Opinions About Yellowstone Caldera

[Temporocitor]

This is to gain just that. Some of my research dives into history include Yellowstone's history. Since it's discovery somewhat after the maunder minimum or "little ice age," the caldera had been seen to have geisers. I'm of the opinion that it is not impossible for those leaks to be the earliest stages of fracture, thus eruption. We know very little about supervolcanoes, but if it has an area about 1500 times that of Mt. Saint Helens, the lava dome is more -plate-like so prone toward further fracturing in the caqse of more cold, meaning deep freeze, events. It would seem logical that if the area is already hotter than it used to be, thus expanded a bit, and known for having a meaningful water table, what would happen to this plate, likely weakened around 1650, if it were subjected to some short season of glaciation, may follow classic physics more than quantum I cannot say it has no links to the planet's magnetic inclination, still I cannot either say that it does. Are any of you familiar with any residual magnetic field studies done in the Yellowstone Caldera, similar to Steen's Mountain? Is it in any way a record of geomagnetic field distribution?

 

IMO... the localized glaciation of the Rocky Mountains, basically on the same tome as Western Europe, perhaps some oscillation in that, should Yellowstone become subject to another maunder minimum, only localized, it is possible the caldera's plate could fracture more and sprout new geisers. Any thoughts to fail this? If that is possible, could this runaway? If so, and it broke up into constant steam vents, the aquifers from surrounding states could likely be drained into this supersaturation event process as we know the geisers to be. My last look at the aquifers from Wyoming and surrounding states, suggests the caldera would act as one large hot spring. This would progressively fill in the basins in those areas if the steam continued to bubble, overspilling the water out eventually to the east. Maybe some of you who work with the USGS regurlarly could recommend some sites that I can look up water tables and aquifers online. I first began the study by ordering the maps through the public library here. As I said they all appear to be interleaved quite a bit. I want to see if there is any interleave with that underground river in Mexico, can't recall the name right off the top of my head. I'll post it later.

[Temporocitor]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070305-cave-river.html

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/hundreds-of-methane-plumes-discovered-941456.html

 

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/underground-lakes-river/2190

 

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070227-ocean-asia.html

 

 

These are all relevant to the subject of the caldera and underground water sources that could affect it.

 

[Temporocitor]

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/rea ... t_304/512/

 

The flares are already building as of 100 hrs today. We can see them actually tracing the path of magnetic symmetry between the Earth, Mercury and Venus.

 

It doesn't have to be a flare intense enough to make the Aurora dance for positive data. The lesser flares tell us that

 

1. the core has recently spat out a major plasma burst and

 

2. internal plasma activity is still seeming to be affected by the planets' external magnetic symmetries.

 

It will take me at least the rest of this year to refine the system that says when a flare or flares may occur. What I'm trying to find through this thread are opinions about Yellowstone Caldera that may be useful in establishing a link between the solar wind and volcanism. It appears the supervolcano may be a type that errupts in pahases, slowly as its own system disrupts. It may be a particular effect or phase could begin and continue for hundreds of years. Such a revelation would be good news because we can know a bit what to expect. IMO 2012 will be nothing like the movie sensationalizes and Yellowstone will not errupt suddenly as was depicted there. The one thing I'm speculating is that a deep freeze in Colorado and Wyoming could be a "next phase" indicator.

 

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/supervolcano/under/under.html

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_volcano

 

http://news.discovery.com/earth/yellowstone-park-supervolcano-plume-110414.html

 

 

The plume's high conductivity suggests it contains high levels of silicate rocks and perhaps briny water, he said. The observation that the high conductivity plume is larger and angled differently than the one found with seismic imaging suggests that the plume of molten and partially molten rock may be surrounded by additional liquid including briny water, Zhdanov said.

 

 

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/01/110119-yellowstone-park-supervolcano-eruption-magma-science/

 

 

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/08/yellowstone/achenbach-text

 

 

On August 29, 1870, a 30-year-old Army lieutenant named Gustavus Doane, part of an exploratory expedition in the Yellowstone region in the territory of Wyoming,

 

http://www.agiweb.org/geotimes/june05/feature_supervolcano.html

 

Around the same time, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of Utah and Yellowstone National Park to create YVO. The idea was to formalize what had been an unofficial observatory for many years and create a stronger framework for monitoring and research. A few years later, in late 2002, a number of geological factors contributed to ramping up public interest in Yellowstone and its volcanic potential.

