Alaska Volcano Ready to Blow ...............etc

[indigobusiness]

As if Alaska wasn't having enough troubles due to global warming, it now has a volcano threatening to erupt. Mount Spurr, 80 miles from Anchorage, last erupted 12 years ago, and is now rumbling. Seismologist Jackie Caplan-Auerbach says, "When we see an eruption, it commonly will start off this way."
In 1992, Mount Spurr's eruption sent ash up 65,000 feet, disrupting air traffic. Seismologists are concerned about two other Alaska volcanoes as well. Mount Veniaminof, about 510 miles southwest of Anchorage, has been emitting small amounts of steam and ash since April. Shishaldin Volcano, in the Aleutian Islands, has also been emitting ash

http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/north_america/alaska/spurr.html
http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/current_volcs/current.html

Will an Alaskan eruption trigger a Yellowstone reaction?


Yellowstone Supervolcano will Devastate Wide Area

Regarding our story on Yellowstone volcanoes getting ready to blow, a reader named "Jeffrey" writes: "Actually, the Park Department IS telling everyone about the danger and eventuality of Yellowstone exploding. I'm not sure why the news media hasn't picked it up…And yes, the next big explosion is long overdue." When it blows, it will devastate a wide area, causing mass evacuations.
He says, "When we took our family vacation just last summer in Yellowstone, there was tons of info about it…A few years ago there was a quake that damaged the old Yellowstone Lodge and caused Old Faithful not to be faithful anymore. Around September, there were seismic disturbances under Lake Yellowstone that were bigger than ever recorded. The slowly-bulging dome under the lake is no longer slowly bulging. It's getting scary.

"There seems to be no record of any events in the past that reduced the pressure. It's as if it has always been all-or- nothing. The ash that falls on Denver when it blows will between 5 inches and 5 feet high. This is how much ash the geological record shows tends to fall here. I'm not sure how much of a problem this will cause us—it depends on how fast it falls. The highways will probably be clogged with refugees. Laramie, Wyoming is likely to have deaths related to the blast. That's about where the kill radius is. People who were already ailing from respiratory diseases could die clear out to Pueblo. Jackson Hole is going to disappear. I don't know how many people will die, but it is the biggest population that will be affected.

"If we're lucky, there will be at least a full day of geologic warning before Yellowstone blows, but I doubt it. There won't be any drinkable water. Our filtration plants won't be able to handle several feet of ash. We only have a few days of subterranean water storage. Add a few more days for scrounging liquids from stores and you could stretch survival in Denver to a week."


http://proliberty.com/observer/20031219.htm (background info)

[Submariner]

1. When will Yellowstone next erupt?

When will it next erupt?

Scientist have discovered that the ground in Yellowstone if 74cm higher than in was in 1923 - indicating a massive swelling underneath the park. The reservoir is filling with magma at an alarming rate. The volcano erupts with a near-clockwork cycle of every 600,000 years. The last eruption was more than 640,000 years ago - we are overdue for annihilation.

What would be the effect of an eruption?
Immediately before the eruption, there would be large earthquakes in the Yellowstone region. The ground would swell further with most of Yellowstone being uplifted. One earthquake would finally break the layer of rock that holds the magma in - and all the pressure the Earth can build up in 640,000 years would be unleashed in a cataclysmic event.

Magma would be flung 50 kilometres into the atmosphere. Within a thousand kilometres virtually all life would be killed by falling ash, lava flows and the sheer explosive force of the eruption. Volcanic ash would coat places as far away as Iowa and the Gulf of Mexico. One thousand cubic kilometres of lava would pour out of the volcano, enough to coat the whole of the USA with a layer 5 inches thick. The explosion would have a force 2,500 times that of Mount St. Helens. It would be the loudest noise heard by man for 75,000 years, the time of the last super volcano eruption. Within minutes of the eruption tens of thousands would be dead.

snip >

http://armageddononline.tripod.com/volcano.htm

[fearnobush]

2. I think your understating the effects.

The last time a super cauldaric volcano eruppted approx. 74,000 yrs ago, the human population on the planet was reduced from about 3 million to just 10,000 survivers. It blacked out the summer sky causing a mini nuclear winter. Yellowstone in fact has a larger dome than that event. The last time it blew, 650,000 yrs ago it left over 6' of ash in the area of todays Chicago.

