A Deep Surge of Magma Shakes Yellowstone, Lifts Ground 10 Inches

More: Brian Wang at NextBigFuture has more information and some reassurances

Yellowstone National Park sits atop a subterranean chamber of molten rock and gasses so vast that the region, known for its geysers and grizzlies, is arguably one of the largest active volcanoes in the world.

Granted, it's not your typical volcano, either in scale (it's huge), appearance (it's a vast depression, not a single mountain) or frequency of eruption (at least hundreds of thousands of years apart).

But it is active, and the evidence is everywhere. _Discovery

One of the world's great supervolcanoes sits and waits beneath Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. It has erupted before and it will erupt again, someday. Recent quaking of the ground in Yellowstone, combined with ground surges as high as 10 inches, have caused some geologists to wonder if the clock may be ticking down to another big blow.

"Clearly some deep source of magma feeds Yellowstone, and since Yellowstone has erupted in the recent geological past, we know that there is magma at shallower depths too," said Dan Dzurisin, a Yellowstone expert with the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory in Washington State.

"There has to be magma in the crust, or we wouldn't have all the hydrothermal activity that we have," Dzurisin added. "There is so much heat coming out of Yellowstone right now that if it wasn't being reheated by magma, the whole system would have gone stone cold since the time of the last eruption 70,000 years ago."

The large hydrothermal system just below Yellowstone's surface, which produces many of the park's top tourist attractions, may also play a role in ground swelling, Dzurisin said, though no one is sure to what extent.

..."Big quakes [can have] a relationship to uplift and deformations caused by the intrusion of magma," he said. "How those intrusions stress the adjacent faults, or how the faults might transmit stress to the magma system, is a really important new area of study."

Overall, USGS's Dzurisin added, "the story of Yellowstone deformation has gotten more complex as we've had better and better technologies to study it." _NatGeo

It is not easy to predict a volcanic eruption. Supervolcanoes may be even more difficult to predict -- no one knows. It will take time to acquire enough experience with the immense geological processes taking place beneath our feet. The video below provides a sobering look at the aftermath of a Yellowstone super-eruption.

Sudden Death from Below: Undersea Super-Volcanoes

Located 1,500 km east of Japan, Shatsky Rise is as big as California. This underwater chain represents one of the largest supervolcanoes in the world: the top of Shatsky Rise lies three-and-a-half kilometres below the sea surface, while its base plunges to nearly six kilometres below the surface.

...‘About a dozen supervolcanoes exist on earth – some are found on land, while others lie at the bottom of the ocean. Those found on the seafloor are often referred to as ‘large oceanic plateaus,’ Sager adds. _CoalGeology

Supervolcanoes are nothing to sneeze at. Whether sitting in a continent -- such as the Yellowstone supervolcanoe -- or underwater, these massive dynamic geologic structures can radically restructure the shape of the geological and biological landscape.

The great Toba eruption 73,000 years ago on Sumatra deforested central India --3,000 miles away -- and almost drove pre-historic humans to extinction. Supervolcanoes are a very real hazard to large areas of the planet. It is quite possible for billions of humans to die in the global aftermath of a massive supervolcanic eruption -- which could go on for hundreds of years or longer.

Roughly a dozen supervolcanoes currently exist. Some are on land, while others lie at the bottom of the ocean. Each has produced several million cubic miles of lava — about three hundred times the volume of all the Great Lakes combined — dwarfing the amount of lava produced by the Hawaiian volcanoes or the Icelandic volcano that erupted recently.

These eruptions have dramatically shaped life on Earth, pumping huge amounts of ash, dust and gas into the atmosphere that have killed off species and altered global climate. Despite their global impact, the cause of the massive eruptions from supervolcanoes at times remains unknown. _LiveScience

“Supervolcanoes” have been blamed for multiple mass extinctions in Earth’s history, but the cause of their massive eruptions is unknown.

Despite their global impact, the eruptions’ origin and triggering mechanisms have remained unexplained. New data obtained during a recent Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) expedition in the Pacific Ocean may provide clues to unlocking this mystery.

To explore the origins of these seafloor giants, scientists drilled into a large, 145 million-year-old underwater volcanic mountain chain off the coast of Japan.

...“Seafloor supervolcanoes are characterized by the eruption of enormous volumes of lava,” says William Sager of Texas A&M University, who led the expedition with co-chief scientist Takashi Sano of Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo. “Studying their formation is critical to understanding the processes of volcanism, and the movement of material from Earth’s interior to its surface.”

About a dozen supervolcanoes exist on Earth; some are on land, while others lie at the bottom of the ocean. Those found on the seafloor are often referred to as large oceanic plateaus.

