Magnifisyncopathological

A monster awakens?

Part of America's Yellowstone National Park was closed to visitors on July 23 this year and remains closed today due to high ground temperatures and increased thermal activity in the park.

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On August 7, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported that scientists were planning to set up a temporary network of seismographs, Global Positioning System receivers and thermometers to monitor increasing hydrothermal activity in the Norris Geyser Basin and gauge the risk of a hydrothermal explosion.

On August 10, the Denver Post reported that Liz Morgan, a U.S. Geological Survey research geologist had discovered a huge bulge underneath Yellowstone Lake that had risen 100 feet from the lake floor. The bulge is two thousand feet long and has the potential to explode at any time.

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Then, on August 24th, the University of Utah Seismograph Station reported that a magnitude 4.4 earthquake occurred just 9 miles southeast of the southern entrance to Yellowstone National Park. USGS scientists agreed that the earthquake was "uncommon" in that it was a very shallow earthquake, occuring just 0.3 miles below the surface.

Copyright © 2003 Ian Gurney

Unlike Old Faithful, Steamboat is anything but predictable. It's gone as few as four days and as many as 50 years between major eruptions — noisy, powerful spectacles that can send hot water 300 feet or higher and churn out dense steam for hours.

Recently, though, it has been more active — its two eruptions so far this year came just weeks apart — and the emergence of a forceful new thermal feature nearby has scientists like Heasler wondering: What's happening in Norris Geyser Basin, where Steamboat is located?

"That's the million dollar question. It's changing more than anyone has noticed before," Heasler said. "Are we noticing because we're looking? Or because something is abnormal?"

Researchers are trying to find answers.

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What's bubbling beneath the shallow surface of the volatile basin and why has the basin floor been steadily bulging upward over the past few years?

Adding to the intrigue is Norris' location. The basin — filled with hot springs, geysers and steam vents called fumaroles — is outside Yellowstone's caldera, formed by the last volcanic eruption about 640,000 years ago and considered the hotbed for geothermal activity in the park.

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So far, there's no cause for alarm and no apparent looming threat, Lowenstern said. Steamboat's renewed eruptions and the basin rising several centimeters in the past few years could just be normal activity, he said.

The geyser's first major eruption was reported in 1878. After that, it flared up occasionally before lying largely dormant from 1911-61. Observers say the 1960s and the early 1980s were fairly active.

Then, quiet again, until May 2000. That was followed by two eruptions in 2002 and two more again this spring — March 26 and April 27.

Copyright © 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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Norris Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park has long been recognized as the hottest and most changeable of Yellowstone's famous hydrothermal wonders.

This summer, Norris lived up to its hot, unstable reputation as scientists and visitors alike have seen significant changes in many geysers and increased ground temperatures in the western part of the basin. Porkchop Geyser, which sprang to life from a small hot spring in 1971, erupted in July for the first time since 1989.

Water has drained away from several active geysers, resulting in hissing steam vents and ground temperatures as high as 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

Still other geysers have erupted more frequently and regularly, while some thermal features that usually release hot water and steam now send steam jetting into the air.

On July 11, the staff of Yellowstone National Park also noted the formation of a new mud pot - a small cauldron filled with boiling acidic water and mud. Within one week, the mudpot turned into a high - pressure steam vent.

Also, pine trees are dying in three areas in response to the increased thermal activity. Norris is one of the more popular geyser basins in Yellowstone, with as many as 4,000 people visiting the nearby museum each week.

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About a mile of trail and boardwalk in the Back Basin remain closed because of the hazard to visitors and park staff from the high temperatures.

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The dark depths of Yellowstone Lake, with recently discovered thermal vents and explosion craters, hold some of the most tantalizing mysteries in Yellowstone National Park.

The most intriguing may be a bulge on the lake floor that stretches seven city blocks and rises as a tall as a 10-story building.

More than likely, steam or hot gas is roiling just beneath the "inflated plain," the informal name that scientists have given to the feature just south-southwest of Storm Point, near Mary Bay.

The question now is whether the bulge is building up to a violent explosion – similar to those that formed Mary Bay, Indian Pond and other nearby craters thousands of years ago – or whether it will simply collapse quietly, perhaps spewing off a little steam.

Lisa Morgan, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist who has been mapping and studying the lake intensively, said scientists hope to have some answers in the coming weeks. For now, no one can say whether the "inflated plain" poses a serious risk.

"I don’t have any evidence today that this thing is moving at all, but we do know it inflated in the past," Morgan said during a presentation this week at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center.

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Copyright © 2000-2002 Billings Gazette and Lee Enterprises.

