SCIENCE: Docudrama on Yellowstone volcano set for Sunday

[conjur]

http://www.bozemanchronicle.com/articles/2005/04/07/news/volcanomovie.txt

First the bad news.

When the volcano that underlies much of Yellowstone National Park blows its top again, it's going to make an incredible mess.

"The sky will darken, black rain will fall, and the Earth will be plunged into the equivalent of a nuclear winter." This combination will "push humanity to the brink of extinction."

That's the message put out by film production company, which will air a docudrama about the Yellowstone volcano Sunday on the Discovery Channel, which coproduced the show with the BBC.

Now for the good news.

"Such events are unlikely to occur in the next few centuries," the U.S. Geological Survey said in a statement prepared in response to the TV movie.

Plus, if an eruption did become likely, "most scientists think that the buildup preceding a catastrophic eruption would be detectable for weeks and perhaps months to years" in advance, the USGS said.

Yellowstone lies atop one of the world's largest volcanoes, a gooey mass of molten rock that has erupted roughly every 600,000 years. The last one was 640,000 years ago and was 8,000 times the size of the 1980 Mount Saint Helens eruption.

"The next one is overdue," warned the BBC Web site.

That's not necessarily so, the USGS countered.

"Although it is possible, scientists are not convinced that there well ever be another catastrophic eruption at Yellowstone," the report said.

A much more likely occurrence would be a lava flow. There have been 80 of them over the past 640,000 years, the most recent of which occurred on the Pitchstone Plateau 70,000 years ago.

"This would be the most likely kind of future eruption," USGS said. "If such an event were to occur today, there would be much disruption of activities in Yellowstone, but in all likelihood few lives would be threatened."

The TV show is a realistic depiction of what could happen if a major eruption does occur, USGS said, but the chances of one happening in any given year are 0.00014 percent.

Accordingly, park employees are remaining calm.

"I'm perfectly content to stay right where I am," park spokeswoman Cheryl Matthews said this week.

The program airs Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. It had ben scheduled to run earlier, but was delayed in the wake of the tsunami disaster in Asia late last year.

For more information, go to www.usgs.gov or discovery.com

Times like this I wish I still had cable.

PBS had a good documentary on Krakatoa that was on last week. Must be Volcano Year.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: conjur
Yellowstone lies atop one of the world's largest volcanoes, a gooey mass of molten rock that has erupted roughly every 600,000 years. The last one was 640,000 years ago and was 8,000 times the size of the 1980 Mount Saint Helens eruption.

But... but... but... that doesn't agree with a biblical interpretation of the history of the world. Of course, we also know the Park Service now tends to forget about the millions of years it took to etch the Grand Canyon.

Guess them old bible writers forgot to run out to the back yard and wind up their sundials. :Q

 

[conjur]

Well, I prefer keeping the Creationist rhetoric out of these threads. But, can you imagine the destructive power of 8,000 times Mt St. Helens? That's a lot of dust in the air and who knows how far-reaching the effects of the explosion.

 

[HombrePequeno]

Yet another reason to step up the exploration of Mars.

 

[raildogg]

Originally posted by: Harvey

Originally posted by: conjur
Yellowstone lies atop one of the world's largest volcanoes, a gooey mass of molten rock that has erupted roughly every 600,000 years. The last one was 640,000 years ago and was 8,000 times the size of the 1980 Mount Saint Helens eruption.

But... but... but... that doesn't agree with a biblical interpretation of the history of the world. Of course, we also know the Park Service now tends to forget about the millions of years it took to etch the Grand Canyon.

Guess them old bible writers forgot to run out to the back yard and wind up their sundials. :Q

Why take a uncalled for shot against Christianity? When people call you a hateful atheist, you're gonna cry a river.

What does this even have to do with religion?

Science and religion don't mix, there is a place for both of them however. Stick to the topic instead of taking every chance to bash Christianity.

 

[Hecubus2000]

I can't wait to see it. It looks like it will be very interesting. I guess I better make an extra effort to visit Yellowstone this year just in case.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: conjur
http://www.bozemanchronicle.com/articles/2005/04/07/news/volcanomovie.txt

First the bad news.

When the volcano that underlies much of Yellowstone National Park blows its top again, it's going to make an incredible mess.

"The sky will darken, black rain will fall, and the Earth will be plunged into the equivalent of a nuclear winter." This combination will "push humanity to the brink of extinction."

That's the message put out by film production company, which will air a docudrama about the Yellowstone volcano Sunday on the Discovery Channel, which coproduced the show with the BBC.

Now for the good news.

"Such events are unlikely to occur in the next few centuries," the U.S. Geological Survey said in a statement prepared in response to the TV movie.