 

First, surface waves from the magnitude-7.9 Denali, Alaska, earthquake triggered about 400 small temblors within the park, 3,100 kilometers (about 1,900 miles) distant from the epicenter. Next, Steamboat Geyser, Yellowstone’s tallest and most unpredictable geyser, erupted in March 2003 and again in April and October. A new and vigorously steaming 75-meter (245-foot) line of steam vents erupted within sight of the Norris-Mammoth Road. A trail in the Norris Geyser Basin was closed because of increased steaming and resulting elevated ground temperatures. Our coordinating scientist Robert B. Smith of the University of Utah spearheaded a seismic and GPS-based experiment trying to understand the nature of the changes to hydrothermal features at Norris.

 

 

The above are excerpts from the articles directly above them. The last is where I'm basing some of my questions concerning deep freeze and its effects on this huge "lid." A person could spend years digging up all the dates and comparing data, still we have less than 200 years of observations about the caldera. Next is to look up the verified historical dates of the eruptions, meaning the lesser erruptions and compare these against solar data. It may offer more than just a link between the two where volcanoes are concerned, it could reflect on seismology as well.

 

 

[CaptainPanic]

What I'm trying to find through this thread are opinions about Yellowstone Caldera that may be useful in establishing a link between the solar wind and volcanism.

It would be nice if you START a thread with such a comment... not put it in the 3rd post, in the middle.

 

Sorry to be rude, but I see 3 long posts from you, including a lot of extra links to other pages. Would you mind summarizing why you think there could be a link between the sun's activity and volcano eruptions? (Because I am far too lazy to read all that, sorry!).

 

Maybe you explain the topic for the thread within like 1-2 sentences, and then you can expand with background info?

Edited February 13, 2012 by CaptainPanic

[Temporocitor]

It would be nice if you START a thread with such a comment... not put it in the 3rd post, in the middle.

 

Sorry to be rude, but I see 3 long posts from you, including a lot of extra links to other pages. Would you mind summarizing why you think there could be a link between the sun's activity and volcano eruptions? (Because I am far too lazy to read all that, sorry!).

 

Maybe you explain the topic for the thread within like 1-2 sentences, and then you can expand with background info?

 

 

IMO... the localized glaciation of the Rocky Mountains, basically on the same tome as Western Europe, perhaps some oscillation in that, should Yellowstone become subject to another maunder minimum, only localized, it is possible the caldera's plate could fracture more and sprout new geisers. Any thoughts to fail this? If that is possible, could this runaway?

 

 

 

 

The Maunder Minimum is the key that relates this to solar activity. We are essentially discussing how weather might affect the supervolcano, but deeper is how the solar wind affects the weather. Panaceae breaks out in the presence of not enough information far more than too much.

 

The Caldera was discovered in 1870 during the war. What has been eluding me is the closest date to the discovery of the park and its geisers.

[JustinW]

IMO... the localized glaciation of the Rocky Mountains, basically on the same tome as Western Europe, perhaps some oscillation in that, should Yellowstone become subject to another maunder minimum, only localized, it is possible the caldera's plate could fracture more and sprout new geisers. Any thoughts to fail this? If that is possible, could this runaway?

No it stands to reason that ice can break fissures into a rock basin by freezing and expanding, I'm not quite sure what you're trying to learn here though. The history of the caldera can be followed by it's path through the continent. The hot spot has stayed in the same place while the continent above has moved over it. I'm just not sure what kind of history you are looking for. You can find the dates of eruption easy enough, but I would think that a connection to solar activity would be a little harder to come by. I don't believe there would be any solar data to compare to that far back. The closest you might come is in weather conditions at the time and possible solar causes for those weather conditions, but I doubt you could find anything beyond speculative.

[Temporocitor]

No it stands to reason that ice can break fissures into a rock basin by freezing and expanding, I'm not quite sure what you're trying to learn here though. The history of the caldera can be followed by it's path through the continent. The hot spot has stayed in the same place while the continent above has moved over it. I'm just not sure what kind of history you are looking for. You can find the dates of eruption easy enough, but I would think that a connection to solar activity would be a little harder to come by. I don't believe there would be any solar data to compare to that far back. The closest you might come is in weather conditions at the time and possible solar causes for those weather conditions, but I doubt you could find anything beyond speculative.

 

And you might be right, still we agree that ice could break the basin into new fissures. From what I've read the YVO has determined an associated body of water further beyond the mountain ranges that are part of the caldera. It has also been determined the mantle plume beneath it is larger than originally thought. The concern I have is in the case that the basin "lid" breaks enough to allow continual springs at that elevation. I don't know how familiar you are with fluid dynamics and specifically syphoning, such as occurs in your toilet if perhaps the basement floods to just below the level of its flange. It wouild seem that the sources for such new springs would come from the aquifers and underground waterways that are connected to the caldera and would flood the lower basins of Wyoming till they overflowed and headed east.. Not only that, but how much of a heat sink is realized through these waterway connections. With the water above ground instead of beneath, it would seem the new imbalance would tend to heat up the caldera even more.

