Super Eruptions at Yellowstone

Ok just to say first I am not suggesting that anything is going to happen. I just have been looking at things about Yellowstone for some time.

volcanoes.usgs.gov...

This page is very informative for this subject, and there is a table about when the previous super eruptions have been. 2.1 million years ago was the biggest at 2,450 cubic kilometres. The next biggest was 640,000 years ago at 1,000 cubic kilometres.
the 3rd biggest was 1.3 million years ago which was an eruption of 280 cubic kilometres. This was not technically a super eruption (VEI 8) but was a VEI 7 in size.

Using the argument of regularity then the next one should be about 780,000 years after the previous one. however looking at the decrease in intervals then perhaps another one should be soon.

This is a picture of the previous Calderas:




looking at the earthquake maps for data since 1973 then perhaps a new caldera might look like this:




This picture is just from the earthquake maps on USGS, I just outlined the rough area which may be the next caldera. I perhaps should have included the area of the Hebgen lake earthquake too.
This area may be enough to mean an approximate size similar to the last eruption.

Another site for additional information:

volcano.und.edu...

[edit on 1-11-2006 by apex]

Nice update post This subject was "smoke'n" back a few years ago during a rash of tremors but died down since. Seems to me that vulcan activiy is up world wide since the Sumatra xmas quake especially the circle of fire points in Indo and Alaska.

recently there have been two earthquake swarms in the park, both of them have been mentioned on the YVO page.

On October 14th and 15th, there was a swarm at 74 small earthquakes at a location within the Yellowstone Caldera, 12 km NW of Old Faithful. The largest earthquake was local magnitude 2.4. This swarm is modest in size compared with other historic earthquake swarms at Yellowstone. More information on earthquake swarms at Yellowstone is available at: volcanoes.usgs.gov...


September 2006 Yellowstone Seismicity Summary

During the month of September 2006, 65 earthquakes were located in the Yellowstone region. The largest of these shocks was a magnitude 2.8 on September 7, 2006 at 7:09 PM MDT, located about 5.7 miles northeast of Canyon Junction, Wyoming. A small swarm of 13 events magnitude 0.2 - 1.4 occured on Sept 12-13. These were located about 12 miles west southwest of Old Faithful.

Source


Just realised I had forgotten to mention this.

Also, while the site mentions the uplift currently going on, it doesn't say exactly where the uplift is.

[edit on 1-11-2006 by apex]

Did you happen to catch the SuperVolcano movie that discovery channel did? It was an excellent depiction of what would happen if the caldera blows.

Check it out. it was a good flick.

Originally posted by S1LV3R4D0
Did you happen to catch the SuperVolcano movie that discovery channel did? It was an excellent depiction of what would happen if the caldera blows.

Check it out. it was a good flick.

Yes i have it on DVD if thats the one I think you mean.

I was interested in yellowstone before that though, ever since Focus magazine did an article on volcanoes and as an aside had a mention about yellowstone. This was back in about 2001 so I don't have much hopes of finding the article. there was also a more recent one where the cover article was about supervolcanoes too. I may still have it somewhere.

I saw that special on the Discovery channel too. While I watched I was thinking, if someone really wanted to do some damage, couldn't they just nuke that thing?

What do you think would happen if it got nuked?

Is there anything or way that the the danger posed by this can be reduced in anyway..because if it goes..well the consequences are terrible to think off.

i don't think that there is any easy way to get rid of the threat, except be prepared for such an occurrence. Any attempt to tap off the magma would perhaps destabilise the chamber and cause it to blow. There was a discussion on this here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

What do you think would happen if it got nuked?

i would say an eruption would occur, but it would probably be anyones guess as to how big. if it were placed so it was quite close to the chamber would probably cause maximum effect.

Currently on the pages of the USGS earthquake pages you can see a swarm of earthquakes at the west side of the caldera. Considering that there was a swarm last month, and in september, this is perhaps a cause for concern?

[edit on 7-11-2006 by apex]

I am not totally convinced that an eruption on that scale would occur as quick as described on that program. It just seems a little quick for a geological event such as that. Certainly I think there would be much more warning than a few days.