Plus, if an eruption did become likely, "most scientists think that the buildup preceding a catastrophic eruption would be detectable for weeks and perhaps months to years" in advance, the USGS said.

Yellowstone lies atop one of the world's largest volcanoes, a gooey mass of molten rock that has erupted roughly every 600,000 years. The last one was 640,000 years ago and was 8,000 times the size of the 1980 Mount Saint Helens eruption.

"The next one is overdue," warned the BBC Web site.

That's not necessarily so, the USGS countered.

"Although it is possible, scientists are not convinced that there well ever be another catastrophic eruption at Yellowstone," the report said.

A much more likely occurrence would be a lava flow. There have been 80 of them over the past 640,000 years, the most recent of which occurred on the Pitchstone Plateau 70,000 years ago.

"This would be the most likely kind of future eruption," USGS said. "If such an event were to occur today, there would be much disruption of activities in Yellowstone, but in all likelihood few lives would be threatened."

The TV show is a realistic depiction of what could happen if a major eruption does occur, USGS said, but the chances of one happening in any given year are 0.00014 percent.

Accordingly, park employees are remaining calm.

"I'm perfectly content to stay right where I am," park spokeswoman Cheryl Matthews said this week.

The program airs Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. It had ben scheduled to run earlier, but was delayed in the wake of the tsunami disaster in Asia late last year.

For more information, go to www.usgs.gov or discovery.com

Times like this I wish I still had cable.

PBS had a good documentary on Krakatoa that was on last week. Must be Volcano Year.

It looks OK. I really enjoyed their Pompeii docudrama.
If you found Krakatoa interesting, I highly recommend Krakatoa : The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester.

 

[NesuD]

Originally posted by: Harvey

Originally posted by: conjur
Yellowstone lies atop one of the world's largest volcanoes, a gooey mass of molten rock that has erupted roughly every 600,000 years. The last one was 640,000 years ago and was 8,000 times the size of the 1980 Mount Saint Helens eruption.

But... but... but... that doesn't agree with a biblical interpretation of the history of the world. Of course, we also know the Park Service now tends to forget about the millions of years it took to etch the Grand Canyon.

Guess them old bible writers forgot to run out to the back yard and wind up their sundials. :Q

Oh Harvey shame on you that was completely uncalled for.

Back on topic. Went to Yellowstone a couple of years ago and learned a lot i never knew about the geology of the area. It is absolutely fascinating. The Yellowstone volcano isn't a volcano in the classic sense either. There is no cone shaped mountain or anything like that with these types of volcanoes. Just a huge mass of magma building up under the earths crust over a very large area usually thousands of square miles until something gives then all hell breaks loose until the magma mass has spent itself and the Earths crust basically collapses in upon itself forming a huge Caldera 80x65 kilometers in Yellowstones case. Yellowstone caldera

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: NesuD

Originally posted by: Harvey

Originally posted by: conjur
Yellowstone lies atop one of the world's largest volcanoes, a gooey mass of molten rock that has erupted roughly every 600,000 years. The last one was 640,000 years ago and was 8,000 times the size of the 1980 Mount Saint Helens eruption.

But... but... but... that doesn't agree with a biblical interpretation of the history of the world. Of course, we also know the Park Service now tends to forget about the millions of years it took to etch the Grand Canyon.

Guess them old bible writers forgot to run out to the back yard and wind up their sundials. :Q

Oh Harvey shame on you that was completely uncalled for.

Back on topic. Went to Yellowstone a couple of years ago and learned a lot i never knew about the geology of the area. It is absolutely fascinating. The Yellowstone volcano isn't a volcano in the classic sense either. There is no cone shaped mountain or anything like that with these types of volcanoes. Just a huge mass of magma building up under the earths crust over a very large area usually thousands of square miles until something gives then all hell breaks loose until the magma mass has spent itself and the Earths crust basically collapses in upon itself forming a huge Caldera 80x65 kilometers in Yellowstones case. Yellowstone caldera

It's like one of those painful zits deep under your skin that you can't pop as opposed to a regular zit that comes to a head.

 

[CQuinn]

Originally posted by: conjur
Times like this I wish I still had cable.

PBS had a good documentary on Krakatoa that was on last week. Must be Volcano Year.

I've got my Tivo set already, if it comes out alright you can PM me an address to send a copy to.

The meteor/comet strike scenarios were played a couple of years ago, tornado specials come
in the late spring to early fall IIRC. They can't do tsunamis or terrorist attack specials right now,
because those are a little too fresh in memory. So volcanoes are a safe bet.

