Ever since the 6.9 earthquake in Idaho the end of March there’s been many many more following that are inching closer and closer to Yellowstone aka ol faithful
Nothing to worry about? - if Yellowstone goes, there will be nothing to worry about because we will all be dead or dead soon after. It would pretty much wipe out most of the earth for hundreds of years.
Yellowstone has erupted several times since our species has existed so I'm not too worried about humanity getting wiped out. civilization getting screwed? Yep. Zero we can do about it too.
There are far worse things out there than that little volcano; scenarios even doom and gloom guy can't even imagine. Rule of thumb is worry about what you can control and enjoy today. For some people that's the thrill of buy lots of toilet paper. I just want to go to Vegas or Yellowstone (when it's not belching a kilometre wide column of ash) or sit at the beach...
Still...If you are really bored you should look up the Permian-Triassic extinction, Triassic-Jurassic extinction and of course the big one that killed off most of the dinosaurs the K-Pg extinction. Life has a crazy way of adapting too.
NPembrush. Last eruption was 630,000 years ago. The first human ancestors appeared between five million and seven million years ago. Not even close.
On the plus side we are also overdue for a massive asteroid impact that could be even worse.
So there’s this...l
“an asteroid or comet traveling at cosmic velocities would enter the Earth’s atmosphere at such a speed that the air beneath it couldn’t get out of the way and would be compressed, as in a bicycle pump. As anyone who has used such a pump knows, compressed air grows swiftly hot, and the temperature below it would rise to some 60,000 Kelvin, or ten times the surface temperature of the Sun. In this instant of its arrival in our atmosphere, everything in the meteor’s path—people, houses, factories, cars—would crinkle and vanish like cellophane in a flame. One second after entering the atmosphere, the meteorite would slam into the Earth’s surface, where the people of Manson had a moment before been going about their business. The meteorite itself would vaporize instantly, but the blast would blow out a thousand cubic kilometers of rock, earth, and superheated gases. Every living thing within 150 miles that hadn’t been killed by the heat of entry would now be killed by the blast. Radiating outward at almost the speed of light would be the initial shock wave, sweeping everything before it. For those outside the zone of immediate devastation, the first inkling of catastrophe would be a flash of blinding light—the brightest ever seen by human eyes—followed an instant to a minute or two later by an apocalyptic sight of unimaginable grandeur: a roiling wall of darkness reaching high into the heavens, filling an entire field of view and traveling at thousands of miles an hour. Its approach would be eerily silent since it would be moving far beyond the speed of sound. Anyone in a tall building in Omaha or Des Moines, say, who chanced to look in the right direction would see a bewildering veil of turmoil followed by instantaneous oblivion. Within minutes, over an area stretching from Denver to Detroit and encompassing what had once been Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, the Twin Cities—the whole of the Midwest, in short—nearly every standing thing would be flattened or on fire, and nearly every living thing would be dead. People up to a thousand miles away would be knocked off their feet and sliced or clobbered by a blizzard of flying projectiles. Beyond a thousand miles the devastation from the blast would gradually diminish. But that’s just the initial shockwave. No one can do more than guess what the associated damage would be, other than that it would be brisk and global. The impact would almost certainly set off a chain of devastating earthquakes. Volcanoes across the globe would begin to rumble and spew. Tsunamis would rise up and head devastatingly for distant shores. Within an hour, a cloud of blackness would cover the planet, and burning rock and other debris would be pelting down everywhere, setting much of the planet ablaze. It has been estimated that at least a billion and a half people would be dead by the end of the first day. The massive disturbances to the ionosphere would knock out communications systems everywhere, so survivors would have no idea what was happening elsewhere or where to turn. It would hardly matter. As one commentator has put it, fleeing would mean “selecting a slow death over a quick one. The death toll would be very little affected by any plausible relocation effort, since Earth’s ability to support life would be universally diminished.”
@NickSgv
My bad, I was thinking further back the ancestral line when I wrote that.
