you might want to avoid Yellowstone

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20050509/D89VR7EG0.html


Yellowstone Rated High for Eruption Threat


-snip-

University of Utah geology professor Robert Smith, who monitors earthquakes and volcanic activity in Yellowstone, said more real-time monitoring should be helpful.

"We've really been stressing over the last couple of years that the USGS should consider hazards as a very high priority in their future," he said. "We need to get the public's confidence and the perception that we're doing it right."

-snip-

The USGS report recognizes Yellowstone as an unusual hazard because of the millions of people who visit the park and walk amid features created by North America's largest volcanic system, Smith said, a status he has been advocating for years.

Smith does not paint the devastating picture portrayed in a recent TV docudrama but said smaller threats exist. For example, a lower-scale hydrothermal blast could scald tourists strolling along boardwalks.

Emissions of toxic gases from the park's geothermal features also pose a threat. Five bison dropped dead last year after inhaling poisonous gases trapped near the ground due to cold, calm weather near Norris Geyser Basin.
-snip-
------------------------------

If it blows & you were there it'd be quick. For the rest of us it'd be a few weeks if not days before we succumbed. The end result is the same, fast or slow is the option.


Keith’s Barbeque Central

Took a trip out west in the early 80's.

On the way out, stopped by the Badlands just east of Rapid City, SD. The Badlands consist of wind/rain weathered slopes in volcano ash thats about 50-75 feet thick. ALL of that ash came from Yellowstone last time it blew its cork. Now the Badlands is what, 4-5 hundred miles to the east of Yellowstone.

So if Yellowstone blows, and it is powerful as last time, it's adios muchacho for most people in a circle of about 200 miles around Yellowstone and downwind for maybe 1500 miles.

Caldera. A BBC story that I saw posits that everyone within 600 miles of the blast would die almost instantly unless they have underground shelter.

Ash will cover most of the United States. We would not produce food from the plains states for at least two years. At least that's what the report says.

How horrible would that be?? :scared: Did anybody ever see that one movie they had on this? (it was one of those "what if" things)

If there was an eruption at Yellowstone, it would most likely be a geothermal event causing burns to those close by in the park due to steam emissions, or a poison gas event causing multiple casualties due to asphyxiation. It's unlikely we'd see anything on the scale of Mt. St. Helens, let alone an actual Supervolcano eruption.

The actual likelihood of the entire thing blowing is extremely remote.

The fast bang would be better than the slow whimper.

Being AT Yellowstone is not really a bigger risk than being anywhere. But go ahead and stay away. We don't need the traffic. :evilgrin:

A serious increase in seismic activity, maybe some changes in the geysers' cycles, an active caldera forming somewhere in the vicinity. None of this happens overnight, the changes would be noted for months, maybe years prior to an eruption.

I went to Yellowstone as a teen on a bus trip. I thought all that volcanic activity was pretty cool to look at, as were the bears that could be seen from our bus window in some places.

Overall, I'm more concerned about getting caught in a hurricane in Florida than a volcano at Yellowstone. We all know there'll be at least one hurricane a year to hit Florida, the Gulf Coast or the Atlantic Seaboard.

Farewell to Jackson Hole, WY, Uncle Dick's haunt?

:kick:

It's not everyday you get to see an extinction event face-to-face. Here's the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory site:
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/

And here's a really good site on earthquakes:
http://www.iris.edu/seismon/