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Yellowstone Cauldra

Quote:

Ian Gurney

A MONSTER THAT COULD DISTROY LIFE ON EARTH

Thu Sep 11 17:46:36 2003

A Monster Awakens?
By Ian Gurney
9-10-3

"In the heart of America lies a monster that could destroy life on earth."

Part of America's Yellowstone National Park was closed to visitors on July 23rd. this year and remains closed today due to high ground temperatures and increased thermal activity in the park. National Park Superintendent Suzanne Lewis said that "A portion of the Norris Geyser Basin on the west side of the park has been closed."

On August 7th. the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported that scientists were planning to set up a temporary network of seismographs, Global Positioning System receivers and thermometers to monitor increasing hydrothermal activity in the Norris Geyser Basin and gauge the risk of a hydrothermal explosion.

On August 10th. the Denver Post reported that Liz Morgan, a U.S. Geological Survey research geologist had discovered a huge bulge underneath Yellowstone Lake that had risen 100 feet from the lake floor. The bulge is two thousand feet long and has the potential to explode at any time. Morgan was quoted as saying that "The inflated plain is a potential and serious hazard and possible precursor to a large hydrothermal explosion event."

Then, on August 24th. The University of Utah Seismograph Station reported that a magnitude 4.4 earthquake occurred just 9 miles southeast of the southern entrance to Yellowstone National Park. USGS scientists agreed that the earthquake was "uncommon" in that it was a very shallow earthquake, occuring just 0.3 miles below the surface.

Jacob Lowenstern, a researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey and scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory said: "Our goal is to understand what's driving this volcanic system, and are there indications it could be moving into a period of unrest?"

This worrying situation was confirmed on September 8th. by Dr. Bruce Cornet, a geologist and paleobotanist with the USGS, who explained: "Steam pressure is apparently building again in Yellowstone, and hydrothermal fluids and steam are working their way up through fractures and vents. If more steam vents appear, that means a continuous pathway for pressure release has been established to the magma chamber. If that happens, the pressure in the magma chamber will continue to drop until it reaches a critical stage when the superheated water within the magma explodes. Unfortunately, as the steam venting subsides, there will be a false sense of security. People will think it was just another cyclical event, and the danger is over. But that will be the farthest from the truth. It will be the quiet before the storm."

Initially this should be of little or no consequence to anyone apart from those planning to visit Yellowstone.....................
except for one thing. Lurking beneath Yellowstone National Park is one of the most destructive natural phenomena in the world - a massive supervolcano.

Only a handful exist in the world but when one erupts the explosion will be heard around the globe. The sky will darken, black acid rain will fall, and the Earth will be plunged into the equivalent of a nuclear winter. It could push humanity to the brink of extinction.

Volcanoes have always been a threat to humanity. The Tambora eruption in Indonesia in 1815 killed more than 90,000 people, while the Krakatau eruption in 1883, also in Indonesia, killed 36,000. The last supervolcano to erupt was Toba in Sumatra 74,000 years ago. It created a global catastrophe that dramatically affected life on Earth. Toba blasted so much ash and sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere that it blocked out the sun, causing the Earth's temperature to plummet, and possibly reducing the population on Earth to just a few thousand people. For a long time scientists have known that volcanic ash can affect the global climate. The fine ash and sulphur dioxide blasted into the stratosphere reflects solar radiation back into space and stops sunlight reaching the planet. Temperatures drop dramatically and nothing grows, causing mass starvation.

Bill McGuire, professor of geohazards at the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre at University College London, says that America's Yellowstone Park is one of the largest and most dangerous supervolcanoes in the world. "The Yellowstone volcano can be likened to a sleeping dragon," says Professor McGuire, "whose slow breathing brings repeated swelling and sinking of the Earth's crust in northern Wyoming and southern Montana."

Professor McGuire went on to explain that: "Many supervolcanoes are not typical hill-shaped structures but huge, collapsed craters called "calderas" that are filled with hot magma and are harder to detect. The Yellowstone supervolcano was detected in the Sixties when infra-red satellite photographs revealed a magma-filled caldera 85km long and 45km wide. It has been on a regular eruption cycle of 600,000 years. The last eruption was 640,000 years ago, so the next is long overdue."

Volcanologists have been tracking the movement of magma under the park and have calculated that in parts of Yellowstone the ground has risen over seventy centimetres, almost two and a half feet, since 1923, indicating a massive swelling underneath the park.

"The impact of a Yellowstone eruption is terrifying to comprehend." says Professor McGuire. "Magma would be flung 50 kilometres into the atmosphere. Within a thousand kilometres virtually all life would be killed by falling ash, lava flows and the sheer explosive force of the eruption. One thousand cubic kilometres of lava would pour out of the volcano, enough to coat the whole of the USA with a layer 5 inches thick. The explosion would be the loudest noise heard by man for 75,000 years."

