Note that the park spokesman’s “nothing to worry about” is about the quakes, not the potential for catastrophic eruption!
Dooooooooooooooomed!
Not me. I’m to the west, so I just get to look at the pretty light show.
I’m glad I got to visit last summer…it might not be there next summer.
Ha No. The eruption 70,000 years ago the article mentions was merely an expansive lava flow, really nothing like the full power of the caldera. It’s classed as a supervolcano, and we know of the last three supereruptions, occurring about every 600,000 years. The last one was 640,000 years ago.
If it happens again, you’re boned.
You’re boned, I’m boned, pretty much everyone in North America is boned. That kind of eruption would render an area thousands of kilometres wide uninhabitable. Right in the middle of our largest food-producing region. The only thing I can think of that would compare is the impact pf a medium-large asteroid (around 1 km).
I’ve been checking the Yellowstone Earthquake Tracker since when the “swarm” was only 15 a few days ago. It’s over 200 now.
On the plus side, the plains will have a fresh new layer of rich volcanic soil when civilization recovers.
Oh crap. You mean we gotta move all those goddamn wolves AGAIN? :smack:
That’s what happens when you let unsupervised Hobbits wander around an active volcano. I blame the Park Rangers of the North.
Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and the Dakotas are habitale? Learn something new every day…
Mind you, those park rangers will be the first ones up against the stratosphere come the eruption.
Heh, I was just about to post a Chicken Little thread. Y’all are too fast for me.
Back in the mid-80s, I spent about six months sitting a well on a ridge in the Tetons, maybe a hundred miles or so south of Yellowstone Lake. At the time, I didn’t know much of anything about Yellowstone’s previous eruptions. I’ve since read that the last really big one put something like 140 cubic miles of rock into the the air. That’s, er…quite a lot, really.
If the hotspot erupts with full force, there will be nothing to worry about. You won’t have much time to worry. In fact, you’ll briefly think you were in a story written by Boyo Jim.
Hobbitibal. Please try and keep up.
Shire, whatever you like.
Poking around in the links from the Earthquake Tracker linked above led me to a report from the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory titled Preliminary Assessment of Volcanic and Hydrothermal Hazards in Yellowstone National Park and Vicinity.
If we’re lucky the eruption will trigger the La Palma volcano and we can immediately follow the super volcano with the mega tsunami.
One thing’s for certain – if she blows, the Denver Broncos would probably be playing a lot more away games.
Seriously, though, if she blows at full force, the Americans and Canadians killed off quickly would be the lucky ones. Globally, untold hundreds of millions or even billions could starve to death, due to the one-two punch of not receiving their North American foodstuffs and nuclear winter-like effects, lessening agricultural output almost everywhere.
I bloody well hope it doesn’t do it while I’m taking a leak. I’d prefer it happen while I’m having hot, sweaty monkey sex. If the world’s going to go out with a bang, so am I.
Well, that’s one way to fix global warming.
In that case, I’ll throw a Donner party. “Long pig, it’s not just for breakfast anymore.”