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I wouldn't worry. Right now there is no vent for magma to reach the surface, and there has been no upwelling. Now if a vent forms, or upwelling starts to occur, start to worry.
I remember this movie back in the early 2000s about this. I think it was called "Supervolcano." Really good movie.
I doubt this will happen in my lifetime - probably not for a few more after mine. It's very interesting to think about, but not worth getting worried over.
A caldera is fundamentally different from a volcano. A caldera caves in- it doesn't explode upward. But the cave-in may produce effects that might be similar to a huge, super-volcano.
The Yellowstone area's crust is very thin, and lies above a super-heated small blister of magma deep in the earth. This magma is like a cutting torch, slowly cutting it's way across the earth's surface. It's been cutting for over a million years now.
Much of the area where I live is in the cutting track. The hot spot is cutting it's way north east. Most of the eruptions that have resulted have been large lava flows, similar to the flow in Hawaii, but it has created some cinder-cone volcanoes as well.
It's very possible that a Yellowstone eruption could be similar to the flow in Hawaii- where it simply oozes out and keeps oozing for a thousand years, covering the mountains in the Rockies surrounding it with lava. This has happened all over in the west, including in the Grand Canyon, in the past.
You're right- worrying about it is nothing but a waste of nervous energy that could be put to better use elsewhere. Worst-case natural disasters are really rare and really far apart if they come from the earth's core.
More have come from asteroids striking the earth, and they seem to be the ones that have caused the mass extinction events. For all we know, the hot spot may have come from an ancient strike so long ago all the traces of it lie deep in the earth.
we should be more worried if Yellowstone is dormant. dormant volcanoes produce the most violent/catastrophic eruptions, something like pent up emotion. its deadly when you don't release it.
as of now, Yellowstone have so many vents to release some of its energy
You resign yourself to the fact that you will likely die, and make sure you have plenty of booze (or other preferred feel-goods) stocked for while you are waiting for death to reach you.
Totally and completely dependent. We're at the end of a long supply chain, and if it gets cut off, things will get ugly here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Listener2307
Which brings up a question from this mainlander....
Just how dependent is Hawaii on the rest of the US? I mean, if the lower 48 were virtually destroyed what would life be like on Hawaii? Business as usual, only without tourists?.....
My brother was stationed in Cheyenne WY in support of missile crews. Their plan in case they saw a launch was the "Lawn Chair Method" which might be applicable here.
"Go outside and sit in the lawn chair with an adult beverage, because running isn't going to help."
That catastrophe would only be from a total collapse of the caldera.
Could it happen? Sure, it could. And it would be a mass-exinction event so large it could wipe out most of the life in North America and much of the world.
You wouldn't need to worry about the economy, because there would be none. Or having enough food; breathing the ash would kill you and everyone else in short order, and there would be no escape from the ash anywhere on the continent.
But there is no certainty that if Yellowstone was to blow, the entire caldera would fall in. Or that even part of it would fall in. There could be massive earthquakes, but no local eruptions.
Here's how the geography of Yellowstone is:
Imagine a big bowl full of thick liquid with a thin sheet of cork floating on it's top. The cork is thinner in spots than others.
if you heat up the liquid in the bowl, the cork will bulge upwards as the liquid expands, but the liquid won't necessarily shoot out through the thin spots in the cork. What is more likely to happen is the bulge in the cork will create some room around the edges of the cork, next to the inner wall of the bowl. And the hot liquid will seep out there instead.
That's what we have in the Pacific coast. The coastal mountain ranges from Mexico to Alaska all lie along one of the biggest cracks in the earth's crust, and they all contain many volcanoes, some active, some not. The tectonic plate is like the edge of the bowl, and the coastline is like the edge of the cork sheet. The resistance to the deep pressure is the weakest in that area.
If the pressure builds up, the volcanoes are like the valves on a pressure cooker; they are the first to blow. If the pressure under the caldera grew high enough to cause it to bulge, then all the volcanoes found along the Pacific coast would start popping off, especially in the Cascades, the volcanic range closest to Yellowstone. It is full of active volcanoes like St. Mary's, which blew in 1981.
Now any major volcanic eruption is bad enough. Several at the same time is very, very bad, and the prevailing jet stream, which heads eastward onto the continent from far out in the Pacific, would carry all the ash and toxic gasses eastward, at least as far as the Great Lakes.
So a caldera collapse isn't the only possible mass-extinction event that is possible. It may not even be the worst of them- if the ring of fire all blows at once, along with the inevitable earthquakes, that may be even worse.
Right now, nothing is predicted to happen on a scale this large for a minimum of 1,000 years. Don't ask me how the geologists figured out that one, because I'm not a geologist. But I trust their knowledge, and I don't expect to be around to see if it is accurate or not.
What is more likely to come in a nearer future- only several hundred years, not a thousand or more, is the creation of a brand new big volcano, somewhere either along the north coast of the U.S. or in the Rockies somewhere, possibly. After a major earthquake or a series of major earthquakes.
The volcano could form in Mexico, like Pococapetl did, in 1948, growing from nothing in the middle of a cornfield. It could form in Alaska, or Canada, or in Central America. But when it does, it's a new pressure valve, and no single volcano has been enough to create a mass extinction that I know of. Even Krakatoa, which has blown several times, has never caused the extinction of humanity, but it did set humanity back for several years, and did kill off the entire civilization that was living on its slopes.
I live less than 100 miles south of Yellowstone, and I've been in a bunch of earthquakes here. Most are so small as to be barely noticed, but over my life, a couple have been whoppers. One killed over 200 unfortunate campers when the side of a mountain peeled off, slid over the campsite and dammed up a creek, forming a new lake, in 1961. That was less than 30 miles from Yellowstone's western boundary, and it knocked me out of bed. I was living about 10 miles away at the time.
I think that's what should concern you most, not the caldera. Prepping for an earthquake is prepping the house to withstand the shock, not how much food to lay up. If the house doesn't collapse, you're good.
If the Big One blows, you won't live long enough to eat the food anyway, and you probably won't be able to escape it except through fortune.
The best chance of survival is simply to live east of the Mississippi if the caldera worries you, smack dab in the middle of the oldest mountains you can find.
Mike, if we have time to meet up, after the sh** hits the fan, we can take the dogs for a final walk along the Snake river. I would guess we are both too damn old to worry about it.
Too bad we won't be around to see the body count for the Tourons (tourist morons) in Yellowstone; however, I would bet a dinner there will be a few thousand selfies taken.
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I would guess we are both too damn old to worry about it.