The long-term effects would be even more devastating. The thousands of cubic kilometres of ash that would shoot into the atmosphere would block out light from the sun, making global temperatures collapse. This is called a nuclear winter. A large percentage of the world's plant life would be killed by the ash and the drop in temperature. The resulting change in the world's climate would devastate the planet, and scientists know that another eruption is due - they just don't know when.

Michael Rampino, a geologist at New York University, quoted in a BBC Horizon documentary on Supervolcanoes three years ago explained: "It's difficult to conceive of an eruption this big. It's really not a question of if it'll go off, it's a question of when, because sooner or later one of these large super eruptions will happen."

Professor McGuire says "There's nowhere to hide from the effects of a supervolcano. One day - perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in fifty years, perhaps in 10,000 - it will erupt; once again wreaking devastation across the North American continent and bringing the bitter cold of Volcanic Winter to Planet Earth. Mankind may become extinct."

So the rumblings currently going on underneath Yellowstone should be a warning not just to those who plan to visit the National Park, but to the whole world. If the increased thermal activity is the precursor to an eruption event, we may well be on the brink of the biggest catastrophe the modern world has ever witnessed.

Published in the Daily Express. 10th. September 2003.

Research Links:

http://www.nps.gov/yell/press/0362.htm

http://www.nps.gov/yell/press/0373.htm **http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/new.html#bulge

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0...1561852,00.html

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/monitoring.html

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...geyser_guessing

http://www.earthchangestv.com/break...yellowstone.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizo...es_script.shtml

Map of Past Eruptions:

http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos...s/volano_lg.jpg

More information on Yellowstone Volcano:

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/new.html

Maps and Photos:

http://www.nps.gov/yell/tours/norris/index.htm

© Copyright: Ian Gurney. June 2003.

Ian Gurney is a journalist, broadcaster and author of the bestseller "The Cassandra Prophecy" (www.caspro.com) published by International Global Press. ISBN 0953581314. He can be contacted at :info@caspro.com
THIS MESSAGE POSTED AT:
http://rense.com/general41/monster.htm

Just wondering what all the TFP folks' opinion's were of this impending situation. Something to think about for sure.

I've made my amends...ahahaha, funny as it sounds, it's true.

This is one of the coolest articles I've read in a long, long time.

I don't know what to think about it; my knowledge of geology and volcanology is startlingly lacking.
Think it's more than possible that it could... I'd like to be there when it happens (given that I'd die anyway...).

Since there isn't a damn thing I can do about it, it doesn't affect my life in the least amount.

The fact is, that unless we can get off this ball of rock, sooner or later, something is going to happen to wipe us out.

This is another reason why our expansion into outer-space is paramount to building moon-bases like the European scientists want to do.

If it's not having to worry about rogue asteroids, it's overpopulation, nuclear war, terrorism, Schwarzenegger for governor, disease, Bush, famine, the ozone layer, the rainforest depletions, religious fueding, criminals, stupidity, the extinction of certain animals, the existence of God and a hereafter, and now it's supervolcanoes?!? FUCK!!

Does anyone else feel overloaded?

Planet Earth, please slow down, I'd like to get another ride.

I caught the Discovery Channel special on this, and did a bit of research after the fact.....and here's what I've found:

Yes, there is an average eruption cycle of 600,000 years, but the calculated time between the first and second eruptions (there have only been 3, mind you) was almost 1 million years. In addition, there likely will not be a "nuclear winter" catastrophe, as the last eruption did not coincide with either a radical change in plant and animal life (aside from killing everything downwind of the eruption site for a distance of about 1,500 miles (that's 2,400 km for the metrically-inclined) nor did it create a dramatic climate change (which would have been evidenced by a minor to major ice-age).

Yes, it will be loud. Yep, it will certainly be destructive; and absolutely it will be devastating to the local ecology. However, I don't see any reason to believe that this will result in the end of humanity as we know it. The facts just don't support the assertions....after all, hominids (the precursors to humans) have been around on the planet for approximately 1.4 million years.....which means that we survived two eruptions from the Yellowstone caldera so far.....allowing for the 600,000-year cycle, that is!

.....and twotimesadingo: you don't want to be anywhere near there when all hell busts loose - because that's just what it'll be....hell. The Great Plains of the United States are riddled with the fossilized remains of the animals who succumbed to this last eruption, and it's estimated that there were millions of victims from the wandering herds that had dotted the plains up to that point. This will be a tragedy on a phenomenal scale, but one which will be survived by over 70% of the people on the earth (probably closer to 85-90% in my own humble opinion). Of course, you need to realize that the only parts you'd be able to witness would most likely be the tremors prior to the eruption....the actual eruption would be something which occurred so fast that your senses would not be able to comprehend it in the time you had left. I for one would not want to be around for such an anticlimax.

