Realistic look at Supervolcano Yellowstone

[Volcanistical]

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/scientists-hatch-bold-plan-save-planet-supervolcano-ncna799166

 

Drilling not a feasible plan? 99% human life extinction event, yeah absolutely to expensive to work on this situation. Cool let's watch the nice scenery before everyone dies. Just throwing this out there think twice before you suggest future generations will enjoy an area of mass extinction levels. Anyhow have a great time. I'll be over here with a realistic mind set. Those that say hide, if you survive, good luck having a food an water supply.

Always interesting to get the trolling going: Thanks for the entertainment.

Edited September 7, 2017 by Volcanistical
Entertainment

[p1t1o]

Quote

 

“It’s pie in the sky right now,” says Dr. Charles Connor

"Great care would need to be taken to make sure the drilling process didn’t inadvertently trigger an eruption."

"It would take thousands of years for all the heat to be fully extracted."

 

Seems like no new information to me.

[Green Baron]

Could this be merged with your other Yellowstone thread ?

 

 

1 hour ago, Volcanistical said:

Drilling not a feasible plan?

No. Well, for NASA, but they seem to need arguments for they existence, they show some wild guessing every now and then :-/ That's what a "plan" shared with the media instead of putting it to discussion in the scientific community looks like. Like a colony on Mars, one can dream a lot, but not realise it ;-) That Wilcox guy is a robot engineer, maybe they cut his funds ? I am nasty ... :-)

Quote

99% human life extinction event,

Let me give you a research task: you live in the area, that you mentioned in the other thread. Got to the visitor center and browse the literature, try to find out from the sciency looking publications what the scenarios are. Maybe you can even speak with the guys there. We'll then compare them to known historic or prehistoric events.

Quote

yeah absolutely to expensive to work on this situation. Cool let's watch the nice scenery before everyone dies. Just throwing this out there think twice before you suggest future generations will enjoy an area of mass extinction levels. Anyhow have a great time. I'll be over here with a realistic mind set. Those that say hide, if you survive, good luck having a food an water supply.

The main mass extinction tkes place right now is the one we produce ourselves. In is no threat to humanity yet.

I read there is an extensive investigation going on by the USGS (your countries geological survey, that's where the specialists for the subject sit) of getting a picture of the hydrology in and around the caldera. That'll go one for several years, maybe even decades and will produce a stack of master and phd thesis' about things few can imagine, like how fluids change rocks (Alteration) in different pressure, temperature and chemical composition regimes and so on and so on.

Relax, everything will be fine (famous last words) :-)

Edit: https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone/hazard_summary.html

 

Edited September 7, 2017 by Green Baron

[YNM]

It's NBC, that's the worst of acronyms 

In any case, standard tounge-in-cheek news reporting. "Scientist hatch great plan" doesn't sound good. If it's Brunel I'd care more.

[p1t1o]

Pessimism regarding scientific journalism aside, it probably will blow at some point, and we cant redirect it with nukes like we can an asteroid.

If you ask me, these things are a socio-economic question more than a "How, exactly?" question.

Exactly when does the general public become convinced its a good idea to spend billions averting a disaster that might not occur for many millenia?

Its gotta be post-scarcity surely?

(And on top of that, this specific solution requires thousands of years to be effective. That is a scope way out of human experience.)

[Green Baron]

8 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Pessimism regarding scientific journalism aside, it probably will blow at some point, and we cant redirect it with nukes like we can an asteroid.

It is disinformation.

Being alert and curious drives science. And thus some things are known about Yellowstone, others are not. For example the major past eruptions during the Pleistocene are known. Now, to check whether there is any possible scientific information connected to the claim "99% of humanity", one could simply check if any of these eruptions have a representation in the records (try EPICA) or in biodiversity. That so ? (in know the answer but i am not telling )

8 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

If you ask me, these things are a socio-economic question more than a "How, exactly?" question.

I think the same. And money. Money. Money. Get a grip on public funds. Asteroids are out of style since most of the big ones are apparently known by now, no immediate risk observable at the moment.

8 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Exactly when does the general public become convinced its a good idea to spend billions averting a disaster that might not occur for many millenia?

The general public these days changes minds quickly. Asteroids today, eruptions tomorrow, storms after that. Real threats drown in the noise or aren't momentarily that evident (like climate change). The disaster (a supereruption) will most probably cover large parts of the US in ashes and so will have a huge impact on biodiversity there. One can speculate about the details, and about the impact on the rest of the world, definitely know it is not.

8 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Its gotta be post-scarcity surely?

(And on top of that, this specific solution requires thousands of years to be effective. That is a scope way out of human experience.)

