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http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2016/07/super-eruptions-may-give-only-a-years-warning-before-they-blow/
Super-eruptions – volcanic events large enough to devastate the entire planet – give only about a year's warning before they blow. That is the conclusion of a new microscopic analysis of quartz crystals in pumice taken from the Bishop Tuff in eastern California, which is the site of the super-eruption that formed the Long Valley Caldera 760,000 years ago.
[...] "The evolution of a giant, super-eruption-feeding magma body is characterized by events taking place at a variety of time scales," said Gualda. Tens of thousands of years are needed to prime the crust to generate sufficient eruptible magma. Once established, these melt-rich, giant magma bodies are unstable features that last for only centuries to few millennia. "Now we have shown that the onset of the process of decompression, which releases the gas bubbles that power the eruption, starts less than a year before eruption."
Gualda and Sutton analyzed dozens of small quartz crystals from the Bishop Tuff. Previous investigations of quartz crystals from several super-eruptions, including Long Valley, have noted that they have distinctive surface rims. These studies concluded that the rims formed in less than a century before eruption. [...] "Maximum rim growth times span from approximately 1 minute to 35 years, with a median of approximately 4 days. More than 70 percent of rim growth times are less than 1 year, showing that quartz rims have mostly grown in the days to months prior to eruption... . Growth took place under conditions of high supersaturation suggesting that rim growth marks the onset of decompression and the transition from pre-eruptive to syn-eruptive conditions," the paper summarized.
The Year Leading to a Supereruption (open, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0159200)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 24 2016, @02:01PM
We treat our planet like a trash heap, poison it without regard, deny that we have a negative affect on it and have no way off. Announcing that we're looking at the final year of humanity's existence will result in chaos, anarchy and wars to such a degree that any "super-eruption" will arrive too late to do its job.
You do realize that it's going to take a lot more than some pollution or a supervolcano eruption to cause the extinction of humanity, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 24 2016, @02:34PM
You do realize that it's going to take a lot more than some pollution or a supervolcano eruption to cause the extinction of humanity, right?
You mean like super bugs that can't be treated with antibiotics, the Earth heating up like a pot of water around an unsuspecting frog, more and more terrorist attacks, bombings, killings and plain vanilla violence, Windows 10 and the end of the VCR?
(Score: 2) by rleigh on Sunday July 24 2016, @06:12PM
Actual extinction would certainly take something catastrophic to achieve. But civilisational collapse? That's quite possible with a much smaller triggering event, and the archaeological record shows it to have happened on a smaller scale on multiple occasions. Now we live in a globalised economy with food supplies distributed around the world, just how fragile is our agriculture and infrastructure when faced with major disruption?
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday July 24 2016, @06:43PM
Of course he doesn't. Pollution has nothing whatever to do with supervolcanoes. He's trolling you and you're both wasting my time. Have you thought about getting help from Biters Anonymous? [mcgrewbooks.com]
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 24 2016, @10:09PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday July 24 2016, @06:53PM
We're talking about the end of civilization, not the complete removal of Pan narrans...excuse me, "Homo sapiens."
This is especially bad because we've already extracted all the low-hanging fruit in terms of resources; if we get blasted back to the Stone Age, we're never going to make it past the Iron Age again because all the cheap, abundant energy we'd need to do that is no longer available for extraction.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...