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posted by martyb on Tuesday April 09 2019, @03:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the buy-guns-and-tons-of-MREs dept.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1110887/nasa-news-yellowstone-volcano-Caldera-eruption-supervolcano-asteroid-end-of-the-world

A NASA thought experiment called, Defending Human Civilisation From Supervolcanic Eruptions, stated that a supervolcano eruption was more likely to happen in the future than an asteroid hitting the earth, according to the Daily Star. It said: “Supervolcanic eruptions occur more frequently than a large asteroid or comet impacts that would have a similarly catastrophic effect to human civilization.” Jet Propulsion Laboratory researchers found that collisions from asteroids which are more than 2km in diameter occurred “half as often as supervolcanic eruptions”.

[...]Yellowstone Caldera[*] is classed as a supervolcano which erupted 60,000 years ago and again 60,000 years before that.

Although there is no guarantee, if the volcano follows the same pattern then it is now due for another eruption.

Researchers have found that if a supervolcano like Yellowstone did erupt, then a “volcanic winter” would ensue which could surpass the “amount of stored food worldwide”.

People living on another continent would not be spared from the aftermath of a supervolcanic eruption.

[*] Wikipedia entry on the Yellowstone Caldera (aka Supervolcano).

The referenced NASA document — Defending Human Civilization From Supervolcanic Eruptions (pdf) — is less sensational; here is the abstract from the paper:

Large volcanic eruptions greater or equal to a magnitude 8 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (i.e., supervolcanic eruptions) eject >10 15 kg of ash and sulfate aerosols, sufficient to blanket sizeable fractions of continents and create a regional or global "volcanic winter." Such events could seriously reduce worldwide agricultural production for multiple years, causing mass famine. Supervolcanic eruptions occur more frequently than large asteroid or comet impacts that would have a similarly catastrophic effect to human civilization, especially now that many asteroid orbits have been mapped. We assess whether future supervolcanic eruptions could be dampened, delayed, or prevented by engineering solutions.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Freeman on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:30PM (14 children)

    by Freeman (732) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:30PM (#826880) Journal

    Caution, your next breath may be your last!

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:42PM (12 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:42PM (#826888) Journal

    Yellowstone is supposedly overdue for an eruption. We want to study and even prevent this.

    It's possible that we could tap volcanoes for geothermal energy and completely prevent eruptions.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:57PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:57PM (#826895)

      Obviously I am in favor of preventing, but I wonder about the side effects...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:53PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:53PM (#826944)

        That's indeed the problem. Scientists and geologists cannot say with 100% certainty that geothermal heat mining wouldn't end up triggering it itself. It's a hair trigger; monkeying with it could make it go off earlier than it otherwise would.

        For example, since we can only mine the heat of a relatively small portion of the magma bubble, if we reduce the heat in a small part, the heat difference may create a convection flow that ends up setting the whole thing off. It's hard to build a magma submarine to study it fully.

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:55PM (1 child)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:55PM (#826947) Journal

        Side effects? If an erection lasts for more than four hours, please contact a physician immediately.

        • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:53PM

          by Freeman (732) on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:53PM (#827454) Journal

          That's only, if you've taken the pill. Otherwise, it's more of a you're using it wrong kind of thing.

          --
          Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:05PM (5 children)

      by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:05PM (#826900)

      Tap volcanoes for energy, yes.
      Completely prevent eruptions ? The supergiant LOL, as they say (then they add something about not ROTFL, cause the floor is lava)

      The amount of energy you would have to extract is patently absurd ... And you'll never get the financing for such a huge facility, since some third-rank analyst will type a report about the impossibility to insure a multi-billion facility built on an active expected-to-explode volcano, and direct to invest cash into something totally better in case of planet-wide apocalypse, like tulip bulbs. Then He'll board Ark B, of course, and get the fuck away from the explosion.

      On the other hand, while we are what-should-be-terminally stupid, we're also cockroach-grade muthafuckas. The giant supervolcano might easily kill 95% of humans, but the last few ten or hundred of millions will make it, to grow and fuck up the place again. Ain't gonna be no extinction.

      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:03PM (4 children)

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:03PM (#827016) Journal

        There might not be a total extinction, but consider this: we've already used up all the cheap energy. IF we get blown back to the Iron Age, we won't have the means to kickstart a second Industrial Revolution. Surviving that may be a fate worse than death; our history will be forever frozen in, at best, a parody of the old Roman Empire.

        --
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        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:07PM (3 children)

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:07PM (#827095) Journal

          I think you are over-optimistic. More likely a parody of the Mayan civilization, since we've used up all the readily accessible ores. It's true there will be numerous sauce-pans and car engines around, but I'm not sure how useful those would be. The metals are all alloys. Even pennies aren't copper anymore.

