and shoot it in its new, bigger caldera. And I'll have an old-fashioned match stick at the side of my mouth, for effect. It'll be totally cool!

I found this to be an amusing read:

http://www.isthisthingon.org/Yellowstone/keep-calm.php

-and the home page link was also enjoyable.

harumph! are you suggesting...dare I say it... click bait??