
A Surprise from the Supervolcano Under Yellowstone - mudil
https://nytimes.com/2017/10/10/science/yellowstone-volcano-eruption.html
======
njarboe
Caldera collapse volcanic eruptions the size of Yellowstone occurr at random
intervals, not periodically every 100,000 years, as the article states. The
last big one was the Toba eruption in Indonesia about 72,000 years ago. That
one almost killed off the human race.

The Long Valley Caldera in California became more active in the 1970's. If
this study's conclusions hold up under investigation and it only takes a few
decades of activity before a "supervolcano" can erupt, we should monitor these
caldera a bit more closely.

~~~
Bartweiss
Wait, surely it's not entirely random? I thought we were talking about a
process like earthquakes, where the actual event is unpredictable but the
underlying causes add 'pressure' and gradually raise the odds.

Obviously that's predictability within a single supervolcano, not worldwide,
but I'd love clarification if I've got that wrong.

~~~
knownothing
The key point is:

> Caldera collapse volcanic eruptions the size of Yellowstone occurr at random
> intervals

Which I take to mean that there isn't enough data about exceptional events
like this to reliably predict their timing.

------
mikeytown2
Summary: super volcanoes can go from dormant to erupting in a human lifetime;
previous estimates were it took much longer.

~~~
rbanffy
So, we need to be able to successfully establish a self-sufficient off-world
colony in less than a human lifetime after we detect the events that precede a
super-eruption. ;-)

Outlook not so good.

~~~
baldfat
I see a new movie is about to be made.

There are already engineering plans to relieve the eruption. NASA has
commented that a Super Volcano are a bigger threat than asteroids.

> But if more of the heat could be extracted, then the supervolcano would
> never erupt. Nasa estimates that if a 35% increase in heat transfer could be
> achieved from its magma chamber, Yellowstone would no longer pose a threat.
> The only question is how?

[http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170817-nasas-ambitious-
pla...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170817-nasas-ambitious-plan-to-save-
earth-from-a-supervolcano)

~~~
nine_k
So, some drilling and pumping water through the drilled area would help?
Putting a power plant on top would be an almost-free bonus.

~~~
Harvey-Specter
Yeah, that's NASA's suggestion in the article.

------
ChuckMcM
Even a "small" eruption of a super volcano will change the climate
significantly for decades. This helps motivates Elon Musk's desire to be a
multi-planetary species.

It is also why I advocate additional investment in engineering solutions to
surviving climate change rather than focusing entirely on CO2 mitigation. We
cannot prevent a super volcano from erupting.

One of the more interesting conjectures I've heard about climate change was
the relationship of sea level to magma mobility. A paper looking at the effect
of the Mediterranean ocean drying out and its impact on volcanic activity[1]
describes a fairly local connection.

Such a mechanism could be used to explain a systemic recovery response of the
planet from periods of high average temperature. Specifically the planet has
gone through periods where it has been really warm and then really cold (ice
ages) and back again to warm.

[1]
[http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v10/n10/full/ngeo3032.htm...](http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v10/n10/full/ngeo3032.html)

~~~
microtherion
> Even a "small" eruption of a super volcano will change the climate
> significantly for decades. This helps motivates Elon Musk's desire to be a
> multi-planetary species.

But even the biggest conceivable eruption will leave Earth infinitely more
habitable than any other known celestial body.

~~~
Houshalter
Exactly. It would be far far easier to build self sufficient colonies in
Antarctica, or under the ocean, or even remote deserts. We don't even have the
technology to do that yet. They couldn't even get the biosphere to work.

------
ballenf
Would life on earth exist if none of these super volcanoes had ever erupted?

That is, are the massive cooling effects and resulting changes to the
environment required to balance natural warming?

Has anyone studied or attempted to model an earth without super volcanic
events?

~~~
antisthenes
If the greenhouse effect did not exist, the average temperature of Earth would
be -18C

So it's more correct to say that without the greenhouse effect, life would
never exist on Earth, because plant life most certainly wouldn't develop in
-18C and saturate the planet with oxygen.

~~~
ballenf
Can there not be more than one parallel requisite for life to exist?

Like the presence of the moon, distance from the sun, etc.

------
KGIII
> There, they hauled rocks under the heat of the sun to gather samples,
> occasionally suspending their work when a bison or a bear roamed nearby.

NYT is a horrible source for science news. Why were they hauling rocks and
what did they do with their hauled rocks? I like bears and bison, but that
doesn't seem important.

