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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 PartTimeZombie on Thursday April 11 2019, @03:13AM (20 children)
Can you explain this further? Sounds interesting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @03:16AM (12 children)
Start here:
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp79b00752a000300070001-8 [cia.gov]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday April 11 2019, @08:46AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday April 11 2019, @09:25AM (10 children)
Wow, that's reallyentertaining. If you read the Time article "Adam and Eve" from that link* and believe the hypothesis, you should be doing all you can to melt the icecaps.
It claims that the buildup of ice at the poles, possibly combined with a magnetic/electric field collapse, triggers the entire crust to slip on the liquid layer underneath and move the icecaps closer to the equator. This is responsible for absolutely massive earthquakes, floods, 1000mph winds, 2 mile high tsunamis, etc. Continents rise out of and fall into the sea in a matter of hours. Entire mountain ranges are built in a day.
Now, is it possible? First reaction was to scoff, but if you attach a couple of weights to the poles of an otherwise uniform spinning sphere it will make it unstable. Whether that would be enough to make the crust slip on the mantle, I don't know. Once it starts, could thixotropic shock mean that it happens very quickly? Maybe. It is an interesting idea, anyway.
*I have no idea why the CIA is publishing partially redacted issues of Time from 1966. Adam and Eve starts on page 7 of the PDF.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 11 2019, @12:49PM (9 children)
Not very unstable if the weights are many orders of magnitude lighter than the sphere.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday April 11 2019, @04:34PM (8 children)
Did you read the article? The claim is that only the crust slips, so the top few dozen kilometres. Given how much ice stacks up on the poles during an ice age, a few orders of magnitude yes, if many means more than five or six then no. I don't really think it is likely, the masses involved are much too large to move that fast, but it is an entertaining speculation.
The other point I find interesting is that if the continents are floating on magma, they should be migrating towards the equator.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @05:50PM
Did you ever notice how the continents get narrow as you go south? And that mountain ranges tend to run north-south?
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/94888/why-are-continents-wider-at-the-north-and-tapering-towards-the-south [stackexchange.com]
https://www.quora.com/Geology-Why-do-mountain-ranges-tend-to-run-north-south [quora.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 11 2019, @11:00PM (4 children)
This. Crust is much thicker, several times denser, and much wider area of coverage than the ice cover would be. Five or six orders of magnitude is easy under those circumstances. Further, it has pretty good traction from the mantle.
And what does unstable mean in this situation? Merely that the axis of the Earth wobbles a little more. This crust slippage, particularly since it comes without a huge amount of evidence showing it occurs, is not a thing.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday April 12 2019, @01:32AM (3 children)
B.O.T.E.C.
Total volume of current icecaps 33,000,000 km3
Earth surface area 510,000,000km2 x 50km (max depth) x 2.7 (ave. density)
= 68,850,000,000
68,850,000,000 / 33,000,000
= 2086
So using generous estimates, the ratio is about 2000 to 1. A little over three orders of magnitude. I must admit I was a little surprised at that. I thought it would be closer to five or six orders.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday April 12 2019, @01:36AM (1 child)
How much denser is rock than ice? Volume is only part of the story.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday April 12 2019, @03:36AM
Third line. Average density of the crust is 2.7 times that of water. I suppose I should have thrown in another factor of 1.1 because ice is less dense than water, but it was only a rough calc. The average thickness of the crust is also much less than 50km, that's the maximum.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 12 2019, @02:01AM
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday April 12 2019, @01:35AM (1 child)
The continental crust is ~30 km thick, and the oceanic crust is ~5 km thick, so several orders of magnitude more than 5 or 6.
The Cataclysmic pole shift hypothesis, or Earth crust displacement theory is fringe at best, pseudoscience at worst. There is no real evidence for it.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday April 12 2019, @03:50AM
Here's a quick check, they say that if all the ice melts the sea level will rise ~60m.
60m * 1 * 0.7 (sea area factor) : 30,000 *2.7 * 0.3 (land) + 5,000 *2.7*0.7(sea)
42 : 33750
That's a mass ratio of about 800.
Well, yeah. This is just for fun. And sometimes you find interesting stuff. I had no idea there was that much ice, or that little crust.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @03:19AM
Also this:
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=30805&page=1&cid=821757#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
At least half the moon shows evidence of widespread melting. The far side is still uncertain, I can't tell from any of the published results from the recent probes sent there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @03:22AM
If you prefer videos (I do not): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9N8GZOlNFU [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @03:44AM (4 children)
Also, this:
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html [mit.edu]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday April 11 2019, @02:02PM (3 children)
It would be funny if the Chinese mission to the dark side of the Moon discovers a message left by the previous advanced human civilization before the melting polar ice caps wiped them out.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @02:22PM (2 children)
Not just China. Everyone is taking a look these days: https://www.techtimes.com/articles/240975/20190406/israeli-beresheet-spacecraft-snaps-photo-of-dark-side-of-the-moon.htm [techtimes.com]
I wouldn't expect evidence of a civilization though, just evidence that the surface was melted in the last ~30k years.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday April 11 2019, @05:10PM (1 child)
"surface was melted" is too strong a statement. "Residue from thin crust of melt was found over about half the surface" seems much more likely. IF there was a large flare sufficient to cause melting, only the side facing the sun would be affected, and there doesn't seem any evidence that more than a very thin surface layer was melted. (The article said "glazed".)
There's a strong question as to how much shielding the atmosphere would provide. I feel uncertain. It might not (directly) kill anyone.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @05:45PM
Yes, that is why it is of interest whether or not the entire surface is "glazed". That would mean it happened at least twice in the last ~30k years.
And it isn't really thought to be a flare, the article suggests a "micronova". Ie, that the sun periodically gets much brighter/hotter than usual for a fraction of a second and blows out a cloud of molten elements in all directions.