Yellowstone Supervolcano Alert: The Most Dangerous Volcano In America Is Roaring To Life

[palbert]

I think I will use magmasaurus, but shouldn't the M be capitalized?

If the eruption is decent it will be a Magmanado!

 

[Jack Springer]

Can you imagine waiting thousands of years to shoot?

This is one of those things like a meteor hitting earth and killing us all. You cannot change it, you cannot prepare for and you likely cannot survive it.

So why worry about it?

Talk about blue balls.

 

[Benvolio]

And the sulfer gasses ? That doesnt come from the volcanic smelting pot?

Your article says that the hydrogen sulfide comes from deep in the earth, but nothing suggests that it comes from within the caldera itself. We cannot assume that it does.

 

[Alnitak]

Sulfur and silicon and nearly the same weight. I would expect the two to appear in the same relative abundance in whatever material they come from.

 

[Kulindahr]

The geysers no nothing to relieve the pressure in the volcano caldera. The volcano merely heats water nearer the surface until the steam and water erupt.

Not quite....

Love to see your source. The Nat Geo program reported that the sulfur smells were a result of venting gasses from the volcanic lava flows. Additionally, on wiki... which for this instance is properly sourced....

So while it keeps a major eruption at bay, the reality is that it is slowly building a deck that will eventually block the vents and then the top will blow.

The amount of gas released in the water cycle for the geysers is negligible. The water itself is ground water heated by the volcano, so the spouting geyser isn't relieving any pressure, it's just the pressure of boiling water. That water does indeed bring minerals and gases up, but the proportion of the actual pressure building below is insignificant. Also insignificant are the mineral terraces -- to make a difference in the behavior of the volcano they'd have to build not just meters deep, but kilometers.

In other words, the geysers don't "keep a major eruption at bay", and don't "block the vents and then the top will blow".

 

[opinterph]

I have looked around to find an answer to the question of gas releases at Yellowstone, but haven’t found anything definitive.

Future volcanism at Yellowstone caldera: Insights from geochemistry of young volcanic units and monitoring of volcanic unrest
(The Geological Society of America; September 2012)

Southwestern and Central Caldera

[In “recent” eruptions], degassing may have begun long before eruption while magma was still accumulating, suggesting the possibility of prolonged pre-eruptive degassing crises.

 

[frankfrank]

Talk about blue balls.

Your article says that the hydrogen sulfide comes from deep in the earth, but nothing suggests that it comes from within the caldera itself. We cannot assume that it does.

These, consecutively, in C E & P?

Have I awakened in an alternate universe?

I was going to make a similar comment to Benvolio, that the geysers are caused by water from the water table infiltrating cracks and reaching super-boiling temperatures by being in the vicinity of the magma which has heated materials above it, and suddenly spewing out (and upward from the ground) when the pressure of vapor from the superheated water cannot be held back from the pressure of the water column. At least that's my understanding of how geysers work. If there is any relief of pressure below, or any cooling from the transfer of heat out of the geysers, it is almost undetectable in comparison to the hundreds or thousands of cubic miles of magma and its pressure and heat.

 

[Kulindahr]

I was going to make a similar comment to Benvolio, that the geysers are caused by water from the water table infiltrating cracks and reaching super-boiling temperatures by being in the vicinity of the magma which has heated materials above it, and suddenly spewing out (and upward from the ground) when the pressure of vapor from the superheated water cannot be held back from the pressure of the water column. At least that's my understanding of how geysers work. If there is any relief of pressure below, or any cooling from the transfer of heat out of the geysers, it is almost undetectable in comparison to the hundreds or thousands of cubic miles of magma and its pressure and heat.

Yes.

As an idea of the proportional difference... just as the minerals brought up by water make material that would fill truckloads while the magma chamber below could fill the Great Lakes, so does the pressure released by these surface processes compare to what is building below.