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A massive volcano that scientists can't find
- DuskStar 9y agoSpoilers: The volcano is unlikely to still be massive. Probably a good sized crater or two though. (Ice core evidence shows a pair of eruptions around the 1460s, likely the cause of major famines across the planet in following years. The locations of the eruptions are still unknown, though.)
- jsmthrowaway 9y agoImagine observing these events and trying to explain them with rudimentary scientific understanding. At the time, the best explanations for volcanoes involved wind causing friction in narrow canyons or subterranean rivers of fire, but nobody really knew. One can appreciate mythology more in this light, given the titanic scale of volcanic eruptions and an entire species agape in wonder. Cool stuff. Really drives home that we are guests of this planet.
- dredmorbius 9y agoThe study of the evolution of understanding of geology itself, particularly from the late 18th century, when things started hotting up, is pretty interesting. A lot of initial observations and attempts to reconcile those with the biblical record, but that didn't add up. Lyell establishing gradualism. Lord Kelvin noting that thermodynamic cooling only allowed for about 30 million years of Earth history (pretty clearly not consistent with the structural geological record). Rutherford, Soddy, and Hardy establishing radioactivity and radiodating. Plate tectonics being proposed (initially as "continental drift"), rejected as patently absurd, and adopted some 50 years later as the fundamental organising principle of geology. Added gloss from discoveries such as the Chixulub impactor, etc.
- thaumasiotes 9y agoSubterranean rivers of fire is pretty close to how we understand them today.
- Pitarou 9y agoRiver of fire comes out of the ground. Hmm. Where did it come from?
- 0003 9y agoPlate tectonics?
- strictfp 9y agoThere must be a real hellhole down there...
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agoThe concept of Hell, being inferred from volcanic eruptions, is not terribly unscientific.
- mrb 9y agoThey say it could have been caused by an asteroid, but don't explain why this theory is seemingly discarded. Edit: 2min of googling and I find a not very well know 20km impact crater dated at exactly the right time (mid 15th century): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahuika_crater https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahuika_crater
- Taniwha 9y agoYou'll notice that Wikipedia includes it in: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unconfirmed_impact_craters_on_Earth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unconfirmed_impact_c... it's existence/size/effects is controversial to say the least, TV shows about it show up on the History channel along with all the ancient aliens crap
- mirimir 9y agoI doubt that impacts would inject as much sulfate as was observed in the ice cores.
- Pitarou 9y ago> they estimated that Kuwae’s eruption had released vast quantities of magma, enough to fill the Empire State Building 37 million times over This is a unit of journalistic measurement I have never come across before.
- smoyer 9y agoEverybody knows that the empire state building is a unit of measure for length!
- ygra 9y agoApparently the volume of the ESB is about 1e6 m³. So that's about 37e12 m³ of magma. But yeah, using a weird unit of measurement no one even knows and using 37 million as a factor pretty much guarantees that no one can relate this to anything.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago> using a weird unit of measurement no one even knows and using 37 million as a factor pretty much guarantees that no one can relate this to anything Manhattan has a land area of 59.1 square kilometers [1]. 37e12 m³ of magma would fill the land area of Manhattan to over 600 kilometers, i.e. well past the boundary of space. Alternatively, it would fill California's 424,000 thousand square kilometers to 100 meters, or about halfway to the top of the Transamerica Pyramid [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transamerica_Pyramid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transamerica_Pyramid
- tinco 9y agoIs this really correct? You'd think with modern imaging it would be fairly easy to spot a 100m high magma formation the size of california. How does magma even flow with such volume, it sounds like it would create an island that everyone would know the name of.
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- agucho 9y agoMighty interesting, sure. Still, I can't stand these awe-driven narratives. The formula is getting old and in the jumping from one wow to the next a lot of the real questions and facts are left half-explained. And as somebody already pointed out, the units... football fields, Hiroshima bombs and the area of California... they should standardize those already, right? Journalists could use abbreviations and the rest of us would get to write unit converters when learning a new programming language.
- maxxxxx 9y agoThey should just write "really big".
- dTal 9y agoWell, you know the trouble with standards... https://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html https://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards-conv...
- mirimir 9y agoRight. I could probably rewrite it in about five sentences, plus footnotes ;)
- pokemongoaway 9y agoExactly! When future historians read back at writing from our time period - if it is still around - then how do you think they'll characterize it?
- agucho 9y agoha! Good question, I guess they'll say its magical realism with strong late-cuneiform influences, judging from what little is left from the devastating eruption from a vulcano no one ever found.
- quickthrower 9y agoWhat's the chance of this happening in my lifetime assume next 50yrs.