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For western US trained geoscientists, the Bishop Tuff [1] (from the ~750,000 years ago eruption of the Long Valley Caldera, near Mammoth Mtn. in California) is

For western US trained geoscientists, the Bishop Tuff [1] (from the ~750,000 years ago eruption of the Long Valley Caldera, near Mammoth Mtn. in California) is a "modern" comparable ashfall deposit. This was quite a bit larger (edited to add: I meant in areal extent, not necc. volume erupted). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Tuff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Tuff

dheera 5y ago
- riffic 5y ago
  you could make your point without being derisive and ableist, especially considering the people involved have credentials and are trained in their fields.
  - dheera 5y ago
    But it creates "engagement" which is rewarded these days apparently. Also, I thought the trained people should have learned a thing or two from Pompei not to build near volcanoes. I'll cut some slack for the people who designed Pompei, they didn't know, but everyone after that should have learned.
    - cyberlurker 5y ago
      Pompeii was a Pyroclastic flow not lava.
      - dheera 5y ago
        OK, I meant more like "dangerous hot shit that wipes out everything in its path" in a general sense. If someone gave me a contract to build something in modern-day Herculaneum I would say no. I think it's irresponsible to build there. In terms of lives lost it's tantamount to knowingly shipping a hundred 777s with loose screws that cause them to crash. The number of downvotes on this thread is also exactly why we have disasters with volcanic eruptions. This is like the geological equivalent of a bunch of antivaxxers.
    - mattmoose21 5y ago
      What are the chances that the volcano erupts with a train on/near that portion of track? How often would you likely have to fix it? How much does it cost to go around? I am sure these questions are being asked and the risks being weighed. They may not be right and you might not agree with them but unless they did this without any forethought I would not call them dumb. Also you are comparing them to Pompei even though this is a train track not a city.
      - dheera 5y ago
        It would disrupt critical supply chains. That train line is part of a key freight artery between Seattle, Portland, SF, LA, and SD. Railroads and highways also invite towns and cities to be built around them, so if you want to be responsible toward future generations of human lives, you should direct those major arteries through less geologically-active regions. Hugging an active volcano never was a good idea in history and it still isn't.
  - pyrophane 5y ago
    I'm assuming you meant to write ableist, in which case, how is the above comment ableist?
    - czzr 5y ago
      I had to read it several times to get it, but I think they’re referring to “dumb” which could also refer to people who can’t speak. The funny thing about this is that I simply read “dumb” as “stupid” and didn’t make any connection to being mute - but thanks to the earlier comment I’ve now made the association. So, well done policing the discourse, I guess?
    - user982 5y ago
      It's offensive to idiots.
    - riffic 5y ago
      edited, thank you. To answer your question, adjectives related to intelligence are ableist in origin. I don't think this needs to be explained and it's not my job to educate you or anyone else on this forum.
      - stavros 5y ago
        There should be a word for the driveby condemnation (ooh we could call it that) that is "what you said is unethical but it's not my job to tell you how". I doubt driveby condemnation will convince many people.
        riffic 5y ago
        I mean, that's a fair point. I just feel this sort of dialogue is disrespectful to the engineers who actually build the stuff the grandparent commenter is complaining about. moot since the comment itself is dead/flagged but if you're calling people idiots, show me your credentials.
        stavros 5y ago
  - ajkjk 5y ago
    Hmm, the problem with the parent is that it's derisive and also just wrong, not that it is 'ableist'.
- vkou 5y ago
  > I mean, how fucking dumb do you need to be to look at a lava flow and cut a road or train track through it? Do they not realize that lava means "run"? Build infrastructure elsewhere. Right, and nobody should build cities on rivers or coasts, because rivers flood[1] and coasts get hurricanes that cause floods, nobody should build anything in valleys[1], because they flood, nobody should ever build anything in mountains, because they get avalanches and mudslides[1], nobody should build anything on the Ring of Fire, because earthquakes, and the midwest should be uninhabited because tornadoes. If someone built a two-lane road that cuts through an old lava flow, maybe those people aren't the idiots. Maybe they've done the math, and determined that the cost of going around it is going to be greater than the risk of eruption * cost of dealing with the consequences. [1] Stupid Canadians[2], building a highway through a valley, and some mountains. If only someone with some common sense would have come in and told them that this was a bad idea! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2021_Pacific_Northwest_floods#British_Columbia_Interior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2021_Pacific_Northwes... [2] Now they don't have a highway! https://www.nanaimobulletin.com/news/aerial-video-of-coquihalla-shows-highway-destruction-collapse-near-hope/ https://www.nanaimobulletin.com/news/aerial-video-of-coquiha...