Speaking of bets, I wonder what the Vegas odds are on Yellowstone right now?

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: conjur
Well, I prefer keeping the Creationist rhetoric out of these threads. But, can you imagine the destructive power of 8,000 times Mt St. Helens? That's a lot of dust in the air and who knows how far-reaching the effects of the explosion.

It would pretty much immediately(over several days) wipe out every living thing from the coast of California to the gulf coast of Texas. The after effects would take out the rest of the US and North America. Eventually the global climate change would kill off most of the rest of the worlds population do to lack of food.

 

[NeoV]

digit, that may have been true from prior eruptions of this sort, but with today's technology to say it would kill most of the population isn't accurate...it would be ugly for a bit though!

There is another one of these 'super volcanoes' under what has been an area of intense geological activity of late - the tsunami ravaged island of Sumatra - and there has even been some speculation that the recent seismic activity may have some impact on the volcano, but who knows.....there are a handful of these things though, yellowstone isn't the only one.

 

[NTB]

This must be something different than what I was thinking...The National Geographic channel has run a show several times over the last few months that includes quite a bit about the volcano underlying Yellowstone.

Nate

 

[Insomniak]

I do have to say: When that volcano blows, it's gonna be really cool to watch.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
I do have to say: When that volcano blows, it's gonna be really cool to watch.

For all of the 12 seconds we'll be able to before the shockwave flattens everything across the land.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: Insomniak
I do have to say: When that volcano blows, it's gonna be really cool to watch.

For all of the 12 seconds we'll be able to before the shockwave flattens everything across the land.

Like I said, REALLY cool to watch.

 

[CQuinn]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
I do have to say: When that volcano blows, it's gonna be really cool to watch.

F R O M S P A A A A C E ! ! !

I'm already saving up for front row seats at the lunar observatory.

 

[raildogg]

I just watched the entire event/movie and have to say it was very good and very believable. This movie is somehwat like Armageddon or even Deep Impact, but more realistic and believable and less cheesy. Tom Brokaw did an awesome job narrating and hosting and there were many strong performances in the movie and pretty good special effects.

I'd have to say that another eruption is very likely at Yellowstone, but the question is when. The ground has swelled up over the years but that could mean many different things, such as magma flow. Yellowstone is fascinating and I'm looking forward to learning more about it.

 

[chrisms]

How can they say this would possibly end the world when it happened only 600,000 years ago.. humans seemed to have survived the last one.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: chrisms
How can they say this would possibly end the world when it happened only 600,000 years ago.. humans seemed to have survived the last one.

Or, did they? That's about the timeframe of the appearance of Homo heidelbergensis

 

[phonemonkey]

Bah! I missed it. Does anyone know when it'll be on again?

 

[alent1234]

Originally posted by: chrisms
How can they say this would possibly end the world when it happened only 600,000 years ago.. humans seemed to have survived the last one.

the one in Sumatra 74,000 years ago killed all humans except for a few thousand

imagine if 90% of all people died

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: phonemonkey
Bah! I missed it. Does anyone know when it'll be on again?

I'm sure they'll run it again after the season is over in 6 weeks.

It was fairly Scientific up until they had it erupt.

Then it was off on usual TV fiction tangent focusing on imaginary characters.

I didn't realize Yellowstone was a part of the "Ring of Fire" that circles the planet like the seam of a Baseball.

If that thing ever blows, it would be Dinosaur age all over again exceopt it would be humans struggling to stop from being extinct of course.

Also of course you have to believe in Science to begin with.

I'm sure the Republicans just look at all of this as hogwash.

 

[dphantom]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: phonemonkey
Bah! I missed it. Does anyone know when it'll be on again?

I'm sure they'll run it again after the season is over in 6 weeks.

It was fairly Scientific up until they had it erupt.

Then it was off on usual TV fiction tangent focusing on imaginary characters.

I didn't realize Yellowstone was a part of the "Ring of Fire" that circles the planet like the seam of a Baseball.

If that thing ever blows, it would be Dinosaur age all over again exceopt it would be humans struggling to stop from being extinct of course.

Also of course you have to believe in Science to begin with.

I'm sure the Republicans just look at all of this as hogwash.

Great program last night. Didn't realize the super volcano would be a series of smaller ones all at once. The Snake river valley graphic really highlighted how the North american plate has moved over this hotspot. Pretty cool. Some minor quibbles like the ring of fire thing.

Hey, I'm a Republican and I thought it was great. :thumbsup:

 

[DealMonkey]

Originally posted by: phonemonkey
Bah! I missed it. Does anyone know when it'll be on again?

It re-airs next Saturday, April 16 @ 8PM ET/PT. According to the DC site.