Originally posted by Strodyn
I am not totally convinced that an eruption on that scale would occur as quick as described on that program. It just seems a little quick for a geological event such as that. Certainly I think there would be much more warning than a few days.

I'm not saying it would be as quick as they described, I'm just presenting facts here. Of course it has had 640,000 years since the last big eruption for the chamber to fill up, so it could just go. After all the signs that they usually look for signs of imminent eruption are constantly happening at yellowstone.

When I first looked at the USGS monthly report, uplift was always around 10 cm, now it is at 13cm. Not much, but it is still a change.

There seems to be a lot less seismic activity at the moment at yellowstone. Currently there are only 5 earthquakes on the map, and up until a few days ago there were a couple of little swarms of around 25 quakes.

Maybe its dying down to being extinct. Although just one week isn't a great trial period.

I just wanted to mention this. Where on earth did the every 600,000 years figure come from? Basic maths gives 2,100,000 divided by 3 = 700,000 years. So where did 600,000 years come from?

USGS mnthly status report:

volcanoes.usgs.gov...

A small swarm of 47 earthquakes of magnitude -0.1 to +2.7, including the largest even mentioned above, occurred on Nov 4-7, also about 12 miles west of Old Faithful.

I always wonder what a swarm number has to be to be "big" rather than "small". And how can there be a negative magnitude earthquake?

Uplift is stil at 13 cm.

Yellowstone is so beautiful, I love that place.
Scientists have recorded two major eruptions there so far from what I've read. The second being smaller than the first, the third should be even lesser than that. Though I am not trying to undermine the impact it would create if an explosion did occur. Point is, that the impact wouldn't be as catastrophic as previous ones.

I just read the USGS page linked to on the first post on the page. It is quite informative. It is the uplift on the Yellostone caldera that I found the most interesting. I am thinking that there must a continuing building of perisher for that to continue to happen. Although be it, if the up lift was not happening, then the perisher would just build, and sooner or later the perisher building would half to go some where.

Originally posted by laiguana
Scientists have recorded two major eruptions there so far from what I've read. The second being smaller than the first, the third should be even lesser than that. Though I am not trying to undermine the impact it would create if an explosion did occur. Point is, that the impact wouldn't be as catastrophic as previous ones.

You may have misread it. The Huckleberry ridge eruption was 2.1 million years ago, 2,500km cubed. The second eruption, was the smallest (big, worrying sort of eruption), 1.3 million years ago, the third eruption, 640,000 years ago was 1,000 cubic km. Of course there can also be smaller eruptions, but here I'm looking at supereruptions (VEI 8 or 7, they are quite big as well).

Originally posted by apex

You may have misread it. The Huckleberry ridge eruption was 2.1 million years ago, 2,500km cubed. The second eruption, was the smallest (big, worrying sort of eruption), 1.3 million years ago, the third eruption, 640,000 years ago was 1,000 cubic km. Of course there can also be smaller eruptions, but here I'm looking at supereruptions (VEI 8 or 7, they are quite big as well).

Apex,
could you please exsplain what the standard is for small, medium, and large volcano exsplosions and what the VEI scale is?
Or a link to what would exsplain it is good also.

My apologies for using the terminology too much, I on have a large interest in this, but I have read a few of the technical papers on it, and they use things such as VEI (Volcanic Explosivity Index)

Ok. Right it is easier (wel, I find it a bit easier) with the VEI scale, which is basically a system which is logarithmic, ie it goes up in factors of ten in each number, so 8 is 10 times larger than 7, 100 times larger than 6, 1,000 times larger than 5, etc. A VEI 0 is non explosive, like Kilauea. VEI 2 is like Galeras in 1993 (i think thats the eruption in Surviving Galeras). VEI 5 is Mount St. Helens size. VEI 8 is a super eruption like Yellowstone or Toba.

en.wikipedia.org...




[edit on 5-12-2006 by apex]

Apex,
Thanks for the info!
That does help. I have heard volcanoes referred to as small medium and large but not familiar with the VEI scale. I do hope those number listed are correct. Have you heard where Kracatoa would be on that scale?