  - dheera 5y ago
    > Right, and nobody should build cities on rivers or coasts, Many ancient civilizations knew not to build on coasts. Beijing, Xi'an, Cairo, Rome, Paris, Mexico City, Madrid, London, Moscow, Kyoto, most of these cities of critical governmental and strategic importance were not built on coasts for very good reasons. And then you have some modern hipsters after the 17th century who decided not to take a history lesson and started to build NYC, Shanghai, LA, Tokyo, Shenzhen, Singapore, Washington DC, and other cities on the coasts. Note that none of these cities have much history to them, for a reason. Not a good plan. Humans are pretty dumb.
    - Jtsummers 5y ago
      Ancient civilizations did build on coasts, you're cherry picking a handful of cities that weren't, but most (if not all, going off memory) of the cities you listed were built along rivers. Building on the coast gave (and gives) access to trade and fishing which are of great utility to most societies. Besides, avoiding the coast itself doesn't do you much good. Earthquakes, volcanoes, flooding (from rivers or rain), drought, fire, tornadoes can hit in many different areas even away from the coast. Hell, hurricanes can go pretty far inland and do quite a bit of damage (more from the flooding than the winds, but also the winds, at that point). You'd be hard pressed to find a totally safe place on this planet that could support the entire human population. You'll still need the hazardous areas for agricultural and mining purposes if nothing else, and unless people can handle a 1000 mile commute, you'll end up with communities and cities growing in those places.
- irrational 5y ago
  I don’t understand. Literally all of Hawaii is built on top of lava flows. Are Hawaiians dumb idiots for building roads and other infrastructure on top of lava flows?
  - dheera 5y ago
    At least they're smart for putting most of their population on the inactive islands like Oahu.
- dave5104 5y ago
  > And then you have idiots that build train tracks and highways right through lava I was disappointed to see no active lava flows in your linked image. What you show is simply a road and train tracks built on top of rocks.
  - dheera 5y ago
    Lava will likely flow there again the next time Shasta erupts.
    - renewiltord 5y ago
      True, but we were dumb enough to build a civilization on this planet and lava will flow everywhere the next time we have something like what caused the K-T event so I suppose it runs in the family.
    - dave5104 5y ago
      Its eruption history is on the order of once every hundreds of years. By the time its next eruption comes around, it's very possible that infrastructure will be long gone for other reasons. In most cases, infrastructure existence and placement is barely a blip on geologic time.
- scythe 5y ago
  This reasoning cannot lead to a practical policy directive. Volcanoes often lay dormant for thousands of years and their eruptions can deny huge amounts of land, which is not a reasonable tradeoff compared to "just rebuilding the railroad every 5000 years", since its service life is probably shorter than that anyway.
  - dheera 5y ago
    Maybe, but building a railroad invites towns and cities to be built around it.
    - scythe 5y ago
      Only if you build a stop there.
glup 5y ago
I was vacationing in Mammoth one time and started reading about the geology... quite a shock to find that basically everything to the east is a giant caldera [1]. Also 760,000 years ago is really quite recent on geologic time scales. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Valley_Caldera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Valley_Caldera
- pitaj 5y ago
  That's about the same size as the Henry's Fork Caldera [0] which is within the much larger Island Park Caldera [1], both produced by the Yellowstone hot spot. The Island Park Caldera is one of the largest in the world. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry%27s_Fork_Caldera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry%27s_Fork_Caldera [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Park_Caldera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Park_Caldera