Another article, slightly more sensationalist but worth checking out, in my
opinion:

[http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-
news/651406/yellowston...](http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-
news/651406/yellowstone-supervolcano-eruption-super-volcano-nasa-drilling-
plan)

~~~
cokernel
Maybe I'm missing something, but the NYT article says they were hauling rocks
"to gather samples" (of "fossilized ash deposit" for analysis). The next
paragraph explains that they were looking for crystals in the samples because
that can help give a timeline for relevant changes in the crystal's
environment:

> Ms. Shamloo later analyzed trace crystals in the volcanic leftovers,
> allowing her to pin down changes before the supervolcano’s eruption. Each
> crystal once resided within the vast, seething ocean of magma deep
> underground. As the crystals grew outward, layer upon layer, they recorded
> changes in temperature, pressure and water content beneath the volcano, much
> like a set of tree rings.

It's true that this is not sufficient information to allow readers to
replicate the analysis at home, but it seems like a good level of introductory
detail so people can decide whether they want to follow the link in the NYT
article to the volcanology conference.

~~~
KGIII
Hauling rocks doesn't really impart a whole lot of information. If they are
going to include a bit about hauling rocks, maybe tell us about it - instead
of pretending it's a novel with bison and bears. You know, science journalism.

NYT is a lousy source for science journalism. How about what kind of rock? How
about why they were moving rock (heavy?) instead of just taking small samples?
Bison, bears, and the hot sun are prose for op-eds and novels, not an article
about geology.

Heck, they could have skipped that whole sentence and it'd have been fine. I'm
not outraged, it's just lousy science journalism that is an example of their
continued low-quality reporting. It's just one more strike against them, so I
figured I'd mention it and offer readers a second article - which wasn't much
better but you can combine the two and almost have something worth reading.

~~~
slfnflctd
I totally understand your point and agree, but these days I'm just glad to get
through any article, anywhere, without glaring spelling, grammar and word
usage errors.

If a science article in a major newspaper mentions actual methods used in a
new line of inquiry at all, I consider it above average.

~~~
KGIII
I'm retired but I am a scientist. I am technically a mathematician, but I
still apply the method and use the philosophy of science in many areas of my
life.

I say that because I think it gives some color to my next comment.

I have some very, very strong opinions about science journalism and the
changes I've seen in the past thirty years. However, I fear my attempt to
express those opinions would be sufficiently off-topic and incomplete, as my
complaints are many, varied, and long.

There is still good science journalism, it exists. It just isn't all that
popular. It is quite possible to have good science journalism that appeals
even to moderately educated people. I know this to be true because I have seen
it.

I often lament the death of the ideal which is that of the citizen scientist.
It is through gritted teeth that I submit the ideal has been suplanted by
citizen journalist. That is wonderful, at least in theory. However, it seems
that it has resulted in fewer people paying for quality journalism and it also
seems likely that this is a primary cause for the reduction in quality.

It doesn't help that the evening news now competes with reality television. In
a world where deep thoughts are limited to 140 characters, sensationalism has
prospered at the cost of depth.

I ain't even started... I can rant for hours about the state of scientific
journalism, or journalism in general. The lack of quality editing only
compounds it.

The effect this has had on education and scientific literacy is troubling. We
have a populace that can more readily recognize a Kareashian than they can an
equation. It isn't limited to one age group, side of the political spectrum,
or the population densities of their respective communities. No, no it is
not...

However, I suspect that my rant would just be preaching to the choir. I
strongly suspect we are in full agreement.

I don't suppose you have a solution?

This is actually edited for brevity. I removed several paragraphs. They
digressed too much, even for me.

------
jackgavigan
Am I the only one irritated by the writer's use of "millenniums"?

~~~
rojondo
Why irritated? It's one of two correct plural forms of "millenium."

[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/millennium](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/millennium)

~~~
dkarl
That's literally[1] the worst argument ever.

[1] [https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/literally](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/literally)

~~~
dkarl
All right, to spell it out: Merriam-Webster is not a dictionary of "correct"
forms. The usage of "literally" in my post is documented in Merriam-Webster as
"used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is
not literally true or possible." It would be inappropriate to use "literally"
in that way in a science article in the New York Times, because the standards
for writing in the New York Times are different from the standards for
inclusion in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

------
fowkswe
Has anyone heard of a study of how fracking and horizontal oil drilling in the
states surrounding Colorado are affecting the caldera? I would imagine all of
the seismic activity they cause would have an impact.

------
figgis
Say if the massive amounts of magma actually required to trigger these
explosions were injected tonight what would the response be? Would we at least
know this is happening?

