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Yellowstone Scientists Find New Thermal Area:
Yellowstone National Park has a new thermal area that scientists think has been growing for the past 20 years.
The new area is deep in Yellowstone's backcountry between West Tern Lake and the previously mapped Tern Lake thermal area, the U.S. Geological Survey [(USGS)] announced earlier this month.
"This is exactly the sort of behavior we expect from Yellowstone's dynamic hydrothermal activity," R. Greg Vaughan, a research scientist with USGS, wrote in a blog post, "and it highlights that changes are always taking place, sometimes in remote and generally inaccessible areas of the park."
A thermal area is the visible result on the Earth's surface of magma activity underground. They can include geysers, like Yellowstone's Old Faithful; hot springs; and fumaroles, which are vents that allow volcanic gases to escape. They are surrounded by hydrothermal mineral deposits, geothermal gas emissions, heated ground and lack of vegetation, the USGS says.
Previously: NASA Warning: "Catastrophic" Supervolcano Eruption Could "Push Humanity to Extinction".
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday April 11 2019, @02:42AM (8 children)
The odds of Yellowstone never erupting again are strongly approaching zero. The odds of Yellowstone's next eruption occurring before society melts down for other reasons are supposed to be pretty low.
Still, NASA (or, some politically motivated study wearing the NASA letterhead) recently came out with the statement that a supervolcano eruption is more likely to collapse society than an asteroid strike... not exactly comforting, since we have some slightly plausible ideas about how to predict and avert a killer asteroid strike, while the best/only ideas we've got to stop a super-volcano eruption are science fiction at the moment.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday April 11 2019, @02:51AM (1 child)
We can probably see a civilization-killing asteroid many decades in advance and take steps to stop it. We can't clearly pinpoint Yellowstone's eruption in advance.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday April 11 2019, @12:24PM
Do we really have enough data to predict that (p0.1), yet? As I recall, the recent Russian fireball came within 24 hours of an accurately predicted near-miss of a fairly big rock, but was itself not predicted at all and was supposed to have been completely unrelated to the near-miss object. Even if we think we can predict with p=0.1, is that particularly reassuring odds for an extinction level event?
I do buy the argument: if it's big enough to wipe out civilization, it will be easier to see. What I don't buy is the idea that we'll get more than a cometary approaches' timespan to do something about it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday April 11 2019, @02:59AM (1 child)
There is also the possibility of Yellowstone becoming less active over time.
A super-volcano eruption will happen somewhere, and Yellowstone is a pretty good candidate, but it is entirely possible that Yellowstone could get cooler and less active. (Obviously over a long time, not next Tuesday).
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday April 11 2019, @12:10PM
If the dating of previous eruptions is correct, this is already true. But: has it returned to zero eruption activity level?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday April 11 2019, @03:13AM (1 child)
That may not actually be so. There's interesting remnants from a much older hot spot to the east (Devils Tower [wikipedia.org] and some related geological structures [wikipedia.org], which were formed 40 million years ago. Current thought is that these were formed by magma that never made it to the surface.
The Yellowstone hot spot has to pass underneath the Rockies (and it already is well into the area), a thick bit of continental plate. It is possible as a result that most of its heat and energy get consumed melting deep continental rock rather than erupting to the surface in future supervolcano eruptions, particularly, if the hot spot is weakening over time. Then the only evidence of its passage might be in the far future more Devils Towers, or dikes and sills of solidified magma intrusions.
Thus, there is a chance that while it might not actually do any more of those massive eruptions. I don't think it's a great chance, but it probably isn't strongly zero either.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday April 11 2019, @12:17PM
Perhaps zero is a strong statement... still: the mantle is ~1800 miles thick, while average continental crust thickness is ~25 miles. +1 or 2, occasionally 3 miles in the Rockies doesn't seem significant enough to completely quash a hot spot.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @05:40AM (1 child)
But even if we see an asteroid coming, we wouldn't finish all the paperwork in time to do anything about it.
At least with a volcano, "run away" hasn't been completely federally regulated yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @10:13AM
Of course with a supervolcano such as Yellowstone, merely running is by far not fast enough. And all methods fast enough to escape are highly regulated.