Hope this sheds a little light on the subject. Don't believe all the hype - except for the part about it being extremely terrible.

Wow. So we have ELE's to be worried about coming from ALL angles :D

eh.... life lives in such a balance that even the slightest shift can be catastrophic... it doesn't change the fact that my mortgage payment is still due on the 1st of the month.

Thanks for that info Wry1. I wish I would've caught that special. But, I don't watch TV. :( Maybe I can find some info about it on their website. (BTW, I love your avatar. VTS=my hero.)

I'm not presenting this info to make anyone freak out, btw. I just thought it was very interesting. I've always been interested in the way the earth works.

I mean, it's much more likely that it will NOT happen in our lifetime. I'm almost curious as to what would happen if, in fact, it did blow sometime soon. I'm sure I'd retract that statement the second it happend, but you know what they say about the cat. :-/

I'm hoping they release some more info about it soon. I know they're busy little bees in Yellowstone, right now.

They say that the areas of Yellowstone that are closed down right now, have ground temps of 200+ degrees. :eek:

Peace.

December 2012 people. WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!

9 years.

I find this shit so interesting.

Quote:

Originally posted by Fremen
...having to worry about rogue asteroids, it's overpopulation, nuclear war, terrorism

The eruption certainly leads to some disturbing scenarios. I too, saw the Discovery Channel special, and was fascinated but, at the same time fearful. Just one more thing we have absolutely no control over. I for one, will not be losing any sleep over this.

well, i was under the impression that we were all gonna die...

given that we're not (depending on who's talking), maybe i don't wanna be anywhere near there.

but, if we ARE gonna die, i say i want to be on Baldy when it happens. maybe someone can measure the distance my body was thrown, if there's anything left...

I just like the word 'supervolcano'.

About stuff like this, I'm more or less 'meh.'

If I spent any amount of time worrying about the 8 hojillion things that could go wrong and wipe out the human race on any given day, I'd never have time to be on the TFP!

I like that Fremen was able to add Bush in the list of terrible things that could/are happening to the world. Does this mean that not agreeing completely with the President and thus being labled as a terrorist is over for now?
Just curious is all.

BTW excellent thread Goddess, I've been following this for a couple of years now. Excellent article.

Quote:

Originally posted by icy_ca
I like that Fremen was able to add Bush in the list of terrible things that could/are happening to the world. Does this mean that not agreeing completely with the President and thus being labled as a terrorist is over for now?
Just curious is all.

No, It just means that the thought police haven't seen his post yet.

Quote:

Originally posted by twotimesadingo
maybe someone can measure the distance my body was thrown, if there's anything left...

Instant Vaporization. Your body would be gone before your mind could even finish comprehending something was wrong.

Y'know what is sounds like to me...

sounds like we're all kerfucked, so lets all get nekkid and party while we still have time!

Well, since I'm about 1000 miles west of Ystone, on the coast, I'd hope that if anything happened the prevailing winds would carry much of the crap east. But I've seen projected ash distribution patterns, and my little slice of the California coast is just _barely_ outside the danger zone by the current best guess. Which probably means we'd be in for it along with everyone else east of us.

Like everybody else says, of course, there's nothing to be done about it, except maybe not to move to Idaho. And since we've been aware of this caldera only since the '60s, for all we know this current peak of activity may be part of a cycle that recurs every few hundred or thousand years, without particular problems. Time will tell.

California? Well, you'll be in the ocean soon. Earthquake will get ya ;)

hey- averett- was your date a ref to the mayan (or was it aztec) calender, or Shadowrun? or something altogether different?

Quote:

Originally posted by Fire
hey- averett- was your date a ref to the mayan (or was it aztec) calender, or Shadowrun? or something altogether different?

Actually, IIRC Shadowrun's date was chosen because of the Mayan Calendar.

Get a Book by Graham Hancock called "Fingerprints of the Gods." He draws a pretty reasonable conclusion that lots of ancient architecture is trying to tell us about something very close to that date.

Quote:

Originally posted by Gebbinn
Y'know what is sounds like to me...

sounds like we're all kerfucked, so lets all get nekkid and party while we still have time!

My thoughts exactly!! :D

Wow, very interesting article. It seems the more research we humans do we always find "super" versions of most things. I guess the danger is a long ways down the road, but I won't ever be able to go to Yellowstone again...

well, you´ve got to hand it to this supervolcano.... it sure can pick a pretty location to start its earthly destruction.
well seriously, i think i´m, just a little skeptical about this.
i´d need to see all of this evidence myself before i start to panic.
but thank you goddess, this is a fantastic article... albeit a tad over the top.

