How Yellowstone's Volcano Is Both a Threat and an Opportunity
Summer mornings a robin sprightly hops across our irrigated green grass, pauses to listen for the food at its feet, checks for predators above it’s head, and pecks its breakfast. The scene appears serene, except to a bug threatened by the robin and the robin threatened by a predator.
Just like the robin, we need to be aware of opportunities and danger above and below us. Our planet’s core of heat explodes through volcanoes and earthquakes a like a super heated furnace that angrily creates its own ventilating system.
Why should we care? We have only minor dangers from earthquakes in Entiat and Leavenworth and Mt St. Helens and Mt Rainer’s volcanic eruptions.
Not so. The Yellowstone volcano threatens us, and much, if not all, of this planet.
Karen and I drove across Yellowstone’s 45-mile wide caldera that rises and falls inches per year to the beat of the heat underneath.
The current issue of National Geographic reports that the volcano has erupted every 600- to 700,000 years for the last 2.1 million years, making it due for another since its last one was 640,000 years ago. That eruption blasted 1,000 times more rock, lava, and ash into the globe’s atmosphere than Mt. St Helens did. The magazine states, “For years the pollutants chilled the climate, devastating ecosystems.”
A volcanic winter from Indonesia’s Toba almost wiped out the human race 74,000 years ago. Yellowstone’s largest eruption almost equaled Toba’s.
Yellowstone’s eruption isn’t immediately likely. A devastating asteroid from above is more likely. Current plans to monitor and divert asteroids include four giant telescopes with increasing magnification.
However, National Geographic was the first to model Yellowstone’s volcano. Scientists are studying volcanoes and earthquakes according to Simon Winchester’s book, A Crack at the End of the Word. Scientists suspect every eruption in one part of the planet is linked to eruptions and earthquakes at approximately the same time in other parts of the planet. For example, the internal pressures that caused Alaska’s last major earthquake in 2004 probably caused heated geysers in Yellowstone to erupt irregularly. They settled down at the same time as the Alaska aftershocks.
Fortunately, scientists believe Yellowstone volcano’s massive size would send out a series of signals that it’s about to explode again. It’s not signaling an eruption right now.
But couldn’t we relieve pressure with massive diversions of the earth’s core heat into a worldwide ventilating system? Imagine energy from Yellowstone’s volcanic furnace running through heating ducts beneath the western plains.
Despite that opportunity, NASA’s major goal is to build a space station on the moon. Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin urges us to use the moon as a launching pad to land on Phobus, a Mars moon. It might make sense to build telescopes on the dark side of the moon for an asteroid observatory outpost.
NASA needs redirection, Yellowstone needs attention, and energy generation needs invention. We need to be as alert to the opportunities and threats above and below us as our robin is. That would get us closer to serenity.
Just like the robin, we need to be aware of opportunities and danger above and below us. Our planet’s core of heat explodes through volcanoes and earthquakes a like a super heated furnace that angrily creates its own ventilating system.
Why should we care? We have only minor dangers from earthquakes in Entiat and Leavenworth and Mt St. Helens and Mt Rainer’s volcanic eruptions.
Not so. The Yellowstone volcano threatens us, and much, if not all, of this planet.
Karen and I drove across Yellowstone’s 45-mile wide caldera that rises and falls inches per year to the beat of the heat underneath.
The current issue of National Geographic reports that the volcano has erupted every 600- to 700,000 years for the last 2.1 million years, making it due for another since its last one was 640,000 years ago. That eruption blasted 1,000 times more rock, lava, and ash into the globe’s atmosphere than Mt. St Helens did. The magazine states, “For years the pollutants chilled the climate, devastating ecosystems.”
A volcanic winter from Indonesia’s Toba almost wiped out the human race 74,000 years ago. Yellowstone’s largest eruption almost equaled Toba’s.
Yellowstone’s eruption isn’t immediately likely. A devastating asteroid from above is more likely. Current plans to monitor and divert asteroids include four giant telescopes with increasing magnification.
However, National Geographic was the first to model Yellowstone’s volcano. Scientists are studying volcanoes and earthquakes according to Simon Winchester’s book, A Crack at the End of the Word. Scientists suspect every eruption in one part of the planet is linked to eruptions and earthquakes at approximately the same time in other parts of the planet. For example, the internal pressures that caused Alaska’s last major earthquake in 2004 probably caused heated geysers in Yellowstone to erupt irregularly. They settled down at the same time as the Alaska aftershocks.
Fortunately, scientists believe Yellowstone volcano’s massive size would send out a series of signals that it’s about to explode again. It’s not signaling an eruption right now.
But couldn’t we relieve pressure with massive diversions of the earth’s core heat into a worldwide ventilating system? Imagine energy from Yellowstone’s volcanic furnace running through heating ducts beneath the western plains.
Despite that opportunity, NASA’s major goal is to build a space station on the moon. Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin urges us to use the moon as a launching pad to land on Phobus, a Mars moon. It might make sense to build telescopes on the dark side of the moon for an asteroid observatory outpost.
NASA needs redirection, Yellowstone needs attention, and energy generation needs invention. We need to be as alert to the opportunities and threats above and below us as our robin is. That would get us closer to serenity.
Posted by JSR at 8/6/2009 10:20 AM 
Categories: Common Sense:Sensible Science
Tags: toba earthquakes continental drift volcano yellowstone
Categories: Common Sense:Sensible Science
Tags: toba earthquakes continental drift volcano yellowstone
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