One day Yellowstone will blow

LOL...liberalminority uses Hollywood movies as facts.

 

Yet the non-movie source says:

"An eruption there could happen fairly quickly, geologically speaking," Stix told OurAmazingPlanet. "I would think there would be signs beforehand, but how much time beforehand is really unknown — is it days, weeks, months or years?"

I think you live in denial propped up by religion

 

No, it isn't. It's a fair bit more accurate than most of the volcano films around, granted, but you find me a stratovolcano that produces hot, runny lava running rapidly down its sides, and in the same eruption as pyroclastic flows (the viscosity of the lava is far too high for that kind of thing to be happening) - while you do get pyroclastic flows, ashfalls (although the density of the ash in the film looked too low - it fell more like snow than ash) and lahars, you don't get that kind of runny lava from volcanoes in the Cascades range (that's why they are so explosive when they erupt, rather than bubbling merrily away for years sending out flows far and wide like the volcanoes in Hawaii). Or how about a car that can drive across the thin crust of a brand new flow of that hot, runny lava, dipping it's wheels in the flowing molten material, without actually bursting into flame? Or a magical unexploding car that travels fast enough to outrun a pyroclastic flow into a mine, even though it has clearly caught you up before you entered it's magical instantly-protective realm (and ask the people of Herculanium how effective sheltering in caves from pyroclastic flows is!).

It's a movie - they represented some things reasonably accurately, but added plenty of 'artistic embellishments' like lava, and extra 'suspense' elements like the drive across the lava or the running away from the cloud, to make the movie more exciting. Had that been a real eruption, given what they were attempting to do, Pierce and his buddies would have died several times over.

Oh, and as has already been said, volcanic eruptions are not particularly rare events. Yellowtone itself seems to erupt catastrophically every 6-800,000 years, and the last time was about 640,000 years ago (and that one was about 6,000 times the size of the Mount St.Helens eruption). There are lots of smaller eruptions between those, too - about 80 since the last big one, the last one of which was about 70,000 years ago. There could be an eruption of some sort there at any time, but 'at any time' is on a geological time-scale of course - it could be 10,000 years away or more, or it could be much, much closer. Hopefully vulcanology is sufficiently advanced now for us to get some decent warning of an impending eruption, particularly of a big eruption (and Yellowstone is very closely monitored), but there's really nothing certain about that.

 

I'm not that large a mammal. Besides, much large fauna survived the last time it happened.

 

Yes, it is. Most everything that happened in the movie was plausible, Stratovolcanoes in the Cascade Range and Alaska erupt explosively and produce pyroclastic flows, clouds of volcanic ash, and debris flows (lahars) that behave much as shown in the movie.

For the driving scene, he was driving fast over the lava, if anyone has ever put their finger over a candle flame really quickly they would know that it doesn't hurt, only if it stays on there. This was just a bigger version of that, and with a truck.

Going further to the acid lake, that is a fact once again, Crater lakes atop volcanoes are typically the most acid, with pH values as low as 0.1 (very strong acid).

To conclude, Volcanic eruptions are quite rare, we are talking 600,000 years between the 'small eruptions', and the one that is predicted in the OP, that would supposedly effect more than half of the United States, happened 2,000,000 years ago.

This is the scientific version of end of days, from the bible, they don't know anything more than they let on with their fancy words, same as climate change. The possibility that it could erupt in this lifetime, much less many lifetimes in the coming future, are exaggerated in that article.

 

The information that I got from the volcano center in Yellowstone Park is that the volcano erupts about evey 600,000 years. Since it has been about 640,000 years since the last eruption, we are about 40,000 years over due for a blow. Also there is a dome that is under lake Yellowstone that has been rising steadly and the ground temperature has been rising in some areas which indicates the movement of magma. The magma chamber is about 35 by 16 miles across and it is very deep and growing. Even though there are no signs of an eminent eruption coming, that baby could blow its top at a moments notice. The greatest majority of the people that visit the park have no idea to the actual size of the volcano. There are anywhere from 100 to several thousand earthquakes there every year. The greatest majority of them are not felt as they are to small. But I have been there and felt the ground shaking on several occasions.