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          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:44PM (2 children)

            by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:44PM (#827426)

            Except we haven't "used up" any ores - they'll all still be right where we left them. Power cables are still relatively pure copper or aluminum, and iron is the real civilization builder. And alloys aren't really much of a problem so long as they preserve the basic features of the primary metal. It's not like the metals of the bronze- and iron-age were remotely pure. Besides which, separating alloys is a simple and well-understood process (typically, heat it slowly to melt away one metal at a time.) Even if things collapse so far that the knowledge is lost, that's the sort of thing that's likely to be rediscoverd by accident while trying to save on the cost of charcoal.

            The material ores will all still be around, in a quantity, purity, and accessibility far greater than present when civilization arose the first time. Energy though - that's the only ore we actually permanently destroy by using. There are still massive deposits of coal available, more than enough to rebuild a civilization, but what's left isn't easily accessible without the tools and metallurgy of an advanced civilization, so it may not do any good. Much like what happened in the Americas - where the absence of easily accessible surface metal deposits prevented the natives from advancing beyond an extremely sophisticated stone age. There were plenty of copper and iron deposits here, but they were deep underground and inaccessible to a people that didn't already have iron tools and the knowledge of what to look for. Unlike in Eurasia, where surface deposits were vast enough to allow the metals to drive a series of technological revolutions.

            • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:14PM (1 child)

              by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:14PM (#827490) Journal

              Copper wires I'll accept as a legitimate claim. Steel, however, has a much higher melting point than do the original iron ores.

              No, the original ores aren't where they were dug out, and the pit mines are so deep that they're inaccessible without powered pumps.

              That said, it might be possible to re-purpose stainless steel cutlery. And there's still some sterling sliver. But it's spread around in lots of separate places, not concentrated in ore bodies. For the stainless steel that's probably no problem, there the problem is that you won't be able to melt the pieces together. So it depends on how long the recovery takes. If it can be started within a century (most unlikely after anything really major) then there shouldn't be a problem. If it's five generations later, all the background knowledge will be gone forever, and the stainless steel will just be hammered into usable small shapes. Nothing large.

              Also, supplies of coal and oil are gone. Not totally, but in any way accessible without the use of power. So you're back to wood. Ceramics will be the top of the development. Possibly at some point someone will build a huge lens or mirror and use that to power a furnace, but why would they? The knowledge that metals melt would be gone. (Well, there is an answer to that one, kilns use really high temperatures to produce advanced ceramics like china. But it's an "outside chance", less likely than the discovery of vulcanized rubber.

              So I guess it all depends on the size of the disaster one is contemplating. But a five year famine isn't going to be easy to survive, and the population is likely to drop to less than 1/10th of it's current size (probably much less). And the survivors won't be concentrated. I expect that the best chance for survival is some island culture that survives by fishing and doesn't depend much on power. The question is how much "technical" knowledge would they have in the first place. (Building boats and fishing involves lots of technical knowledge in the wider sense, but not usually in the sense of metallurgy, electronics, chemistry, etc. Or even the scientific method [though even some scientists seem to have trouble with that one].)

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              • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @08:27PM

                by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday April 10 2019, @08:27PM (#827605)

                >Steel, however, has a much higher melting point than do the original iron ores.

                A fair point, however, steel is actually purified iron - melt it and add more carbon and it becomes an iron alloy again. There are some other impurities added in many alloys, but carbon is the big one for most alloys, and most alloys (such as stainless) can be denatured far more easily than they can be melted (Ever seen a rusty stovepipe? The originally stainless steel got too hot due to a chimney fire). https://www.quora.com/Can-you-turn-steel-back-into-iron [quora.com]

                Also, rust doesn't much care about most alloys, and is basically extra pure iron ore.

                >No, the original ores aren't where they were dug out
                I didn't say they were where we found them, I said they were where we left them - in scrapyards, landfills, and cities. I suppose I should have said "metals" rather than ores, since the impurities have been removed, but I thought my point was clear nonetheless.

                >Also, supplies of coal and oil are gone
                Not remotely - we've got reserves to power us for at least another century or two, though the environmental price of actually using them would be high. But if civilization collapses they may as well be, since the remaining reserves are mostly inaccessible without modern technology.

                >So you're back to wood. Ceramics will be the top of the development.
                Why. Charcoal is easy to make from woody biomass, and while it doesn't burn quite as hot as coal, it will get the job done for most metallurgical purposes. Even if you can't easily get steel hot enough to melt, it will soften the same as copper and aluminum do at much lower temperatures, making the fact that the problem is the temperature limitations of the forge readily apparent - just as presumably happened the first time around with iron.

                > and the population is likely to drop to less than 1/10th of it's current size (probably much less)
                Agreed. I'd lean towards *much* less - perhaps 1/1000th or less - after all, a megadisaster doesn't just hurt humans, it brings the entire global ecosystem to its knees, and it will likely take centuries if to recover.

    • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:27PM

      by fustakrakich (6150) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:27PM (#827064) Journal

      Do you know what will happen if we let all the air out? Why, it would be a scandal [indystar.com]!

      --
      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:10PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:10PM (#826905)

    Yes, pointless to worry about volcanoes when the CO2 we exhale will burn us alive anyway. The only solution is to raise taxes, ban some shit, and spy on everyone more.