[LastDemocratInSC]

7. Can you cite a source for your claim that the human population ...

... dropped from about 3 million to about 10,000?

[Submariner]

8. See the last paragraph on page 3 of this article

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth/volcano_monitor_010807-3.html

A few years back scientists discovered that our gene pool is quite small. This eruption 74,000 years ago explains why.

[LastDemocratInSC]

10. I don't see support for the claim that millions became thousands

I think we all agree that environmental disruptions on the scale of those discussed in this thread would reduce the human population by some amount. What I am asking for is support for the claim that millions of human beings were reduced to thousands by those events. I don't see supporting evidence for the claim in the Space.com article that you cited.

Theories explain facts, and I think it's a fact that a "narrowing" of genetic variability in human beings occured in the past. The question is whether the narrowing was due to the events cited in this thread, and so far I haven't seen any information that indicates it.

It's a great line of questioning but so far nobody here has shown that millions of human beings were reduced to thousands (a loss of 3 magnitudes) by volcanic eruptions.

[indigobusiness]

9. It's true...homo sapiens sapiens almost went tits up.

This is a fact.

here is the bit from the Space.com piece:

The last super volcano

Some 74,000 years ago, in what is now Sumatra, a volcano called Toba erupted with a force estimated to have been 10,000 times that of Mt. St. Helens. The sky darkened around the globe as ash blocked out the Sun. Temperatures plummeted by as much as 21 degrees at higher latitudes around the planet, said Michael Rampino, a biologist and geologist at New York University.

Rampino has estimated that three-quarters of the plants in the Northern Hemisphere may have died.

Stanley Ambrose, an anthropologist at the University of Illinois, suggested in 1998 that Rampino's work might explain a curious bottleneck in human evolution, a phenomenon observed by other researchers who study DNA: The blueprints of life for all humans are remarkably similar given an evolutionary timeline known to stretch back more than 2 million years.

Ambrose thinks that early humans, struggling as always against the elements, were pushed to the edge of extinction after the Toba eruption. Perhaps only a few thousand survived, Ambrose says. Humans today would all be descended from these few, and in terms of the genetic code, not a whole lot of evolution occurs in 74,000 years.

[Az_lefty]

3. I lived in Seattle when Mt. St. Helens went up

what a freeking mess!!!!

[carlvs]

4. Supereruption Not Likely...

You're dealing with two totally different volcanic systems separated by thousands of miles.

[indigobusiness]

5. I realize that , but experts

have correlated chain events in the Ring of Fire.

http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/north_america/yellowstone.html


on edit---closer to <1500 miles...is my guess.

[happyslug]

6. Not directly connected

Yellowstone (like Hawaii and Iceland)) is a "Hot Spot" Volcano. The Alaska Volcano (and most other Volcanoes in the world) are "Fault Volcanoes. The Difference is that Fault based Volcano's are based on the various earthquakes faults around the world. These are the product of two continental shelf hitting each other. For example Alaska is part of the "Ring of Fire" that surrounds the Pacific.

Yellowstone on the other hand is NOT the product of two sheaves coming into conflict, but the shelves flowing over a hot spot. These can be traced as the shelves moves over the hot spot (For example each of the Hawaii Island is a the remains of an island produced by a volcano. Each volcano went extinct as the island was no longer over the hot spot. Today only the Big Island of Hawaii has a volcano (and a new one is developing East of the Big Island).

Yellowstone is a similar hot spot volcano. The movement of the Continent over the hot spot can be traced from right is now California to the present day location of Yellowstone.

While both are active, each type is independent of each other. Thus there should be no connection between the two.

Pattern of the Movement of Yellostone:
http://publish.uwo.ca/~cjones2/movement_of_hotspot.htm

Hawaii volcano:
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/kil-hist.html

Iceland Hot Spot:
http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/europe_west_asia/iceland/iceland.html