There is no way of knowing just when and how big the next eruption will be. But as we are also on a major fault line that is close to 10,000 years over due for a 7.5 or larger quake, well it kind of looks like our days are numbered. If one don't get us then the other one will. Of course there is always the chance that one could always set off the other one to.

 

From your own linked article (my bold for emphasis):

Which I think you will find is pretty much exactly what I said about the realism of the movie regarding volcanic eruptions. It would appear that the United States Geological Survey, the source which was linked to, agrees with me on that (and later on also mentions pyroclasic flows travelling at over 100 mph, easily fast enough to overtake the truck before it enters the mine, given the distance between them in that scene).

No, the last of the huge eruptions was 600,000 years ago. The last relatively small one was about 70,000. The USGS again:

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone/yellowstone_sub_page_54.html

I think the USGS is a pretty reasonable source to be using for volcanic activity in the USA!

Finally, from the page above, here is their interesting illustration of how much material was throw out by the 3 caldera-forming eruptions at Yellowstone, compared with other major volcanic eruptions:

 

The reference gives out two perspectives, so when it comes to dante's peak, it is both right and both wrong.

As for the prediction of an eruption, if put into context, Jesus was here 2,000 years ago, and the last eruption was around 70,000 years ago. It will likely be a few lifetimes away, before yellowstone makes a small eruption, much less the more violent vast eruption covering half of the United States, as predicted.

 

There are only two kinds of volcanos: the one who blows; and the other who doesn't blow yet.

Same as women.

 

No, it gives one perspective, as I did - the movie is pretty accurate in some respects, but has also added in some major inaccuracies for the benefit of 'suspense'.

It may very well be a few lifetimes away, or much more than that. It may not be. Based on previous known eruptions a major one is probably due 'soon', but 'soon' on a geological timescale (which could be 100,000 years or more - geologist tend to work mostly in millions of years!). On the other hand, more minor eruptions happen much more regularly, and one of those is quite probably due sooner much than that. The bottom line is that we don't know when either will happen, though, we just know that both will happen at some point, and we also know that the area is relatively active at the moment (even for Yellowstone, which is a very active place!) in a way that suggests that the magma chamber is probably filling, which suggests that some kind of eruption probably isn't that far away (in human terms). What kind of eruption that will be, or exactly when it will happen, we don't know.

The mass destruction of a caldera-forming mega-eruption isn't something people should be particularly worried about. We know it will happen, but it could be a long way off in human terms. If it isn't a long way off in human terms, there's nothing that can be done about it anyway - those closest to it won't know anything much about it if it happens, and those further away can do nothing other than pick up the pieces and deal with the results afterwards as best they can (and it could have a huge effect on all of humanity, not just the USA - the ash cloud could very well have a significant impact on the global climate). No amount of planning can ever stop it from happening.

 

Yellowstone already blows...

... Visit Mammoth Cave...

... Burma Shave.

 

Agreed with the second half, a big cataclysmic event affecting the entire US would happen after humans are extinct from the sun expanding, not a concern at all, but a small eruption that is concentrated in that area could happen, but its nothing to worry about for most US residents, only those who live near yellowstone.

"Stratovolcanoes in the Cascade Range and Alaska erupt explosively and produce pyroclastic flows, clouds of volcanic ash, and debris flows (lahars) that behave much as shown in the movie." (Emphasis mine)

The suspense in the movie would be similar to the suspense of any actual event, so it wasn't embellished for Hollywood IMO, since it was based on real events that would happen when any such eruption would take place.

 

No, a big Yellowstone blow is likely within the next 200,000 years at most. That will probably mean it will happen quite alot of human generations from now, but we don't really need to be worrying about significant effects from sun expansion for about 500,000,000 years or so - that's alot further away!

Yes, it absolutely was embellished for Hollywood - there can be no denying that. A volcano in the Cascades will not be producing pyroclastic flows AND runny, fast-moving lava flows, and certainly not in the same eruption (it's very unlikely that a volcano there would produce that kind of runny lava at all, in fact) - those two things come from magmas of entirely different chemical composition, and the kind of magma that makes fast-flowing lava is not generally the kind of magma in the chambers beneath the Cascades range (it's the kind of stuff that comes up in Hawaii, and it doesn't build big cone-shaped mountain volcanoes like the Cascades). It's not remotely realistic. It was put into the film to add suspense and an extra element to the story, but it's not realistic at all.