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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: 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