I knew there something wrong with the West North America

[carlosMM]

I think limited would be an understatement.

I know that ash is the primary detriment, what I'm saying is can making the hole larger reduce the amount of pressure and therefore the size of the explosion and the ensuing ash that gets in the air.

With a small mountain volcano it would logically spurt ash much higher and with greater force and therefore effect a larger area. But if there is less pressure from a large hole the explosion should decrease and therefore the amount of atmsophere darkened by ash.

the problem is not the chamber, but the magma type.

(I'll try to turn the geologist off and write this so that everyone can understand )
Volcanoes that are in continental crust usually have very thick, gooey lava. THis means that gasses can't well escape out of it - think of a thin broth on the stove - it will bublle harlessly, whilel a thick, creamy tomatoe soup will have stuff flying all over the kitchen when you boil it! Same for magma!

So basically, if the lava that wants to flow out is highly viscous, it will suddenly blubb out, releasing massive amounts of gasses - basically a gunshot of lava out of the volcanoe. If the lava is think like water it will just harmlessly flow out (Hawaii!) as it has no problem releasing the gasses continuously.


Changing the shape of the volcanoe will not help - if you could make it wieder there would simply be a larger gob of sticky lava under which pressure accumulates a littel longer until it blows.

 

[plarq]

Since there's no solid evidence to claim the volcano will erupt in a dozen thousand years,why should we worry about that?Do you consider there's a conspiracy going through North America?

 

[Jack the Ripper]

The volcanic dust will initially cool the earth but i think that in the long run the volcanic CO2 will warm us up again

 

[Rhymes]

Has anyone seen the discovery channel documentary about this? THey made an animated preview of how the eruption/explosion would look like from both the sky and space, you can see whole mountains getting blowned up and almost disintegrated.

 

[carlosMM]

Since there's no solid evidence to claim the volcano will erupt in a dozen thousand years,why should we worry about that?Do you consider there's a conspiracy going through North America?

Let's say there's a 50% chance that it will blow up some day - and an unknown chance that it will blow up in the next 100 years - would you buy a ranch nearby?

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

I doubt Yellowstone will blow up again. remember the tectonic drift? the hotspot that created yellowstone is stationary (according to memory), thus as the north american plate moves, the hotspot will eventually be under a thick layer of crust (the rockies), thus it will be unable to erupt again for millions of years.

EDIT: Plus, yellowstone really only erupted twice, and it's damn near impossible to predict cyclical event using just two eruptions, as far as i know.

 

[carlosMM]

I doubt Yellowstone will blow up again. remember the tectonic drift? the hotspot that created yellowstone is stationary (according to memory), thus as the north american plate moves, the hotspot will eventually be under a thick layer of crust (the rockies), thus it will be unable to erupt again for millions of years.

The drift rate is very slow - so if there's still a hot spot there it will be colse to the norhtern rim by now.

Also, the thickness of the crust does onyl one thing: make eruptions rarer, thus bundeling more energy into each blow.

EDIT: Plus, yellowstone really only erupted twice, and it's damn near impossible to predict cyclical event using just two eruptions, as far as i know.

gotta source that says so?
IIRC, there's LARGE TRACES of the last two eruptions on the surface only - but far more quite large eruptions have been dated from radioactive elements in ashes and lavas. There were quite a few more, but they got blown away / covered by the last two.

Also, do you refer to this
http://trailside.unl.edu/
as one of the two?

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

the source? a few weeks ago, there was a BBC/Discovery channel co-production of a docudrama movie named "Supervolcano", with some RL science chatter afterwards.

 

[carlosMM]

the source? a few weeks ago, there was a BBC/Discovery channel co-production of a docudrama movie named "Supervolcano", with some RL science chatter afterwards.

Well, I have löearnt that BBC and Discovery Channel productions about dinosaurs, my especialy area of expertise, contain serious errors as well as career-interest founded misrepresentations of facts by some press-hungry scientists - especially people withotu tenure and funding. The louder they shout 'sensation' the lessa ccurate the facts.

Thus allow me to doubt the 'onyl 2 times' claim

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

I see.

well, 3rd time's a charm.

 

[carlosMM]

I see.

well, 3rd time's a charm.

I just hope I'll be far enough away - in space OR time

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

well, i'm in minnesota, which, technically, is virtually next door to yellowstone.

reminde me to get an A380 ticket to australia as soon as possible