I like your asteroid quote; the rock that killed the dinosaurs; we've only found three big craters of those the last being ~65mya, the biggest is Vredefort at ~300km at almost 2 billion years ago. Almost double that of Chicxulub (~180km). Then youngest of the big holes in the ground is Popigai (~100km) at about 36mya
@Diamond Girl.
Look at the positives if it happens:
Lots of free real estate
Massive estate sales pick up furniture, jewelry, cars etc for nothing..assuming you can unbury them.
No more worries of global warming
No more worries of over population
No more worries of pandemics (just epidemics)
Year round skiing...everywhere.
Year round ice skating...everywhere
Gardening is going to be awesome once the sunlight comes back. Volcanic ash makes for superior gardening.
Of course I was just putting it out there because stupid little slutty me actually figured out something that normally one you smart fellows would think of. So I was just trying to look cool ...
"stupid little slutty me actually figured out something that normally one you smart fellows"
Never, ever call yourself that. Period.
I don't know you but I can see from your pictures you a beautiful and there's nothing wrong with being inquisitive and sharing. I thought it was awesome.
The United States Geological Society has a Volcano Hazards program that partners with regional universities to study active and dormant volcanoes; they're a bunch of volcano nerds who get paid to figure out when and how bad a volcano in a region can be.
Here's an FAQ on Yellowstone. I got schooled by a friend of mine just about an hour about the volcano, she sent me to this link to share:
4 days ago — Biscuit Basin, located just north of Old Faithful, erupted around 10am MST on Tuesday, sending a massive plume of superheated water and debris.
2 days ago — Yellowstone National Park's Biscuit Basin will remain closed for the remainder of the 2024 season following a hydrothermal explosion Tuesday .
Holy smokes, Batman. TheWickedWitch was right! Yellowstone is going to blow up, and we're all gonna die.
FYI, I just moved back from Idaho. There are actually four other lava fields in the Southern Idaho area, and they produce earthquakes from time to time.
Also, this is directly from the Yellowstone Volcano Monitoring page, regarding the explosion last week:
What happened?
The July 23, 2024, hydrothermal explosion at Biscuit Basin resulted from water suddenly transitioning to steam in the shallow hydrothermal system beneath Black Diamond Pool and was not caused by volcanic activity. Seismicity, ground deformation, and gas and thermal emissions remain at their normal background levels, and there were no detectable precursors to this event.
The explosion, which sent steam and debris to a height of hundreds of feet above the ground, destroyed a nearby boardwalk and ejected grapefruit-sized rocks tens to hundreds of feet from the source. Some blocks closest to the explosion site are about 3 feet (1 meter) wide and weigh hundreds of pounds. The explosion was largely directed to the northeast toward the Firehole River, and the largest blocks of debris fell in that direction. The dark color of the explosion was a result of mud and debris mixed with steam and boiling water. Although visitors were present at the time of the event, no injuries were reported.
Black Diamond Pool and Black Opal Pool were affected by Tuesday’s explosion, and while they remain distinct features, the shape of Black Diamond has changed somewhat. Both pools are murky due to debris, and the unstable ground around their edges occasionally slides into the water. Just after the eruption, Black Diamond Pool exhibited minor roiling and water spouting. The water level in the pool rose over the course of the day, and by Tuesday afternoon the roiling transitioned to occasional bursts of hot water that reached about 8 feet (2.4 meters) in height.
What is happening now?
By Wednesday morning, July 24, the levels of Black Diamond Pool and Black Opal Pool had risen enough that both were overflowing and sending murky water into the Firehole River. No water bursts from Black Diamond Pool were witnessed Wednesday morning.
I knew I read this recently. This is the link to the study done on Yellowstone volcanic events and consequences. If you read the bottom of page 28, basically it says that the odds of it happening are "1 in a million".
Having said that, and with all the other shit that has happened in the last three weeks, maybe we're fucked.
