What about Yellowstone?

Summary:

the yellowstone volcano and my thoughts on this

What about Yellowstone?

CJ213 01 Nov 2009 07:21

There is scientific evidence that yellowstone will erupt, due to it being over due for an eruption by 40,000 years. im all for the whole 2012 hoax and everything, but i have to admit its a great WHAT IF story. I love astronomy and everything but the whole 2012 thing is fake, its getting to a point where someone needs to stop all the hype about it OTHERWISE all of the so called predictions will be caused by our own being

Re: What about Yellowstone?

Alene Y 03 Nov 2009 01:23

This is from the USGS:

Is it true that the next caldera-forming eruption of Yellowstone is overdue?
No. First of all, one cannot present recurrence intervals based on only two values. It would be statistically meaningless. But for those who insist… let's do the arithmetic. The three eruptions occurred 2.1 million, 1.3 million and 0.64 million years ago. The two intervals are thus 0.8 and 0.66 million years, averaging to a 0.73 million-year interval. Again, the last eruption was 0.64 million years ago, implying that we are still about 90,000 years away from the time when we might even consider calling Yellowstone overdue for another caldera-forming eruption.

Re: What about Yellowstone?

PoshNinja 25 Nov 2009 00:53

All of the answers already provided are correct.

How ever, rather than down-playing a volcanic eruption, I would simply like to say this;
Volcanoes erupt all the time, the only issue at hand is that there's more people in the way when they erupt.

Predicting a volcanic eruption is still a work in progress, we may be able to get hints from vibrations or tremors but beyond that, we truly do not know when or where a volcano is going to erupt.

As Alene's post already stated, it isn't overdue but volcanoes are unpredictable, just as spontaneous tornadoes are unpredictable.

Anyone who points to anything and says "This is going to happen on this exact date!" is a fool at best, predicting mother nature I'm afraid is a gift that we just don't yet have.

Re: What about Yellowstone?

seen2009 01 Nov 2009 15:21

I'm more concerned with the unrest at Yellowstone; than, the average of eruptions created by the mantle hotspot beneath Yellowstone. You may find this article by Jacob Lowenstern interesting http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/2006/royalsoc.pdf.

Re: What about Yellowstone?

ticktock 03 Nov 2009 00:26

Threats from volcanoes are real. Ask yourself if you would buy a farm next to Mt Etna? You see people living next to smoking cones and you wonder "What are they THINKING?" Ultimately, the same thing can be asked of any local danger. People live downstream from earthen dams, they live where forest fires occur nearly annually, where hurricanes hit. where there are frequent tornadoes.

The question regarding Yellowstone isn't "Will it erupt sometime in the next several thousand years?" but "How did these people choose 2012 as the date for its next eruption?" The only real answer to the latter is: "They made it up."

If you start making "made-up" claims, your whole story is suspect, so even if your basis is real: "Is Yellowstone a threat?" your conclusions are vastly tainted. This method of judging the veracity of claims by the 2012 Doom-criers works on all the different speculations. By no means is it a recommendation to "just ignore the threat", but an opportunity for you to read about the claims directly and judge the conclusions based on your knowledge, not just the Doom-criers assertions.

Re: What about Yellowstone?

tonio_d_monio 16 Nov 2009 09:23

Re: People living near volcanoes.

Well, you have to admit that volcanic soil or areas with exposure to it is very rich in farming nutrients and settlements tend to grow from that fact. Not to say that they're not in danger, but just that they had previously reaped the benefits of farming in those lands and would perhaps like to continue doing so once the danger had passed, even if just temporary?

Perhaps it would've been sensible if they have an evacuation plan as well when they do seek to live in these lands, but a lot of people are not that far-sighted. Once they get comfortable with the settlement, all notions of danger passes away — well, up until the next quake…

Re: What about Yellowstone?

seen2009 03 Nov 2009 04:47

From http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/2006/royalsoc.pdf "Monitoring super-volcanoes: geophysical and geochemical signals at Yellowstone and other large caldera systems" by Jacob Lowenstern

"At this point, we cannot be certain whether the heat and gas output are consistent with
cooling of a large but static rhyolitic magma chamber or whether continual
addition of hot, mantle-derived basalt is required to sustain the current output.
Obviously, the topic is of more than academic concern, as it reflects whether
Yellowstone is currently cooling down or heating up" (Lowenstern, 2060).

Re: What about Yellowstone?

2012hoax 03 Nov 2009 06:41

I want to thank everybody for their input. I'm taking all of your comments and using them as a basis for a page on yellowstone.

Re: What about Yellowstone?

tyler maret (guest) 25 Nov 2009 00:03

i asked this question too we had the same fear