I’d be lying if I said that I don’t have an unnatural concern about the super volcano that lies under Yellowstone erupting for the first time in 640,000 years.
Tourists at Yellowstone National Park are being barred from areas of the park because the massive underground supervolcano beneath it is melting the asphalt roads.
“It basically turned the asphalt into soup. It turned the gravel road into oatmeal,” Yellowstone spokesman Dan Hottle said. In particular, Hottle said that the road between the park’s most popular attraction, Old Faithful, and Madison Junction has been dangerously compromised.
Park officials also asked tourists not to hike into the affected areas, as the danger of stepping through what appears to be solid soil into boiling-hot water was “high.”
“There are plenty of other great places to see thermal features in the park,” park spokesman Al Nash told The Weather Channel. “I wouldn’t risk personal injury to see these during this temporary closure.”
Scientists tell me that I shouldn’t worry so much because the likelihood of an eruption is really low. Still, I am not comforted by melting roads.
I went through a long period of being freaked out about the possibility the super-volcano might erupt. I got over it. That caldera has been shifting for eons and the hot spots move from place to place. So now they’ve moved to where we staked out territory with roads and structures. Mother nature is just a whole lot more powerful than we are and worrying about stuff we have zero control over is an exercise in futility.
In a related story, Sen. Marco Rubio said, “I’m not a scientist, but I’ll hike in America’s oldest national park wherever I damn well please.”
Sounds like a Salvador Dali painting.
scares me too
Super-volcano???? I’m more afraid of these guys.
maybe Dick Cheney will invite them all on a hunting trip to Yellowstone
The USGS hazard information.
It doesn’t take much heat to turn asphalt into soup or gravel roads into oatmeal.
It’s signs of hot rock and heightened seismic activity you need to worry about. Seismic activity recorded by the USGS has been frequent and low on the Richter scale.
I think this anxiety is about on the scale of sharknado. A diversion from very substantial political worries. Looking at the trail of articles through your link, each one seems more hyped as click bait.
Well, it freaked me out when I read about it, but I feel much better after reading what you wrote.
So many apocalypses, so little time. (Take a look at the movies coming out over the next year. Tons of end of the world stories.)
But while global warming is a slow moving apocalypse, the caldera has the advantage of being extremely quick. If it blows, the effects will be global and profound. It’s just not too likely to happen. More likely that zombies, vampires or a Republican winning the electoral college, but not as certain as global warming.
So do you fear the quick, unlikely end of the world? Or the slow, generations long certainty?
Enjoy!
I should have a field day then, as I like me a well-made end of world movie — On the Beach, the 2000 Aussie remake, being my favorite.
Here’s a partial list of other natural disasters that either will or might happen on our lifetimes:
I’m sure there are more natural disasters I’m forgetting. And this is in addition to the global warming and the polit/geopolitical disasters we seem to be headed towards.
#2: Rome is too far away. Naples, sure.
And you left out the core-explosion in the center of our Galaxy, producing deadly levels of radiation out to 100 kiloparsecs or so.
Good luck running away from THAT one.
start running now, get ahead of it
Well there was a recent item of poss volcanic activity, previously unknown, beneath Rome’s major airport.
And last I heard, scientists were more familiar with the large magma chamber above rather than all that is undoubtedly beneath in the area of Vesuvius to Naples to Rome.
The possibility been ruled out. It was always very unlikely.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis
Do Russian and Chinese space scientists agree w Nasa? Apparently not. Last I heard, both were planning on sending probes or otherwise treating it as if it were a real threat.
I hope Nasa turns out to be right, but, ahem , they don’t always get things right.
Just to scare you a little more, the event that has happened relatively recently and will happen again is a Coronal Mass Ejection.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection
This kind of event could possibly kill most satellites, and a whole lot of electrical infrastructure. Imagine blackouts everywhere, around the world.
With a near-complete loss of communication that we take for granted, it would be very difficult to coordinate the type of activities required to stop the hundreds of nuclear dead-man switches we colloquially call nuclear power plants. Most nuclear waste is stored on-site and requires electric power to keep it cool, as well as water.
If a CME were to hit the earth, and knock out satellites and most electrical infrastructure, the biggest bottleneck in repairing the damage are the transformers.
Of course, if humanity actually cared about the future (which it doesn’t) we would be making our electrical grids more redundant and we would be burying/shielding as much of it as possible. Everywhere.
Of course, working on our country’s infrastructure is a no-go, since it would require the richest people in the solar system to receive slightly less money than they do now.
More reading, if you’re interested.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/26oct_solarshield/
This is one I’m not worried about because thus is one we can do nothing about. If it really blows I’m dead, you’re dead, everyone is dead. Or will wish they were. A few might survive but no one on this continent. Hence, meh.
I’m just hoping for a little advanced warning, enough to arrange for an extended vacation in, say, Australia.
There will be plenty of advance warning. The problem will be all the competition to get into one of the expected safe places (if there are any) in the world. Five to nine billion people all heading for a safe harbor won’t be pretty.
It would be absolutely terrible if it happened, but it wouldn’t kill most Americans, or even a substantial amount of them.
At first.
○ Renewables to Receive Lion’s Share of $7.7 Trillion in Global Power Funding
○ NIST Net-Zero Energy Test House Blows Past Goals In One-Year Trial
○ UAE ranks third globally in solar power investment
They are researching the hell out of this thing. We will get plenty of warning if it starts to act up.
I’m sure that Republican Jesus is just waiting for this whole gay marriage thing to play out, and once it’s legal in all 50 states. Then………..
eh it’s just shit that happens.
http://www.wired.com/2014/07/how-to-keep-things-hot-at-yellowstone-and-katla-volcanoes-just-add-wate
r/
this is why people who know nothing about the sciences are to be summarily dismissed. no matter what political side they’re on.