dheera 5y ago

riffic 5y ago
you could make your point without being derisive and ableist, especially considering the people involved have credentials and are trained in their fields.
- dheera 5y ago
  But it creates "engagement" which is rewarded these days apparently. Also, I thought the trained people should have learned a thing or two from Pompei not to build near volcanoes. I'll cut some slack for the people who designed Pompei, they didn't know, but everyone after that should have learned.
  - cyberlurker 5y ago
    Pompeii was a Pyroclastic flow not lava.
    - dheera 5y ago
      OK, I meant more like "dangerous hot shit that wipes out everything in its path" in a general sense. If someone gave me a contract to build something in modern-day Herculaneum I would say no. I think it's irresponsible to build there. In terms of lives lost it's tantamount to knowingly shipping a hundred 777s with loose screws that cause them to crash. The number of downvotes on this thread is also exactly why we have disasters with volcanic eruptions. This is like the geological equivalent of a bunch of antivaxxers.
  - mattmoose21 5y ago
    What are the chances that the volcano erupts with a train on/near that portion of track? How often would you likely have to fix it? How much does it cost to go around? I am sure these questions are being asked and the risks being weighed. They may not be right and you might not agree with them but unless they did this without any forethought I would not call them dumb. Also you are comparing them to Pompei even though this is a train track not a city.
    - dheera 5y ago
      It would disrupt critical supply chains. That train line is part of a key freight artery between Seattle, Portland, SF, LA, and SD. Railroads and highways also invite towns and cities to be built around them, so if you want to be responsible toward future generations of human lives, you should direct those major arteries through less geologically-active regions. Hugging an active volcano never was a good idea in history and it still isn't.
- pyrophane 5y ago
  I'm assuming you meant to write ableist, in which case, how is the above comment ableist?
  - czzr 5y ago
    I had to read it several times to get it, but I think they’re referring to “dumb” which could also refer to people who can’t speak. The funny thing about this is that I simply read “dumb” as “stupid” and didn’t make any connection to being mute - but thanks to the earlier comment I’ve now made the association. So, well done policing the discourse, I guess?
  - user982 5y ago
    It's offensive to idiots.
  - riffic 5y ago
    edited, thank you. To answer your question, adjectives related to intelligence are ableist in origin. I don't think this needs to be explained and it's not my job to educate you or anyone else on this forum.
    - stavros 5y ago
      There should be a word for the driveby condemnation (ooh we could call it that) that is "what you said is unethical but it's not my job to tell you how". I doubt driveby condemnation will convince many people.
      - riffic 5y ago
        I mean, that's a fair point. I just feel this sort of dialogue is disrespectful to the engineers who actually build the stuff the grandparent commenter is complaining about. moot since the comment itself is dead/flagged but if you're calling people idiots, show me your credentials.
        stavros 5y ago
- ajkjk 5y ago
  Hmm, the problem with the parent is that it's derisive and also just wrong, not that it is 'ableist'.
vkou 5y ago
> I mean, how fucking dumb do you need to be to look at a lava flow and cut a road or train track through it? Do they not realize that lava means "run"? Build infrastructure elsewhere. Right, and nobody should build cities on rivers or coasts, because rivers flood[1] and coasts get hurricanes that cause floods, nobody should build anything in valleys[1], because they flood, nobody should ever build anything in mountains, because they get avalanches and mudslides[1], nobody should build anything on the Ring of Fire, because earthquakes, and the midwest should be uninhabited because tornadoes. If someone built a two-lane road that cuts through an old lava flow, maybe those people aren't the idiots. Maybe they've done the math, and determined that the cost of going around it is going to be greater than the risk of eruption * cost of dealing with the consequences. [1] Stupid Canadians[2], building a highway through a valley, and some mountains. If only someone with some common sense would have come in and told them that this was a bad idea! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2021_Pacific_Northwest_floods#British_Columbia_Interior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2021_Pacific_Northwes... [2] Now they don't have a highway! https://www.nanaimobulletin.com/news/aerial-video-of-coquihalla-shows-highway-destruction-collapse-near-hope/ https://www.nanaimobulletin.com/news/aerial-video-of-coquiha...
