Drillers in Hawaii Strike Subterranean Molten Rock by Chance
The result might have been different had the lava chamber been under excess pressure.
Saying that, this did occur by accident. Say the process was being done with deliberation; is there anything that could have been done to avoid the problems encountered here??
Have a look at this map of where the ash from Yellowstone’s largest eruption went. It covered Utah and Oklahoma. It did cover part of California, but not San Francisco. Hmmmm…
I’d imagine the reason that’s not been formally proposed is exactly why it’s hard to just poke a little hole in a zit to relieve the pressure gradually…
With our current technology? No, I don’t believe so. We are just starting to attempt to relieve build ups of toxic gasses in volcanic lakes in Africa, and that doesn’t involve molten rock, just gas pockets.
If it triggers an eruption, the people who did the drilling get blamed for it, and may be on the hook financially for some of the damage. You’d have to find a way to release pressure but guarantee that an eruption could not be triggered.
Perhaps if (pick the politician of your choice) made a statement…
Cecil deals with this in today’s Straight Dope column.
Happy New- [BOOM]
:eek: Quick! Somebody call Professor Challenger!
That article let me do something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time- calculate the odds of being killed by a supervolcano.
If there’s a 1 in 10,000 chance of a supereruption happening in the next 50 years, that translates (assuming there’s no reason to think it’s more or less likely at any time in those 50 years) to a 1 in 500,000 chance of a supereruption in one year. If a supereruption is going to kill 10 million people, that’s roughly 1/10,000 of Earth’s population (rounding population to 10 billion, because we’re doing order-of-magnitude astronomer math here). If we assume that everyone on Earth has the same chance of being killed in a super-eruption, that means you have a 1 in 5 billion chance of being killed in one.
I wish we had that when I was going to school. “Quick, what’s 47.356 divided by 12.77?” “10! Hey, it’s within an order of magnitude.”
As one of my undergrad astronomy professors used to say, “What’s a factor of 2 among friends?”
I think we need to get a handle on this little earth-belch first before we start monkeying around with the likes of Yellowstone. If we can’t handle an accidental mud volcano then we’re not up to real magma.
Do you take into account the proximity to a supervolcano? In addition to the Yellowstone Supervolcano, are they any others that might pose an “immediate” threat to humans?
They drilled test wells in Yellowstone in 1967 and 1968. In 1992, one of the plugged test well valves failed.
Given the size of those things, ANY supervolcano anywhere in the world poses a threat to humans.
The western US actually has two - Yellowstone and the Valles Caldera in New Mexico. There is also Lake Taupo in New Zealand and Lake Toba in Indonesia. I’ve also heard there is evidence of one around Naples, Italy and there are apparently several caldera remnants that are no longer considered active here and there around the world. Then there are formations like the Deccan and the Siberian Trapps which, although not supervolcanos are still really, really bad things involving massive floods of basalt over a wide area.
Unquestionably, Yellowstone is active and could blow. So could Toba. But probably neither today or tomorrow.
What about Tuesday? I need to know if I have to go to work.
I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like Yellowstone will be sleeping in on Tuesday. You should plan on having to go to work. 
My understanding is that the [Dr. Evil voice]MAG-ma[/Dr. Evil voice] contains large amounts of gas in solution. Until the chamber roof loses structural integrity, the pressure contained by the system keeps the gas in solution. The explosive bit comes immediately after the chamber roof collapses; at that point, due to the loss of pressure containment, the gas bubbles permeating the molten rock rapidly expand and coalesce, and that’s where you get your earth-shattering kaboom.
Really bad things that may also cause mass extinctions.
What about Long Valley Caldera in California?
No, because supervolcanoes are capable of causing volcanic winters and screwing up the climate of an entire hemisphere, if not the whole world. If Yellowstone blows up, people will die all over the Northern Hemisphere from things like crop failures. Like what happened in 1816 after Tambora erupted, only a lot worse. People in the Southern Hemisphere might die too, even if the volcanic ash doesn’t actually cause a volcanic winter there. If a country in the Southern Hemisphere doesn’t produce enough food for its population and makes up the lack by importing from the US, it would be affected too.