4 ms·

Scientists see deeper Yellowstone magma

43 points by interconnector 11y ago

lifeisstillgood 11y ago
Awesome - do watch the videos linked at the bottom of the article - and realise that the whole state is just a portion of the vast chamber underneath. What with Hubble photos and this, I am rediscovering humanity's very small place in the world :-)
- cossatot 11y ago
  Yay for geologic perspectives on humanity! The lack of anthropocentrism in geologic study can be pretty refreshing. A possibly-related, even more brain melting (to me) event is the Columbia River flood basalts[1]. The erupted material is ~5x greater than the current hot rock in the Yellowstone chamber, so ~50x more than the current amount of melt. What amazes me, in addition to the enormous volume of the eruptions, is that some of the flows traveled hundreds of kilometers, in sheet-like flows, above 1000°C. Unlike the current Yellowstone magmatic system which generally has explosive eruptions, these basaltic flows were much hotter and more fluid--imagine an enormous river of lava flowing at ~10 mph. To do some super back of the envelope calculations, the wikipedia source mentions an average volume of 500 km^3, and that some of the flows were erupted in a week (it has to be a relatively quick, high-volume thing to flow that far without cooling below 1000°C). This is about 4 times the average flow of the Amazon[2]. Of molten f-ing rock pouring out of a crack in the earth. "Well honey, I guess we're not driving to that Seahawks game." The CRBs are mostly Miocene, ~15 million years ago, but similar volcanism has covered southern Idaho, and it's younger. The youngest flows are at (IIRC) Craters of the Moon and Hell's Half Acre parks, and are ~2000 years old, but they're basically burps well after the main event. Basically any geologic event that happened 2000 years ago could happen again tomorrow; I really really hope that we get a chance to observe some (minor) flood basalt volcanism. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Basalt_Group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Basalt_Group [2]: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=500+km^3+per+week+to+cubic+feet+per+second https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=500+km^3+per+week+to+c...
  - msane 11y ago
    This kind of stuff scares the bejesus out of me.
  - emmelaich 11y ago
    Here's another impressive basalt flood... How about 2km thick, 500,000 sq km in area? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps
  - lifeisstillgood 11y ago
    Just to clarify - the U.S. Suffered (major) volcanic lava flows in the Plains area at the time of Christ. So has that been factored into things like the development of human civilisation in the U.S. (Ie Mexican farming started a little after that - did we lose a civilisation or a chance of one then?)

Awesome - do watch the videos linked at the bottom of the article - and realise that the whole state is just a portion of the vast chamber underneath. What with Hubble photos and this, I am rediscovering humanity's very small place in the world :-)

cossatot 11y ago
Yay for geologic perspectives on humanity! The lack of anthropocentrism in geologic study can be pretty refreshing. A possibly-related, even more brain melting (to me) event is the Columbia River flood basalts[1]. The erupted material is ~5x greater than the current hot rock in the Yellowstone chamber, so ~50x more than the current amount of melt. What amazes me, in addition to the enormous volume of the eruptions, is that some of the flows traveled hundreds of kilometers, in sheet-like flows, above 1000°C. Unlike the current Yellowstone magmatic system which generally has explosive eruptions, these basaltic flows were much hotter and more fluid--imagine an enormous river of lava flowing at ~10 mph. To do some super back of the envelope calculations, the wikipedia source mentions an average volume of 500 km^3, and that some of the flows were erupted in a week (it has to be a relatively quick, high-volume thing to flow that far without cooling below 1000°C). This is about 4 times the average flow of the Amazon[2]. Of molten f-ing rock pouring out of a crack in the earth. "Well honey, I guess we're not driving to that Seahawks game." The CRBs are mostly Miocene, ~15 million years ago, but similar volcanism has covered southern Idaho, and it's younger. The youngest flows are at (IIRC) Craters of the Moon and Hell's Half Acre parks, and are ~2000 years old, but they're basically burps well after the main event. Basically any geologic event that happened 2000 years ago could happen again tomorrow; I really really hope that we get a chance to observe some (minor) flood basalt volcanism. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Basalt_Group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Basalt_Group [2]: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=500+km^3+per+week+to+cubic+feet+per+second https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=500+km^3+per+week+to+c...
- msane 11y ago
  This kind of stuff scares the bejesus out of me.
- emmelaich 11y ago
  Here's another impressive basalt flood... How about 2km thick, 500,000 sq km in area? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps
- lifeisstillgood 11y ago
  Just to clarify - the U.S. Suffered (major) volcanic lava flows in the Plains area at the time of Christ. So has that been factored into things like the development of human civilisation in the U.S. (Ie Mexican farming started a little after that - did we lose a civilisation or a chance of one then?)