More good news

Scientists closely monitoring Yellowstone

Recent eruptions, 200 degree ground temperatures, bulging magma and 84
degree water
temperatures prompt heightened srutiny of park's geothermal activity

BILLINGS, Mont. -- Yellowstone National Park happens to be on top of one
of the largest
“super volcanoes” in the world. Geologists claim the Yellowstone Park
area has been on a
regular eruption cycle of 600,000 years. The last eruption was 640,000
years ago making the
next one long overdue. This next eruption could be 2,500 times the size
of the 1980 Mount
St. Helens eruption. Volcanologists have been tracking the movement of
magma under the
park and have calculated that, in parts of Yellowstone, the ground has
risen over seventy
centimeters this century.

In July, 2003, Yellowstone Park rangers closed the entire Norris Geyser
Basin because of
deformation of the land and excessive high ground temperatures. There is
an area that is 28
miles long by 7 miles wide that has bulged upward over five inches since
1996, and this year
the ground temperature on that bulge has reached over 200 degrees
(measured one inch below
ground level).

From:
http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20031219.htm

Okay. Can we PLEASE get the hell off this damned rock???


--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address

Scott Lowther wrote:
Scientists closely monitoring Yellowstone

See also the USGS's Yellowstone Volcanism FAQ:

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/faqs.html

Paul

In article ,
Scott Lowther wrote:
Scientists closely monitoring Yellowstone

snip Yellowstone: not just for geology lessons anymore

From:
http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20031219.htm

Okay. Can we PLEASE get the hell off this damned rock???

No. I mean, in the sense the toolkit does not at present
exist.

It seems to me humans will likely continue to be present
on the Earth whether or not ET human populations are established
and it therefore makes sense to look at methods to survive Yellow-
stone or any of the other problem spots [1] should the worst
happen.

Food storage is an obvious first step. Not entirely certain
what to do about ash (not in the sense of stopping ashfall but limiting
the human deaths from it). I am mildly optimistic that this is a solvable
problem, much in the way limiting earthquake deaths was.


1: Who the heck ordered a major site for volcanism on the equator,
anyway?
--
"The Union Nationale has brought [Quebec] to the edge of an abyss.
With Social Credit you will take one step forward."

Camil Samson

James Nicoll wrote:

Food storage is an obvious first step. Not entirely certain
what to do about ash (not in the sense of stopping ashfall but limiting
the human deaths from it). I am mildly optimistic that this is a solvable
problem, much in the way limiting earthquake deaths was.

Food storage would be costly if done on a continuing basis. However,
if it were possible to trigger the eruption, food could be stockpiled
(and other preparations made) beforehand (and the eruption timed for
late fall.) The eruption could also be triggered before pressure
in the magma chamber grew too large, and so might be smaller than
a natural eruption.

How to trigger the eruption? One or more aimed impacts by moderate
sized asteroids, perhaps (or maybe very large, elongated metal
penetrators, made from asteroidal metal.)

Paul

Scott Lowther wrote:

Scientists closely monitoring Yellowstone

Recent eruptions, 200 degree ground temperatures, bulging magma and 84
degree water
temperatures prompt heightened srutiny of park's geothermal activity

Think positive. Wouldn't that be a *huge* energy source? Correct me if I'm
wrong, but I always thought that violent volcanic eruptions are caused by
liquid rock with a lot of gases (mostly CO2) dissolved in it. The liquid
rock forms a huge subterran bubble and the gas tends to be at the top of
that bubble since it is lighter.

If you could drill a hole into the top of the magma bubble and release the
gas through a gas turbine, you could generate a lot of energy and prevent a
violent explosion. You would probably produce more CO2 than all fossil fuel
plants in the world combined, but that CO2 will find its way into the
atmosphere sooner or later anyway.

Once you got rid of the gases, you could use the thermal energy with
traditional steam-based geothermal power plants.

Ruediger Klaehn wrote:

Think positive. Wouldn't that be a *huge* energy source? Correct me if I'm
wrong, but I always thought that violent volcanic eruptions are caused by
liquid rock with a lot of gases (mostly CO2) dissolved in it. The liquid
rock forms a huge subterran bubble and the gas tends to be at the top of
that bubble since it is lighter.

The magma here tends to be rather viscous, though (high in silica), so the
gas doesn't really separate from the magma.

I think magmatic gas is mostly water vapor, btw.

Paul

That Yellowstone might be working up a bang x2500 times larger than Mt
St Helens is interesting. That this could have large national
consequences is expectable. But seems to me, the point is not that
Yellowstone is going to go bang, but that *something* is, and maybe
Yellowstone is more near the top of the list than I thought. And the
point leads to my following thesis:

Aren't we being *terribly* dumb not to be doing settlements in space
*right now* seeing as we have the technology in hand to do a good
start at it? Further space exploration is a middling good idea, but
wouldn't it be better done from places already out there, than from
down here in this gravity well?

But I can't expect that to happen: not in my life time and probably
not in yours. Because, we've recently passed through a real Asimovian
psychohistorical crisis -- and it resolved wrong.

The crisis was, forward-looking growth; vs, spending all available
money and more into military industrial armaments. That's done, now;
and now we have to spend much more money yet, trying to reduce the
resulting mess to something our children hopefully can survive with,
and maybe even our culture. For what it's worth, considering the
major faith-based elements in it. This is not at all a good picture,
but seems it me, it's what *is.*

Therefore, no space settlement because the military industrial
businesses and politicians suck it all up before it can be put to any
good use. This is a really, really sad picture. And if any of these
things like Yellowstone et al, actually happen, the picture then gets
a *lot* worse. Grump!

-- Martha Adams

Martha H Adams wrote:

Aren't we being *terribly* dumb not to be doing settlements in space
*right now* seeing as we have the technology in hand to do a good
start at it?

We don't.

Paul

Paul F. Dietz wrote:

Martha H Adams wrote:

Aren't we being *terribly* dumb not to be doing settlements in space
*right now* seeing as we have the technology in hand to do a good
start at it?

We don't.

Yes, we do. We just don't have the infrastructure.

--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote in message
...
Martha H Adams wrote:

Aren't we being *terribly* dumb not to be doing settlements in space
*right now* seeing as we have the technology in hand to do a good
start at it?

We don't.

I think that we have the technology to develop the technology that we need.
It's just a matter of hiring engineers with a decent budget. If we started
today, I think that within 15 years, we could have a lunar settlement that
grows at a rate of 10 people a year. A settlement with 100,000 people could
take another 30 years beyond that.