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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.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @08:43PM (4 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday April 10 2019, @08:43PM (#827615)

    > The same holds for the future, where the largest eruptions are probably the furthest away.
    Technically so perhaps - but for cyclical events it's worth considering where you are in the cycle. If something cyclical happens roughly once every 50,000 years and the last event was 63,000 years ago (as is the case with moderate-size supervolcano eruptions), then we're overdue and the next event could happen at any moment. And we really don't understand vulcanism nearly well enough to say for sure that we'd get a lot of warning.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @10:02PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @10:02PM (#827636)

    But we are likely to get 1816-type events first with widespread crop failures that stress our resilience but don't wipe out a large fraction of humanity. Such events will trigger serious funding of geophysics research. Put humanity's top minds on a problem, and you will start getting answers.

    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @11:16PM (2 children)

      by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday April 10 2019, @11:16PM (#827674)

      And your evidence to support this claim?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @04:34AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @04:34AM (#827764)

        An event that last occurred 60000 or 600000 years ago is less likely than one that occurred 200 years ago. You can use Jeffreys prior to evaluate the rate. The 200 year event is most likely recur about once every 200 years.

        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday April 11 2019, @01:26PM

          by Immerman (3985) on Thursday April 11 2019, @01:26PM (#827895)

          My apologies - I thought you were saying we could expect less serious precursor events.