Rather millions. The chamber is huge and being fed from below (>600km), though maybe not from way down below (core/mantle border). Humans don't concentrate that long .... :-)

 

[cubinator]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Yellowstone erupt roughly every hundred thousand years? And if humans have been around for two million years that means we've survived about 19 eruptions so far, and it did not cause a 99% death rate. My guess is that it would not kill everybody on Earth, but would cause a global cooling event that would make food more scarce.

We would likely have about a hundred years notice before the eruption proper.

[Kevin Kyle]

I believe its every 650,000 years roughly

 

I should add, if it is really going to erupt anytime nearish future, we would all know before it happened. There would be no doubt.

Edited September 7, 2017 by Kevin Kyle

[Green Baron]

13 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Correct me if I'm wrong,

Wilco :-)

Three big ones that could have had global impact during the past 2.1 million years. At least the last one 640.000 years ago should have a representation in the records, but it hasn't.

As to the effects of ashes, sulfuric acid, etc., it'll surely be noticable, but it is not that trivial to quantify.

What you could do if interested is use the info from USGS (there's a lot of it on the page i linked above) and go for a search.

Edit: and use historic eruptions for comparison, Tambora comes to mind, though it was a magnitude lower.

Edited September 7, 2017 by Green Baron

[cubinator]

56 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Wilco :-)

Thanks!

[DDE]

On ‎07‎.‎09‎.‎2017 at 1:29 PM, YNM said:

It's NBC, that's the worst of acronyms 

I hear you.

On ‎07‎.‎09‎.‎2017 at 2:01 PM, p1t1o said:

Pessimism regarding scientific journalism aside, it probably will blow at some point, and we cant redirect it with nukes like we can an asteroid.

Hm, can we Ploughshare the crap out of this thing with half a dozen shaped nuclear charges?

[Scotius]

3 hours ago, DDE said:

Hm, can we Ploughshare the crap out of this thing with half a dozen shaped nuclear charges?

Nope. Never been done before, and thus we have way too little data to even consider such procedure. Because if we'd make a blunder, it could not only speed up the eruption, but also release a lot of radioactive ash and pulverized rocks. Nukes aren't answer to every problem Also, there was at least one super-eruption that (possibly) hit humanity hard enough to put us through population bottleneck (maybe). Of course i'm talking about infamous Toba eruption.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

But it was 75 thousands of years ago. Population of Homo sapiens was counted in thousands, not billions. And our ancestors were hunters - gatherers, living off the land and much more vulnerable to natural catastrophes than their descendants (or so i would like to assume )

So. If it blows, we will feel it. Badly. But i don't think we'll go the way of the dodos.

And one more thing: we do not look at the world through rose-colored glasses. Yellowstone is big, but it is not the only supervolcano on this planet. In Europe we have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlegraean_Field.

It is a supervolcano that is making worrying noises recently. And it is not in the middle of a huge, empty national park. It's smack in the middle of densely populated area, very close to big city of Naples (3 millions of citizens in direct area). OP, you want to compare nightmare potential of those two?

People, governments and scientists are well aware of the threat. But right now, we can't do much more than closely observe what is happening, make plans for mass evacuation and damage mitigation and hope for the best.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

If redirect a ready-to-impact dangerous asteroid into a ready-to-burst supervolcano, casulaties would be less at least twice (because one disaster instead of two), and this can be done in a known moment, while the population hides in underground vaults on the opposite side of the Earth.
So, the most dangerous asteroids should be equipped with emergency rocket boosters to do this when some supervolcano eruption will get inevitable.

 

[Scotius]

Now that's a recipe for a disaster, if i've ever seen one

[DDE]

@kerbiloid @Scotius

[YNM]

On 9/9/2017 at 6:37 PM, DDE said:

I hear you.

[image]

Well, yeah...

21 hours ago, Scotius said:

... Also, there was at least one super-eruption that (possibly) hit humanity hard enough to put us through population bottleneck (maybe). Of course i'm talking about infamous Toba eruption.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

But it was 75 thousands of years ago. Population of Homo sapiens was counted in thousands, not billions.

...

And one more thing: we do not look at the world through rose-colored glasses. Yellowstone is big, but it is not the only supervolcano on this planet. In Europe we have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlegraean_Field.

It is a supervolcano that is making worrying noises recently. And it is not in the middle of a huge, empty national park. It's smack in the middle of densely populated area, very close to big city of Naples (3 millions of citizens in direct area).

I think that "supervolcanoes" of such size isn't really a problem or threat, short-term. Lots of cities are made well in their realm [*], and the foundation of these cities are well sounded. Volcanism makes the land fertile, and in later times (of human history/"evolution") ensure rich mineral sources. So it's not surprising to see people in the areas. I could only assume that we have to live with them - that's it. I don't think preventive treatment will ever work in any way with our current state pf understanding.