~~~
mikeytown2
Lots of smaller earthquakes is what to look for.

~~~
jschwartzi
What about local changes in elevation? If there's a ton of new material in the
crust would we observe deformation in the caldera?

~~~
compiler-guy
Yes. In fact, scientists track the Yellowstone caldera's altitude and watch it
"breathe", so to speak.

[https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/caldera-
rises](https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/caldera-rises)

------
Romanulus
At first I thought, "Oh lord, this is going to be a terrifying surprise and/or
new and horrific way to die, melt, and explode (not in that order)."

Colour me surprised!

~~~
rbanffy
The volcanic winter is not much better.

------
pavel_lishin
I picked the worst time to have a child.

Then again, I think you could reasonably say that at any point in the past
hundred years or so, at least if you were living in America.

~~~
amha
Would you rather have had a child in the 19th century, when job options for
your potential child would have been limited to a) difficult farm labor, with
long days, low pay, and poor working conditions, or b) difficult factory
labor, with long days, low pay, and poor working conditions?

~~~
pavel_lishin
I wouldn't. But the problems of those times seemed to be on a much more human
scale. Cholera might get her, or she might die in a mine, or be murdered by a
nobleman in a drunken rage. Some of those things I can work to protect her
against.

But a supervolcano is an inhuman threat. So is war, regular, nuclear or civil.
So is climate change, if we're too late to stop its progress.

~~~
bzbarsky
Right now is probably the safest time in human history wrt to dying in a war,
on average. At least if you look at actual deaths, not potential ones from a
nuclear war. Putting numbers to that last is difficult. If we assume the war
is not between major powers with large numbers of nuclear weapons (i.e. assume
North Korea, not Russia), then the potential death toll is in the millions to
tens of millions and the probability is likely in the single digits at most, I
would guess... But I welcome sources on good estimates for this.

On the other hand, in the 19th century diseases _would_ get about 1/4 to 1/2
(depending on what country you were in) of your kids before they turned 5.
Check out
[http://www.gapminder.org/tools/#_state_time_value=1800;&mark...](http://www.gapminder.org/tools/#_state_time_value=1800;&marker_axis/_x_which=time&domainMin:null&domainMax:null&zoomedMin:null&zoomedMax:null&scaleType=time;&axis/_y_which=child/_mortality/_0/_5/_year/_olds/_dying/_per/_1000/_born&domainMin:null&domainMax:null&zoomedMin:null&zoomedMax:null&scaleType=log;;;&chart-
type=bubbles) for example. And diseases were, at the time, very much an
inhuman threat that you couldn't protect against; people didn't even have a
very clear understanding of why they happened, much less what to do about it
until the _end_ of the 19th century.

Dying in a mine or being murdered by noblemen isn't even a blip compared to
dying of good old cholera, measles, typhus, etc, etc.

------
quotemstr
Is anyone else tired of this style of headline? I know HN prefers the original
headline, but when the original headline is clickbait-y, wouldn't it be better
to change the HN headline to something that encapsulates the main idea of the
link?

Now that my whining is out of the way: if we had a decade of warning, I'd hope
that we'd be able to figure out some engineering technique for dissipating the
magma chamber heat before a catastrophic eruption.

~~~
BjoernKW
> figure out some engineering technique for dissipating the magma chamber
> heat.

There have been several proposals, some of which even allow for using the heat
for generating electricity.

IIRC the problem with these approaches is that they take a few hundred years
to be completed because you can’t simply drill the magma chamber but rather
have to advance very slowly and carefully.

A few hundred years unfortunately seems to be too large a timeframe for
politics to pursue this huge undertaking in earnest.

~~~
rbanffy
There is an enormous amount of heat stored in there and the amount to be
extracted to make any significant difference is probably more than the entire
planetary demand. The good news is that we don't need to drill to the magma
chamber unless we want to also dig a lava channel to the nearest ocean (2300km
if you don't feel like digging through mountains, or about 1000km to Oregon's
coast if you are into digging), but just somewhere near that's hot enough to
boil water at some pressure.

I don't see much support for doing it in a preservation area, however.

In CA, the heat could be used to power sea-water desalination, if someone is
willing to build the large 270km long pipe.

~~~
akeck
Or a superconducting power line to the coast.

~~~
rbanffy
You'd need to convert heat into electricity for that. Not sure how efficient
modern plants are, but if you pump sea water into the well to get steam, you
can process the steam for desalination after it turns the turbines.

You'll need the pipes to send the salt water back into the ocean.

