Super Volcano Questions

If the Yellowstone super volcano goes up and you lived in North Dakota, could you survive moving up North as far North as you could into Canada? Is this truly a world-wide event and if so, how long will darkness fall on Earth? Will all plant life on Earth be gone?

How would one survive such a circumstance? I have some ideas, but it will take a lot of money.

 

I don't think you would have much of a chance in North Dakota, or in Canada. The entire planet will be affected for many years. It raises many questions.

Could you survive? Maybe, depending on how far you are from the eruption.
How long could you survive? Not very, unless you are deep in a cave, or a bunker with many years worth of provisions, and heirloom seeds to start over. Even in a bunker you better have a really good filtration system to provide breathable air for a very long time. We have never had to survive a Volcanic Winter, but somebody did or we wouldn't be here.

This is long, but worth watching:

 

Good question. How far southeast will be affected by the initial event? I need to look into that.

 

I've just come to terms with, I'm gonna die if this SHTF event goes off. Everyone in Colorado and Wyoming is in the FO zone. And everyone that doesn't get burned to death will have to try and survive under 20 feet of hot volcanic ash. If you take a marker and draw a line from Yellowstone to the bottom tip of Florida, that is roughly the line the ash will follow first. Then it will just get circulated around the world, making sunlight very scarce. All plant life will die. Then the animals. Then the vast majority of us. And by us, I mean humans. In a way, I'm glad I'll be taken out first.

 

I will just watch it on telly in my recliner and a cold drink in hand!
Probably get 24/7 coverage so better get a few movies out.

 

I was near the Yellowstone last fall doing some bear hunting so I took a day to visit the park . According to the folks working there , they are seeing unusual volcanic activity . Hot springs turning into geysers . I don't know if it is still occurring but earlier this year the ground in the Yellowstone was trembling a lot more than usual .

 

I don't think this is a question of "IF". It is a question of "WHEN". When that time comes is anybody's guess. Yellowstone is due. The San Andreas is overdue. It's gonna happen sometime.

CP, you might want to look for a westerly escape route. Maps of the blast radius I have seen show most of it going North, South, and East. The Western parts of California, Oregon, and Washington might be a safe haven if that is the right term. I imagine it will get pretty crowded., and a lot of that area is desert.

 

I honestly don't think I'd be able to outrun the initial fallout. I'd hear about it on the news and in 2 hours, my goose would be cooked. I think I'd much rather wait for it, drinking a bottle of fine whiskey, sitting in my hot tub with my wife. I would imagine this event (for me) would look like a wall of raining fire you could see for 30 mins before it reaches you. I'd be THAT cliché guy. The one that sips his drink, then holds it up to cheers the coming onslaught.

 

Sometimes we just have to face the inevitable. But, think about it. We could be immortalized. You know how they found the bodies in Pompeii? Archeologists will find me thousands of years from now. " We are not exactly sure what this guy was doing, but in one hand he was holding a bottle of Jameson, and it looks like the other held is held out in front of him with the middle finger up. He was pointing in the direction of the pyroclastic flow. "

Go out with your guns blazing.

 

Let me start by saying we don't know when the YC might erupt, how big the eruption might be, and what the early signs of it would look like.

But North Dakota seems like one of the very worst place to be. Even if you survive the heat blast and the ash cloud, you would still have to deal with the decades of extremely cold winters.

My suggestion would be to attempt to evacuate at least to central Minnesota, then turn South and head for the lower Mississippi basin. Some place south of Memphis Tn would be a good BOL.

 

Interesting subject. I've taken a few geology college courses over the past six or seven years, but most of the courses dealt with Colorado Plateau formations: stable sedimentary formations going back to the Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous. When we moved to Idaho, the first thing my wife and i signed up for was a six-week course in the geology of Southern Idaho, which is completely different from back in Arizona and Utah. Idaho, of course is very volcanic; as a matter of fact, the last lava volcano took place in Yellowstone about 68,000 years ago and since then: nothing. However during that same 68,000 years, Idaho has been very volcanically active.

Right now I'm taking Geo 272, Field Geology of Yellowstone, with Shawn Willsey, who has written several books on the subject. We'll be doing a field trip in the end of April and I should know a bit more by then.

However, based on what I've learned since I've been studying geology here, I believe the chance of a major caldera eruption within the next thousand years is about one percent; given that it should take that long for the main lava chamber to reach the 80-85% fill level needed for such an event.

Steam volcanoes? Big vents? Medium-size earthquakes like the one that did localized destruction 60 years ago? Sure, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over a caldera eruption!

 

From what I have read, like Morgan101 said, it isn't an iIF it is a WHEN it happens. That said though geologic time is not the same as we see time. It might happen tomorrow but then it might just sit there for another several thousand years. In geologic time a few thousand years is just a flash. When it goes the effect can vary depending on the size of the eruption and the volume and type of the ejecta.

