And I live only 50 miles from this monster. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49037141/ns/technology_and_science/t/yellowstones-supervolcano-where-lava-likely-erupt/?lite=obinsite
Yes, it will, and probably in a pretty spectacular way that you wouldn't want to be within 50 miles of (or 500 miles of, for that matter!). Hopefully that eruption is some way off yet in human lifetime terms, even though it's likely to be fairly close in geologival timescale terms. In the meantime, living near that 'monster' gives you a chance to see things related to volcanic activity that most people on the planet never get to see, so enjoy that, and marvel at what nature can do (whatever your beliefs about the nature of nature, if you see what I mean!).
looks like an exaggeration, the ash wouldn't cover so much of the US, probably settle around that immediate area as seen in the movie Dante's Peak.
Hopefully the Caldera will avoid going off long enough to develop the technology to do something about it. I'm not sure we really need half the North American continent dead and a new ice age.
From what I've read on the subject I'd say the msnbc story doesn't begin to give a super volcano it due.. I've read that the biggest eruption at Yellowstone 2mil yrs ago spewed 2300 times more ash than Mt St Helens. I was in Bozeman Montana at the time of St Helens and 2 days later we had 1/2 in of ash in Bozeman 750 miles away. If you've never been to Yellowstone it's hard to fathom the size, the park basically IS the crater. Her's an idea of what is possible. "In 1971, a paleontologist accidentally discovered the fossil bones of a large herd in Nebraska. The remains were dated to 10 million years ago. The animals were in the prime of their lives, and it was assumed that a natural phenomenon had been responsible for their death. All of the bones were affected by a disease, which according to further investigation, was associated with volcanic ash. However, the area wasn't volcanic, and no known volcano was situated in the immediate vicinity. Normally, during an eruption a volcano spews lava and ash, and with violent outbursts this ash can be spread over a few hundred miles. Further investigation revealed that the only volcanic eruption around that time had been the Bruno Drawbridge, located in northern Idaho. But that location is about 1,600 kilometers to the west... This eruption was examined in turn, and samples of soil and ash from all over America were compared. It appeared that after this explosion, about half of America had been covered with on average two meters of ash.
Every now and then Yellowstone lets off a burp. Some of these burps have blown holes 1 mile wide. At any moment visitors at the park could be killed by a little burp.
I was contemplating a screenplay about Yellowstone erupting but abandoned it because it is too horrific and there's no "happy ending" to that story. You live close to it? Good luck. I live in Pennsylvania at 1600 feet above sea level in an area full of fresh rainwater-fed streams. Too high for a tsunami and too far from Yellowstone and at the other end of the continent from California and it's faults... if the SHTF big time, Pennsylvania will be one of those rare places that won't be directly affected. So good luck.
it says 2,000,000 years ago was the last eruption, they are fear mongering, it will not erupt on such a massive scale, if it even erupts at all. also the USA is blessed by God, so the odds of this are astronomically low.
To be honest, if its gonna happen, I would rather be right next to it and just die instantly than be in the world left over and die a likely very slow death of either starvation, or element exposure, or who knows what else in such a post apocolyptic world.
I do not think you are aware in reality what a "super" volcano is. This particular volcano is linked to several super extinction level events in the history of the earth. If Yellowstone blows, anyone within a 500 mile radius of that sucker is dead. I believe its entirely beyond our imagination of what would happen if that thing goes off.
Like you said, there'd be no happy ending to a Yellowstone eruption, probably not anywhere on the earth. I probably rather die instantly than deal with the aftermath of that eruption.
You wont. I would be surprised if any large mammal could survive. I mean, we are talking something with THOUSANDS of times the ammount of force that Mt St Helens errupted with.
Yellowstone blowing, means the end of an empire instantly, at least in the way this fear mongering article states. It isn't going to blow on that level, its a mathmatical certainty, when figuring in the odds. Someone has the chance of hitting powerball, or mega millions, depending on their state, several hundred times consecutively, before Yellowstone might blow in the way stated.....
I live about 300 miles south of Yellowstone. I sure don't worry about the volcano blowing it's top. If it happens,it happens,nothing I can do about it. Super heated gas's ,combined with mega winds,don't have much of a chance here. I just hope if/when it happens,I'm on my boat,at the lake.
dante's peak was a factual representation of what happens when a volcano blows. it went in depth to explain the odds of a non super volcano exploding, which is very rare, much less the super volcano of yellowstone. it takes alot of energy, many millions of years to generate in the earth, for yellow stone to blow, so its not possible in many lifetimes from now.
its not as rare as on might think..did you know that close to 70 volcanos erupt each year..2/3 are in the ocean