Current scientific thinking suggests that these supervolcanoes were caused by eruptions over a period of a few million years or less–a rapid pace in geologic time. _WattsupWithThat

Anyone living within a few thousand miles of an erupting super-volcano -- particularly on the downwind side -- may find survival almost impossible. But even people living on the opposite side of the globe from the eruption could find their sunlight and food supplies shut down by the distant eruption. Global climate would cool abruptly for an extended period of time. Outdoor growing seasons -- in the light of an already feeble sun -- would shorten to a period of several weeks.

The civilised communities that survive would be those with ample electrical supplies -- probably nuclear power with access to a lot of fuel -- and the ability to grow food indoors under artificial lighting.

This is true existential risk. Not global warming doom, not peak oil doom, not Doombama dark ages or Islamic Jihadi dark ages doom. The risk from supervolcanoes compares to the risk of a large comet or asteroid collision, or the risk from an abrupt change of solar output. It is even comparable to the risk from an invading alien starfaring civilisation intent on transforming Earth's entire ecology to suit its needs.

One day you're humming along, minding your own business. The next day you're covered by a thousand feet of hot ash. What's a Terran to do?

Five SuperVolcanoes to watch

Yellowstone, Ice Age, Obama Dark Ages

Yellowstone National Park is volcanic in nature, yet not one cone or caldera is visible. In the 1960s, this mystery was finally solved: The entire park -- 2.2 million acres -- is the caldera. It's the largest active supervolcano on Earth. Yellowstone started erupting about 17 million years ago, and it has a cycle of erupting roughly every 600,000 years. The last eruption was 630,000 years ago, so it's about 30,000 years past due on the next big one. _TheStreet_via_ValueInvesting_via_SimoleonSense

When Yellowstone supervolcano next erupts, "it's unlikely any humans within 700 miles of the park would survive. An area the size of New York State would have ash 67 feet deep. The aftermath probably would be worse, with no sunlight for years throughout the planet and much farmland rendered useless under mountains of ash." We know it will happen, we simply do not know when.

The same is true for the next ice age. We are currently roughly 12,000 years into the current inter-glacial period. Since inter-glacials typically last from 10,000 years to 25,000 years, we are either overdue for the next ice age (glaciation) or we have a bit of natural warming yet to experience before the next deadly age of ice descends. Science does not know, either way.

A global economy is a complex system, like the climate. Largely unpredictable, generally tolerant up to a point, the global economy will eventually shock even the most complacent economist, politician, or investor. The current global economic backlash should be taken as a warning to those responsible for national economies: "Clean up your act or suffer the consequences!"

China may be listening, Angela Merkel of Germany seems to be listening. But Putin is not, Obama is not, Kevin Rudd is not, Ahmedinejad is not. All of the clowns who are ignoring the impending eruption of this economic Mt. Doom were elected, after a fashion. Each has his own reasons for ignoring the warning signs and proceeding through the caution tape. Each country being led by these bozos will pay a severe penalty for the failure to heed the caution signals.

Look, globalization has created this interlocking fragility. At no time in the history of the universe has the cancellation of a Christmas order in New York meant layoffs in China. So for a while it created the illusion of stability, but it has created this devastating Black Swan.

Complex systems do not like debt. So it will proceed to destroy tens of trillions in debt until society rebuilds itself in an ultraconservative manner. We are in for a worse ride than people think.

People have the problem of denial. This is one of the things I learned in Lebanon. Everybody who left Beirut when the war started, including my parents, said, 'Oh, its temporary.' It lasted 17 years! People tend to underestimate the gravity of these situations. That's how they work.

Is this crisis going to last 17 years?

Unfortunately no, complex systems cascade much faster than that. However, the destruction will be deeper than people anticipate. It will bring down a lot of people.

My rosy scenario is that a better economic environment will develop, a low-debt, robust growth world, in which whatever is fragile will be allowed to break early and not late. _NicholasTalebWaPo_via_SimoleonSense

But Mr. Obama's plan is different from that of Mr. Taleb. Rather than aiming toward a better economic environment and a robust growth world, Mr. Obama is aiming toward a world of "de-development."

...scarcity politics seeks to slow and even reverse material progress through what President Obama's science adviser, John Holdren, calls "de-development."

"De-development"--that is, the retreat from economic growth--includes some sensible notions about conservation but takes them to unreasonable, socially devastating and politically unpalatable extremes. The agenda, for example, includes an opposition to population growth, limits on material consumption and a radical redistribution of wealth both nationally and to the developing world. _Forbes

The Obama club is the same club as the climate catastrophe club: the de-development club. Science is not involved, except to be twisted and exploited toward political ends. Never let a crisis go un-exploited. Mr. Obama's reasons for making a bad situation infinitely worse are his own.

The rest of the international bozo club also have their own individual reasons for ripping the guts out of the human future. Putin is out for the glory of greater Russia. Ahmedinejad is paving the way for the 12th imam. Rudd is another leftist zomboid with delusions of saving the Earth through correct ideology. Every bozo has his reasons.