- dheera 5y ago
  > Right, and nobody should build cities on rivers or coasts, Many ancient civilizations knew not to build on coasts. Beijing, Xi'an, Cairo, Rome, Paris, Mexico City, Madrid, London, Moscow, Kyoto, most of these cities of critical governmental and strategic importance were not built on coasts for very good reasons. And then you have some modern hipsters after the 17th century who decided not to take a history lesson and started to build NYC, Shanghai, LA, Tokyo, Shenzhen, Singapore, Washington DC, and other cities on the coasts. Note that none of these cities have much history to them, for a reason. Not a good plan. Humans are pretty dumb.
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    Ancient civilizations did build on coasts, you're cherry picking a handful of cities that weren't, but most (if not all, going off memory) of the cities you listed were built along rivers. Building on the coast gave (and gives) access to trade and fishing which are of great utility to most societies. Besides, avoiding the coast itself doesn't do you much good. Earthquakes, volcanoes, flooding (from rivers or rain), drought, fire, tornadoes can hit in many different areas even away from the coast. Hell, hurricanes can go pretty far inland and do quite a bit of damage (more from the flooding than the winds, but also the winds, at that point). You'd be hard pressed to find a totally safe place on this planet that could support the entire human population. You'll still need the hazardous areas for agricultural and mining purposes if nothing else, and unless people can handle a 1000 mile commute, you'll end up with communities and cities growing in those places.
irrational 5y ago
I don’t understand. Literally all of Hawaii is built on top of lava flows. Are Hawaiians dumb idiots for building roads and other infrastructure on top of lava flows?
- dheera 5y ago
  At least they're smart for putting most of their population on the inactive islands like Oahu.
dave5104 5y ago
> And then you have idiots that build train tracks and highways right through lava I was disappointed to see no active lava flows in your linked image. What you show is simply a road and train tracks built on top of rocks.
- dheera 5y ago
  Lava will likely flow there again the next time Shasta erupts.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    True, but we were dumb enough to build a civilization on this planet and lava will flow everywhere the next time we have something like what caused the K-T event so I suppose it runs in the family.
  - dave5104 5y ago
    Its eruption history is on the order of once every hundreds of years. By the time its next eruption comes around, it's very possible that infrastructure will be long gone for other reasons. In most cases, infrastructure existence and placement is barely a blip on geologic time.
scythe 5y ago
This reasoning cannot lead to a practical policy directive. Volcanoes often lay dormant for thousands of years and their eruptions can deny huge amounts of land, which is not a reasonable tradeoff compared to "just rebuilding the railroad every 5000 years", since its service life is probably shorter than that anyway.
- dheera 5y ago
  Maybe, but building a railroad invites towns and cities to be built around it.
  - scythe 5y ago
    Only if you build a stop there.

glup 5y ago

I was vacationing in Mammoth one time and started reading about the geology... quite a shock to find that basically everything to the east is a giant caldera [1]. Also 760,000 years ago is really quite recent on geologic time scales. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Valley_Caldera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Valley_Caldera

pitaj 5y ago
That's about the same size as the Henry's Fork Caldera [0] which is within the much larger Island Park Caldera [1], both produced by the Yellowstone hot spot. The Island Park Caldera is one of the largest in the world. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry%27s_Fork_Caldera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry%27s_Fork_Caldera [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Park_Caldera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Park_Caldera