Quote:

Originally posted by bundy
well, you´ve got to hand it to this supervolcano.... it sure can pick a pretty location to start its earthly destruction.
well seriously, i think i´m, just a little skeptical about this.
i´d need to see all of this evidence myself before i start to panic.
but thank you goddess, this is a fantastic article... albeit a tad over the top.

I assume the geographical beauty of the area we call Yellowstone is due to the last erruption. I mean look at Hawaii. Totally built on volcanic erruptions. Lush, green, steamy environment that flourished because of the lava and rebirth of the land.

Sure the article is a tad over the top. It was taken from a fella who writes about the end of Earth as we know it. As stated, this erruption could happen today, tommorow or 1,000 years from now.

Personally, I will be dissapointed if I don't get to see it. But I am very weird and have no children to think of.

Life certainly would not be the same. We would cease to think of birth control as a good thing for once. Loving your neighbor would be MUCH easier to do, etc...

I think it's an eye-opening discovery for myself, that we, in fact, are NOT invincible. Thank God.

To me it's just food for thought.

In fact, this circumstance has caused me to have a better attitude toward my fellow man, simply because I know that time is of the essence, now. Many people know that already.

It's put life and death into a very different perspective for me.

We young people think that things are terrible when we can't make a bill on time (granted, I don't plan on slacking in that area because of a probable situation). We think it's horrible that we can't keep up with the latest fashions, no matter how hard we try, or the latest bands....whatever.

But there is something far beyond paying bills, looking cool and making money.

...just my .02.

Peace and Love

kinda makes a statement to how insignificant humanity is to the universe, because our planet still can control much more of human destiny than the humans can.

Agree gloveshot3, the scale of the forces that can be unleashed on our planet and beyond it is truly humbling.

Thanks for the article.

I've been luckly enough to goto Yellowstone when I was a kid and always dreamed of going back and perhaps taking my family (f any at that time) during the winter months.

Very interesting article thanks for sharing!

We were just at Yellowstone in August and it was beautiful. But it is completely mind-boggling to realize that you're in a caldera that is MILES across, that was created by a super huge volcano blowing its top. Heh. The sheer scope of destruction is incomprehensible. I can't imagine what it might look like.

Ratbastid's parents live in Salt Lake City and are always trying to get us to move there - guess now I have some ammunition against THAT plan!!

I'm gonna quit my job, live on the street, grow a nasty beard and carry around a big cardboard sign that reads "the end is near"
but, that's just me....you can handle this however you please.

Quote:

Originally posted by cnor
I'm gonna quit my job, live on the street, grow a nasty beard and carry around a big cardboard sign that reads "the end is near"
but, that's just me....you can handle this however you please.

As long as you don't get a cellphone, it's fine with me. ;)

Quote:

I thought about that, but I don't think my boyfriend would approve of the whole beard thing. ;)

Hail Soon To Be Former Citizens!

We now must acquire the taste for human flesh and begin drinking only tepid water with a copious amount of ash in it. We must prepare our families and ourselves for survival.

I'm off to buy ketchup and duct tape.
-GH

and ammunition

Quote:

Originally posted by Averett
December 2012 people. WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!

9 years.

I find this shit so interesting.

If I'm remembering my Mayan calendar correctly, isn't it something like December 27th, 2012 that's supposed to be the end date for the current Mayan calendar?

So I'll basically have a day or two to mess with my Christmas presents before it all goes to hell!

Quote:

Originally posted by wry1
If I'm remembering my Mayan calendar correctly, isn't it something like December 27th, 2012 that's supposed to be the end date for the current Mayan calendar?

So I'll basically have a day or two to mess with my Christmas presents before it all goes to hell!

I think it's earlier in the month. I'm not sure really, I've seen different information on this. It is very interesting though. And I guess we'll know in 9+ years!

But yup, its from Mayan culture.

12/21/2012 or 12/23/2012, depending on how the calendar is interpreted.

A third interpretation has us about 260 years overdue for the end of the world.

Linkage

Quote:

Originally posted by Fremen
As long as you don't get a cellphone, it's fine with me. ;)

I had to think about that for a sec........GOOD ONE!

Another reason to live life to the fullest!

Personally, not worth spending time or energy worrying about it.

3 years ago i read an article about Supervolcanoes, and i must admit that when unusual activity in Yellowstone was reported, i had a tingle run down my spine ...

This might be what the Discovery channel send, but on BBC they have a very good program about supervolcanoes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon...olcanoes.shtml

In it there is also presented a mindboggling theory about our common ancestry.

Quote:

Originally posted by Cynthetiq
eh.... life lives in such a balance that even the slightest shift can be catastrophic... it doesn't change the fact that my mortgage payment is still due on the 1st of the month.

My sentiments exactly. Kinda of a cool thought though, that many gallons and gallons of molton rock...