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Doomsdayers on Edge as Quake ‘Swarm’ Rocks Yellowstone Supervolcano

posted by cmn32480 on Monday June 26 2017, @09:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the things-that-make-ya-go-boom dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

The supervolcano under Yellowstone National Park has once again become a point of focus for doomsdayers after scientists picked up some ominous earthquake activity this month.

Scientists from the University of Utah, responsible for monitoring the supervolcano in Wyoming, said a "swarm" of 464 earthquakes began on June 12 – the biggest being a 4.5 magnitude shudder on June 15.

"The epicenter of the shock was located in Yellowstone National Park, eight miles  north-northeast of the town of West Yellowstone, Montana," UU scientists said in a statement. "The earthquake was reported felt in the towns of West Yellowstone and Gardiner, Montana, in Yellowstone National Park, and elsewhere in the surrounding region."

The 4.5 magnitude quake is the largest to hit the supervolcano since a 4.8 quake struck in March 2014. Scientists noted that the "energetic sequence of earthquakes... included approximately 30 earthquakes of magnitude 2 and larger and four earthquakes of magnitude 3 and larger, including today's magnitude 4.5 event."

They added: "This is the highest number of earthquakes at Yellowstone within a single week in the past five years, but is fewer than weekly counts during similar earthquakes swarms in 2002, 2004, 2008 and 2010."

Subbed because volcanoes are cool not because I'm askeert Yellowstone is going to blow any minute now.

Source: https://www.rt.com/viral/393331-yellowstone-swarm-earthquakes-supervolcano/

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 27 2017, @01:46AM (3 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 27 2017, @01:46AM (#531699) Journal
    First, a 100 kton release of energy is equivalent to roughly a 6.5 magnitude earthquake. Second, earthquakes don't typically generate shock waves or remove overburden.

  • (Score: 2) by EvilSS on Tuesday June 27 2017, @03:00AM (2 children)

    by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 27 2017, @03:00AM (#531722)
    A 6.5 quake generates around 1.6GT of TNT (about . You are confusing it with the radiant energy, which is the energy converted to seismic waves. By that calculation you expect 100% of the energy of the nuclear weapon to be converted to a shock wave and that's just not going to happen. A 100KT nuke will not transfer anywhere near that amount of energy into the earth. Most of the energy is going to go into the atmosphere, not the ground. Ground hard. Air not so much. You lose at least half of the energy just due to it being half-exposed to the atmosphere above the device. Then there is going to be a good bit of energy reflected back from it sitting on a hard medium, like a planet. This is the reason we don't dig holes with explosives sitting on top of the ground. We bury them. Also you are greatly overestimating the amount of surface the blast would remove. Castle Bravo, a 15MT device, only managed to dig out a 76 meters deep. It would be trivial in scale to the caldera itself.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 27 2017, @03:37AM (1 child)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 27 2017, @03:37AM (#531739) Journal

      A 6.5 quake generates around 1.6GT of TNT (about . You are confusing it with the radiant energy, which is the energy converted to seismic waves. By that calculation you expect 100% of the energy of the nuclear weapon to be converted to a shock wave and that's just not going to happen.

      A 6.5 quake generates around 100 kT of TNT. A quake is the radiant energy of whatever energy release caused the quake. Earth movement is not an earthquake nor is a nuke, but they cause earthquakes through the release of energy.

      You lose at least half of the energy just due to it being half-exposed to the atmosphere above the device.

      You already gave an example where this wasn't so.

      Castle Bravo, a 15MT device, only managed to dig out a 76 meters deep. It would be trivial in scale to the caldera itself.

      Who has said in this thread, that we would be trying to duplicate a caldera eruption directly by the nuke? 76 meters is nothing compared to the scale of the volcano (which for example pushes up the land in a thousand square kms by about 300 meters), but it might be enough to trigger a caldera eruption when you want it triggered, particularly, if you bury it first.

      • (Score: 2) by EvilSS on Tuesday June 27 2017, @01:14PM

        by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 27 2017, @01:14PM (#531887)

        A 6.5 quake generates around 100 kT of TNT. A quake is the radiant energy of whatever energy release caused the quake. Earth movement is not an earthquake nor is a nuke, but they cause earthquakes through the release of energy.

        Not sure where you are getting your numbers from, but they are wrong. The total energy is around 1.6GT, radiant energy around 84MT. You are also still assuming a 100% conversion of a nuclear explosion to shock, which is patently untrue. A 100KT nuke would in no way transfer the same energy as a 6.5 quake to the earth in the form of a shockwave

        You already gave an example where this wasn't so.

        Not sure what example you are referring to, but I certainly did not give an example of an above-ground nuclear explosion that violates the laws of physics.

        Who has said in this thread, that we would be trying to duplicate a caldera eruption directly by the nuke? 76 meters is nothing compared to the scale of the volcano (which for example pushes up the land in a thousand square kms by about 300 meters), but it might be enough to trigger a caldera eruption when you want it triggered, particularly, if you bury it first.

        So a 76 meter crater is nothing, but a 100 meter crater will trigger an eruption? Please pick one. Also we are talking about a terrorist device (did you forget that?) You expect them to drive into Yellowstone and start drilling a 1000-2000 meter shaft? Burying it shallower than at least a few hundred meters would be no different than putting it on the surface. The best energy transfer would occur deeper, around 2000m. I don't think a terrorist is going to be able to go unnoticed trying to drill in Yellowstone, so an underground explosion is pretty much out of the question.