If you are north of Yellowstone you need to try and go away then around and try to get south of it. I say this because one of the likely things after the eruption will be dark clouds and at least several years without any real summer. The farther north you are the colder it is going to be. Three years of winter in Canada without the sun ever breaking through the clouds to melt the snow might not be survivable.

 

Southern Arizona looks good.

 

Duncan: I love it when somebody quotes actual fact and science. Learning from the experts that wrote the book. Going to the actual location, and seeing what they see!! What could be better?! Thanks for sharing.

 

The Ozarks look good too. The Ozarks/NE Texas are the main areas I am looking at for relocation next year.

 

Do you guys have threads like this for other possible major disasters like the New Madrid fault line or the potential for a tidal wave devastating the east coast of the US if the plate below the Azores slips?

 

Did you know that Los Angeles County owns the water rights to a big percentage of the Prescott Valley Aquifer? The Coconino Aquifer, which 25 years ago was touted as a "500-year water supply" has taken a downgrade recently; not surprising since the entire Show Low-Concho-Snowflake-Taylor are is growing pretty rapidly. That's probably because the land values in Payson are getting too high for the Phoenix area people looking for a summer home.

You've seen, I'm sure, the subsidence cracks all along the Maricopa/Pinal/Pima area. That sure isn't from earthquakes from the pole shift or the underground alien bases; its the water leaving the aquifer, thanks to the folks from the Old Pueblo drinking it all up.

If you want to see what's been happening to the White Mountain snow-pack (which feeds the Salt River and all of the Phoenix metropolitan area), slide over to the 30-Year Climatic and Hydrologic Normals (1981-2010) Reports from the USDA Natural Resources and Climate Service. Less and less every year (with a couple of outliers), which means the lakes are lower and lower.

You might want to think about that. That's what I did, and it was one of the key reasons I left Arizona and am talking my oldest kid into leaving, too. Prepping is more than MREs and ARs; getting a handle on what's happening with the climate of the western US can be a pretty important thing if you're looking at long-term (multi-generational) survival!

 

That's a good point. A tsunami resulting from a collapse in the Azores cliff formation could be devastating, and if New Madrid unloads, you could see a hundred thousand people killed. I guess they're just not as "sexy" as Yellowstone, though....

 

Pssst... The Ozarks are crammed FULL of people, in comparison to the Ouachita Mountains just a hair south of there, which is not so populated. Plus the OM area is further away from the New Madrid stuff and the weather is much, much better in winter. Land is cheaper in the Ouachitas too, esp. near the border country.



.

 

Thanks for that. I will check it out.

 

TexDanm, man do I ever hate your map! If a Yellowstone pop doesn't take out Chicago, I'm going to write one very nasty letter to Mother Nature!

 

The New Madrid fault, much like the San Andreas, is considered a " when " not an " if ". The prediction is a 20%-40% chance of a major earthquake in the next 50 years. I don't know if anybody really knows what will happen, but it would appear that the seismic activity from New Madrid goes North and East from the boot heel of Missouri. St Louis could be severely damaged. Memphis might even be wiped out depending on the size of the quake.

I guess we live with it much like the people in California live with it. You prepare the best you can. You do different things to your house to limit the damage. You make sure you can turn off all of your utilities. You plan for different contingencies like not being able to get home. It is there. We are aware of it. Even have earthquake insurance, but it doesn't rule our lives.

 

How do you know this isn't happening now? Or at least, has been happening?

I live in Colorado BTW. I mentioned North Dakota because I have family that live there and my dad has a piece of property I thought might make use of a bunker or something. Of course it all takes money.

 

Florida looks good, but I'm thinking it really doesn't matter where you go. The entire Earth will be without sun. When I get the time I'll check out that YouTube video.

 

There're a couple of ways geologists can determine volcanic or seismic activity at levels consistent with lava chambers (1-10 km below the surface). seismic activity, of course, can be measured by seismometers capable of pinpointing the location of an earthquake at those depths, especially if they're in a place -- like YNP -- where they're already planted and monitored.

Geologists can also measure whether a location like a lava chamber is full, empty, or changing by transmitting infrasonic shock-waves (p-waves or s-waves) to the area of interest. Empty spots will cause p-waves to refract slightly differently. Researchers have been using infrasonic shock-waves to "look at" magma chambers at YNP for many years now and have seen nothing that can be interpreted as the interior of the chamber filling with magma.