This worrying situation was confirmed on September 8 by Dr. Bruce Cornet, a geologist and paleobotanist with the USGS, who explained: "Steam pressure is apparently building again in Yellowstone, and hydrothermal fluids and steam are working their way up through fractures and vents. If more steam vents appear, that means a continuous pathway for pressure release has been established to the magma chamber. If that happens, the pressure in the magma chamber will continue to drop until it reaches a critical stage when the superheated water within the magma explodes. Unfortunately, as the steam venting subsides, there will be a false sense of security. People will think it was just another cyclical event, and the danger is over. But that will be the farthest from the truth. It will be the quiet before the storm."

Initially this should be of little or no consequence to anyone apart from those planning to visit Yellowstone . . . except for one thing. Lurking beneath Yellowstone National Park is one of the most destructive natural phenomena in the world: a massive supervolcano.

Only a handful exist in the world but when one erupts the explosion will be heard around the globe. The sky will darken, black acid rain will fall, and the Earth will be plunged into the equivalent of a nuclear winter. It could push humanity to the brink of extinction.

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Professor McGuire went on to explain that: "Many supervolcanoes are not typical hill-shaped structures but huge, collapsed craters called "calderas" that are filled with hot magma and are harder to detect. The Yellowstone supervolcano was detected in the Sixties when infra-red satellite photographs revealed a magma-filled caldera 85km long and 45km wide. It has been on a regular eruption cycle of 600,000 years. The last eruption was 640,000 years ago, so the next is long overdue."

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The impact of a Yellowstone eruption is terrifying to comprehend." says Professor McGuire. "Magma would be flung 50 kilometres into the atmosphere. Within a thousand kilometres virtually all life would be killed by falling ash, lava flows and the sheer explosive force of the eruption. One thousand cubic kilometres of lava would pour out of the volcano, enough to coat the whole of the USA with a layer 5 inches thick. The explosion would be the loudest noise heard by man for 75,000 years."

The long-term effects would be even more devastating. The thousands of cubic kilometres of ash that would shoot into the atmosphere would block out light from the sun, making global temperatures collapse. This is called a nuclear winter. A large percentage of the world's plant life would be killed by the ash and the drop in temperature. The resulting change in the world's climate would devastate the planet, and scientists know that another eruption is due - they just don't know when.

I found the first link via Arthur Silber who found it via Ken Hagler. The BBC (who coined the term) did a video special on supervolcanoes in 1999 (here's a transcript of the video program) and a web article in 2000.

I was born just over a month after Mount St. Helens exploded. When I was in my early elementary school years, we moved to Washington State and we visited the volcano several times. Standing in the shadow of so much destruction is very disquieting. This idea of Yellowstone going off would dwarf Mount St. Helens like a hydrogen bomb dwarfs a stick of TNT.

The world really doesn't need something like this now. Of course, it could turn into one of those over-hyped fatalistic reports about a meteor in a collision course with Earth that we hear every year. I hope that's the case.

What would happen socially if such a thing occured, assuming Professor McGuire's dire predictions come true? Obviously, the nations dependent on agriculture and food handouts would simply die off. Wealthier nations would be politcally unable to divert resources outside their borders with their own populations suddenly very sensitive to the food supply. I have little doubt that hundreds of millions would die within days as their razor-thin survival margins are wiped out. Hundreds of millions more would die within a week. Food and water rocket to utmost importance...but with supplies so dampened...hm...it would get real nasty.

And I'm just guessing about the direct sustenance impact. The panic such a global catastrophe would unleash would be stamped in every person's heart. Tens of trillions of dollars of market capital would need to be diverted to new activities and investments, assuming the familar order of today's functioning markets would survive the terror of the situation. Nothing approaching this magnitude that I can think of has occured to modern humanity.

With the sun next to useless, we'd need to find a way to survive without it. I'd predict a massive surge back towards coal and gas-fired power plants. With them, you can run growing lights for agriculture. Sure, you won't be able to run nearly enough for entire countries of people...but by the time this occurs, there won't be that many people left to worry about.

Then again, human nature might just give rise to anarchic gangs of thieves and vandals, threatening the important infrastructure. Personal defense would rise to second place on the short list of crucial priorities.

It's sometimes fun to disaster-think through hypothetical situations. Especially if the disaster could be as sudden and total as this one. Austin is over 1,500 miles from Cody, Wyoming. Cody is about 50 miles east of Yellowstone. How much of a warning might we get? Is it all downhill from there to here and would the Hill Country offer any protection? If the world's temperatures dropped radically, would that increase the size of the icecaps and therefore lower sea levels? Would it end the Israeli-Palestinian war? At what point does an external threat overwhelm the priorities of a conflict?

So many variables.

Make sure your flashlights have good batteries, folks. Never hurts to brush up on your taste for MREs, either.

UPDATE(10/14/2003 1:50am)
More good news: Salt Lake City area is due for a large quake. Utah isn't that far from Yellowstone...