Mt. Rainier disaster

olesma · Post by **olesma** » Aug 14 2003 1:21 pm

At least that's whatthis article suggests may be in the near future.

This could make Mt. St. Hellens look like a backyard cookout.

Of course - even Mr. Rainier blowing its top would look like a firecracker going off compared to what might happen if this warning and this article are harbingers of things to come.

Yellowstone is essentially one of the world's largest calderas (I think one in Russia is the only one that is larger) - it covers virtually all of the park territory. The Yellowstone Caldera blows once every 600,000 years or so and geologists have proof of several different erruptions to document the time frame. It's been 630,000 since the last one. So, give or take a few thousand years, we could be due for another soon. Nobody knows when it will blow, but when it does, it will be the largest natural disaster in human history, dwarfing events like Mt. St. Helens, Krakatoa or Pinatubo by orders of magnitude.

It may not kill that many people directly (perhaps just a few hundred thousand), because the region is sparsely populated, relative to the rest of the country, but it would probably wipe out Gardiner and Boseman, Montana, and perhaps some towns in eastern Idaho. It will produce a bang that would, literally, be heard round the world. The ash would probably wipe out crops in the US for at least a year or so, and it could even kick off a new glacial advance if it cuts off the sunlight for a few years.

Global nuclear winter would have nothing on what this baby would produce.

mttgilbert · Post by **mttgilbert** » Aug 14 2003 4:05 pm

Thanks for the good news.

speaking of being overdue. most geologists recon that we're just about overdue for another ice age. this could be just the thing the glaciers need to get a good running start.

HEY! maybe that means the summer here will start cooling down!

olesma · Post by **olesma** » Aug 14 2003 6:12 pm

If you're interested, here are a couple of articles about the Yellowstone Caldera - I personally am fascinated by the size of the volcano that is manifested by the caldera.

Here is a short synopsis

Here are a bunch of good links

Here are some really excellent arial photos of the caldera

Then there is this article on how Yellowstone type of calderas function. (apparently I was wrong - the Valles caldera in New Mexico could be considered the world's largest.

Cool stuff.

fairweather8588 · Post by **fairweather8588** » Aug 14 2003 9:41 pm

what are the chances of this happening in our life time? good? slim?

olesma · Post by **olesma** » Aug 14 2003 10:11 pm

In response to fairweather8588's reply:
Don't go max out all your credit cards and wait for the end of the world if that's what you mean.

The odds of it happening in our lifetime? Who knows? We can barely predict the weather much less volcanic or other seismic activity.

It's even possible it could never happen again.

mttgilbert · Post by **mttgilbert** » Aug 15 2003 1:20 am

Calculating the statistical odds of an event like that would be pretty close to impossible. Too many unkown (or unknowable) variables. And remember the span of our lifetime means very little (VERY little) on a geologic timescale.

Hank · Post by **Hank** » Aug 15 2003 12:52 pm

olesma wrote:
(apparently I was wrong - the Valles caldera in New Mexico could be considered the world's largest.

Cool stuff.

Yellowstone (around 47 x 28 miles) is somewhat larger than the Valles Caldera (abiut 14 miles in diameter). I was lucky enough to go on a geology field trip over to the Valles Calders last spring. It is really a beautiful area. We spent three days looking around the caldera itself and the surrounding ares near Los Alamos. Lots of Bandalier tuff everywhere...

I think that the Toba Caldera (about 60 x 20 miles) in Indonesia is the big one on earth.

Hank

Sredfield · Post by **Sredfield** » Aug 15 2003 11:29 pm

I'm told the hospitals in Phoenix regularly train for THE BIG ONE in CA because we will be a medevac center when it happens.