 

Our understanding of the volcanic threats around the world has taken a big jump in the last few decades. Sataliteobservations now allow us to "see" the ground rise and begin to bulge as the pressures begin to build. At first, we didn't have the knowledge to put this information to effective use but now the fog is beginning to lighten and we better understand what various observations may mean. Looking back now they had the information but not the understanding to have KNOWN that Mount Saint Hellens was about to BLOW and not just pop her cork. Things like this and all the new ways to take a close look at a place without having to actually go there is going to make a big difference in future predictions.

The sad thing is that we have to actually watch several disasters happen before we can begin to sort out what we see before the fact is predictive and what is coincidence or just peripheral things that could happen without the final disaster ever happening.

It is possible that in the near future our ability to predict earthquakes will take a big jump. There have been several successful predictions over the last few decades. At first, these predictions were judged lucky guesses and the methodology extremely suspect. In countries that have less rigid science communities have started looking at some of these things and asked how did they do that rather than just denying the fact that they obviously do it.

Somehow animals seem to sense a coming earthquake. A scientist in China collected the stories and rumors of people that lived in areas that have a lot of earthquakes and then started looking at it as some sort of possible real thing. One of the things he did was get all the reports of snake bites in that region. Over time he noted that when there was a sudden and significant rise in the number of snake bites a major quake would happen in a short time period after that.

Eventually, he started making predictions based on this and the government finally took notice. They evacuated a small town based on one of his predictions and his prediction came to pass and the little town was leveled. hundreds of lives were saved. somehow the snakes sense the pressures building up and when it reaches a certain point the snakes abandon their buried rocky dens and start moving around on the surface and encountering people more often. What they are trying to do now is figure out exactly what the snakes are sensing so they can maybe improve on this with some sort of buried sensors.

One of the things that were noted when that huge tsunami hit in the Indian ocean a few years ago were reports of elephants all over suddenly heading for the high ground before there was any understood way for them to know what was coming. Among all the devastation, not a single elephant was killed. What is it that they "heard" or "felt" that warned them before people had a clue?

There is a guy in California that has had a lot of success predicting earthquakes based on sudden increases in ads in newspapers of lost pet dogs. It seems that in the two weeks before a major shake that a lot of dogs panic and run away from their owner's homes.

I understand that all of this sounds like old wives tails or some sort of silly magic crap but the fact is animals have a rather odd ability to predict the weather and possibly other things. I used to have a horse that would go to the barn and hide occasionally. We finally noticed that when Pacco went to the barn like that we were soon going to have a strong thunderstorm. Pacco hated lightness and hail with a passion and just refused to get caught out in it. Once when we had closed the barn doors he came up on the porch to get under a roof. He was insistent about it so I took him to the barn. The sky was clear when he climbed on the porch but by the time I got him in the barn and fed his since I was already there I got DRENCHED on my way back to the house!

I doubt American Science will lower themselves to study such unscientific things but in other countries, there still exists real science that asks questions rather than just answer questions that they are PAID to investigate.

Lidar and Ground penetrating radar as they get better and better will hopefully allow us to better see and understand the small hints that are evidently present and connected to many of the natural disasters.

 

It's definitely not old wives' tales. Most seismologists -- American or otherwise -- don't understand why some animals act the way they do, but most of them seem to realize that there's something to it, and they'd love to investigate it further ...

... as soon as they can finish their grant application for the funding!

 

Being raised around animals I learned a long time ago that they seem to have a sense when it comes to weather. Cattle, when they are feeding, will all tend to face the same direction. They are very attuned to each other and act as a herd more than as individuals. Some of their behavior that predicts weather is simple that they are outside and just more aware of their environment than people. Cattle will often lay down before a rainstorm blows in. Nothing mystical about it. when it is hot they prefer to stand because it is cooler. When the temperature drops before a front rolls in they lay down and rest. Cattle like to lay down and rest and they will generally rest with their friends.

Horses like to lay down at times too. The idea that they always sleep standing up is wrong. If they feel secure and it is nice they like to lay down in the sun on their sides on cool days and just chill out. Watching animals and nature offers you a lot of information. When my weather rock sweats profusely in the morning in the summer there is likely to be some heavy afternoon thunderstorms around.

 

Then that's a relief. So why are the hot springs there getting hotter from what I read?

 

Yeah, I know how animals are attuned to such things. I often sit on the back patio at night having a smoke and I'll watch the cat and see where his ears and face are turned to know where sound or someone is coming from.

Same with crickets. If you suddenly hear them go quite you know someone is near.

 

I don't know. The latest information I have was from three years ago. It's entitled "High temperature hydrothermal vent fluids in Yellowstone Lake: Observations and insights from in-situ pH and redox measurements", Chunyang Tan et.al. (Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research Volume 343, 1 September 2017, Pages 263-270.

You can check it out at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0377027317303554

It didn't say much about variations in water temperature; do you have a citation I could look at?