[*] your two cases, even Toba region have a fair amount of population centres around it (and now we have Mount Sinabung there now which seems to always erupt), also Tongariro-Taupo-Rorotua in NZ ; for general volcanic field, there are a lot more, most of the islands here are volcanic in origin (probably bar Borneo), Mexico (the story of volcano appearing in the fields - Parícutin), Deccan traps (probably waay too old but perhaps still have some effect), many around Pacific Ring of Fire, various others in Mediteranean as well, and others 'round the world.

[Scotius]

Exactly. Volcanic soils are rich in mineral nutrients that elsewhere were flushed from the ground by water or depleted by agriculture. People will flock to those fertile areas in search of better living - and it will not change in the foreseeable future. For good and bad, we have to accept the risk.

[Green Baron]

The bottleneck 75.000 years ago for humans is less than unsure. Too many of those lived all around the world then. I don't recall exactly, a paper around 2012 dealt with it and i think especially with Toba. Don't have the time now for a search now, sorry. Sciencemag ?

Of course i don't want to say that supervolcanoes are no threat, sure they are. There is little we can do right now and for the foreseeable future, except research and more research, before anybody pokes into an unstable magmachamber with water around.

 

Possible bottlenecks happened to Homo erectus spp. earlier ...

 

Edited September 10, 2017 by Green Baron

[Kerbart]

It's cute to see all these "near certainty" projections for the next 100,000 years. What's more relevant is the probability over the next 100 year. If we care about humanity maybe the next 500, but by then we probably have gotten ourselves already killed in other ways. I highly doubt it's even 5% for the next 500 years.

[Green Baron]

The answer is easy: right now it is impossible to predict the occurrence of an earthquake or eruption until the signs are clear and unambiguous.

*shrug*

 

[Just Jim]

I look at the Yellowstone Caldera like I'm looking at this storm coming right at me and all I can think of is the line from Suicide Squad:

"What if Superman had decided to fly down, rip the roof off the white house, and grab the President of the United States right out of the Oval Office?" 
"Who would have stopped him?"

I'm sorry, I really am.... I know everyone has the best intentions in mind... and maybe it's because I have this BigS storm heading right at me... But in my mind, trying to cap or even slow down the Yellowstone Volcano is like trying to stop Superman in mid-flight! That thing is the size of a state! No... sorry... thinking we can somehow drill out the lava, in my opinion, is about as realistic as hoping Superman shows up and saves us after we screw it up and it blows it's top.

 

Edited September 10, 2017 by Just Jim

[Green Baron]

Hey, you're alive :-)

Yes, but we can (try to) get behind the mechanisms that cause and steer the processes in the atmo-, cryo-, hydro- and so on spheres. And those that take place in the earth's interior and crust. We aren't doing that bad, large leaps forward have been made. We'll just sit out adverse "weather" in all forms and then we or others carry on.

Without research we wouldn't even have been able to issue the warnings days before impact of the storm, or judge the behaviour of geological processes and their possible dangers.

It is only that complex things don't have simple answers and humans don't have superpowers. Most not even powers :-) Superman has superpowers, that makes the lecture incredible boring, even stupid because we know he always switches off physics and then wins ... how unsporty.

[Just Jim]

13 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Hey, you're alive :-)

Yes, but we can (try to) get behind the mechanisms that cause and steer the processes in the atmo-, cryo-, hydro- and so on spheres. And those that take place in the earth's interior and crust. We aren't doing that bad, large leaps forward have been made. We'll just sit out adverse "weather" in all forms and then we or others carry on.

Without research we wouldn't even have been able to issue the warnings days before impact of the storm, or judge the behaviour of geological processes and their possible dangers.

yeah, but it's picking back up a little, so I'll make this fast. 

I totally, totally agree we need to study and learn more about it. Absolutely! The more we can learn, the better!!!

I'm just worried about the gung-ho types that want to immediately try anything they can think of, before understanding the consequences of their actions. I mean, what if they started trying to pump out the gazillions of gallons of lava... far fetched as it sounds... and only end up shifting the internal pressure enough to set it off what might have been 2 centuries early?

I just don't think it's worth the risk tampering with it... not until we know a lot, lot more than we do now.

 

Edited September 10, 2017 by Just Jim

[Green Baron]

Not everybody heeds scientist's advice and for some (many actually) personal earnings go over everything else including lives.

Fortunately nobody will in foreseeable future tap a supervolcano with other means than words because it's technically not realizable.

Lucky weathering out !

[Green Baron]

I found this remarkable:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0075-y

The Yellowstone hot spot could be fed by a plume that penetrates the whole mantle, all the way from the core/mantle boundary. To date the resolution of seismic waves is still too coarse for a direct evidence.