I'm leaving for YNP Monday morning with my class. I know there will be assigned research and measurements, but I don't know what'll be assigned to me. I do know, though, that we aren't going to be taking in situ temperature measurements, the liability lawyers probably won't let a bunch of college students fall in and get boiled.

I will check with Prof. Willsey and see what he knows before I get back Thursday.

 

Duncan: How was your class? I hope it was all you wanted and expected. I am very curious. Should we all be battening the hatches, or is this still painfully unpredictable? What do the experts say? Please share. THX.

 

The BIGGEST danger to the American population is still epidemics and pandemics.

If someone's evacuation is to North Dakota or Manitoba, others will also be on this route. Think of the health of other travelers especially the aged, the sick, ... Again: it's the mass medical care matter.

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Evac to south of Memphis, Tenn ? Let's consider Bay St Louis, Miss. We can leave in a few hours. The road will look like I-95 approaching Washington, D.C.

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Morgan; Earthquake insurance is like flood insurance. The California Earthquake Authority has some ... er.... funding issues. Think of the FEMA flood insurance program.

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Duncan, Tex Dan; Exactly ! "grant application for the funding!" !! The governing word to all this - and I know what the word "all" means - is * politics*.
First FEMA Director James Lee Witt to Congress: "as we all know, disasters are very political events".
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/15/business/at-fema-disasters-and-politics-go-hand-in-hand.html

There are reasons for Yellowstone's situation. Besides Yellowstone and the California folks, also glance at Florida's hurricane catastrophe fund reinsurance. If you like a variety of humor better than Benny Hill, Woody Allen or Uncle Bernie Sanders, check out the Texas Coastal Wind Insurance Program. Does anyone here think the Oso, Washington mudslide was about mud ?!

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More than $$$ is needed for preparations. Think health care matters. Mike Rockefeller had more money than most here - I am guessing - took a great trip to New Guinea, participated in a banquet and didn't return home.

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Mentioning Manitoba has got me in the mood for some of that Canadian apple juice that's fermented and then distilled.

Canadian apple juice at the Bay St Louis Bay beach.....I'm ready to leave now !

 

I don't know how you keep track of the financial health of an organization like the California Earthquake Authority. Is that a government agency or private organization? I can tell you I was quite happy to have flood insurance when I needed it. It didn't cover everything, but it certainly softened the blow.

 

Morgan, the California Earthquake Authority is a California state agency. All these agencies are in the business and political news.

What you described about your favorable flood insurance experience is past tense. The $$$ is no longer present for the program. It's really not insurance. It's a stipend; a grant.

The real estate industry loves the FEMA flood "insurance" program - because they get to sell otherwise useless land. Who the Hades finances mortgages if the land can be readily flooded ?

The real estate industry hate the opponent of the program who is closing it down. Here on and near a tidal flood plain - routinely devastated by hurricanes - the howling and screaming come from those who want the public to support their nice place to live.

The party's over.

 

Sorry for not responding earlier, Morgan101; I had a bunch of chores to catch up on over the weekend.

The trip was great, although pretty tiring. The Prof is in his early forties and in great shape; most of the other students were in their twenties. We hiked about 5-6 hours a day, taking notes, measuring ash-falls and trying to find out what happened -- and when -- over a couple of million years. Just about every measurement was nominal -- that is, about what we expected. Certainly some geysers and hot springs were a bit more (or less) than what had been measured last year by a different class. Not surprising, though, if a hot spring or geyser goes off a lot, a lot of the sinter (for silica-rich water) or travertine (for calcium-rich water) builds up like the inside of a pipe in a hard-water location. This could slow the speed at which the water flows and could slow or even stop the geyser. Or, if pressure builds up the increased pressure blows out the 'pipes' and we have a hydrodynamic 'explosion' and things quiet down a bit.

Anyway, no one's expecting anything exciting for at least a coupla thousand years s far as caldera explosions are concerned, but you know: there's lies, damn lies, and statistics!

I'm not a betting man, but I'd put my money on Superbugs, Climate Disaster, World War Whatever and the Heartbreak of Psoriasis getting us all long before YNP does anything!

 

Thank you for the update, and congratulations on keeping up with all those kids including the 40 year old prof. It is at least somewhat comforting to know that things are as normal as they can be, and any change is in the predictable or expected range. IMHO there is no substitute for boots on the ground. You were there. You checked the measurements yourself. That I would trust.

Does the park vary in that some areas may be more active than others, or one area more likely to have a major eruption than another? I'm still trying to figure out the expiration date on food. I can't even fathom trying to figure out what happened a couple of million years ago. I will leave that to those of you that are far smarter than I am.

Thanks again for the update. Please keep us posted if you see anything of interest.