Edited February 13, 2012 by Temporocitor

[JustinW]

maybe. I never thought about any type of syphoning effect that could result. It would have to have the right circumstance to create such an effect, but could probably be stopped with relative ease depending on the specific circumstances. I think that we could catch such a problem pretty quickly, though I don't know what effect the blasting would do to the caldera itself. To stop something of that magnitude would take nothing short of blasting.

[Temporocitor]

maybe. I never thought about any type of syphoning effect that could result. It would have to have the right circumstance to create such an effect, but could probably be stopped with relative ease depending on the specific circumstances. I think that we could catch such a problem pretty quickly, though I don't know what effect the blasting would do to the caldera itself. To stop something of that magnitude would take nothing short of blasting.

 

 

I doubt if the DNR or EPA would allow blasting there. On top of that, it would, as is generally the case on this planet, be a corrective action not a preventative.

 

So far we have consensus in two members that it could syphon. I tend to think the centrifugal force of the planet's rotation would also be a major force in water bubbling out from underground sources.

 

One question I've been looking into is "exactly how much water is under the surface that could be cast or syphoned up and over the caldera?" I looked at some of the water maps from the usgs a couple years ago, but that was for different purposes. I've reached a dead end trying to find the same maps online. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places... not using the right key words...

[Temporocitor]

Whether one actually reviews these, especially the wiki article on "The Little Ice Age," the dates in that article are important because they link sunspot activity, or inactivity, to the planet's climate. The evidence also tends to link our own magnetosphere's geometry to our climate, thus the concern over Yellowstone's Caldera. Since the only "time machine" we have is the records of sedementation, CO2 in glacial ice, elevations of mountain ice bases, how much, how cold and when, for instance. How do we come up with some sort of predictability over potential hazards such as the Yellowstone Caldera? Are we all still that primative in our ability to compare evidence that all we can say is "I don't know?"

 

 

maunder minimum

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum

 

　

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

 

　

 

It is conventionally defined as a period extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries,[3]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-Lamb1972-3"[4]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-4"[5] though climatologists and historians working with local records no longer expect to agree on either the start or end dates of this period, which varied according to local conditions. NASA defines the term as a cold period between 1550 AD and 1850 AD and notes three particularly cold intervals: one beginning about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850, each separated by intervals of slight warming.[6] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describes areas affected by the LIA:

 

Evidence from mountain glaciers does suggest increased glaciation in a number of widely spread regions outside Europe prior to the 20th century, including Alaska, New Zealand and Patagonia. However, the timing of maximum glacial advances in these regions differs considerably, suggesting that they may represent largely independent regional climate changes, not a globally-synchronous increased glaciation. Thus current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this time frame, and the conventional terms of "Little Ice Age" and "Medieval Warm Period" appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries... [Viewed] hemispherically, the "Little Ice Age" can only be considered as a modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere during this period of less than 1°C relative to late 20th century levels.[7]

 

　

 

　The above is from the wiki article. Red areas are accented to point out how the evidence is relevant to what is happening today.

 

http://www.iceagenow.com/Earth_may_enter_a_Little_Ice_Age_within_a_decade.htm

 

http://thedragonstales.blogspot.com/2012/02/volcanoes-not-maunder-minimum-caused.html

 

 

[Temporocitor]

It appears we have another flare developing... this ios unexpected.

[JustinW]

Sorry dude, I still don't see any connection between weather and caldera activity. What effects can weather have on a caldera? It's not like a lightning strike to Mt. St Helens will set off an eruption, or a solar flare for that matter either. From what I've heard is that the yellowstone caldera erupts roughly every 600,000 years or so. Times up! May be an explanation for the recent uprise in activity.

Edited March 2, 2012 by JustinW

[Ophiolite]

If you look hard enough and ignore enough contrary evidence and scale up minor effects without justification and confuse causation with correlation and abuse terminology and conflate analogy with reality then you might just have a sliver of a case.

 

(Since you already mistakenly thought you had genuine support for your siphoning concept let me be clear: the above sentence was an indictment of your thesis, not a giving of guarded support.)

[JustinW]

I agree that there really hasn't been any genuine support for the siphoning case either. I was mildly entertaining the idea for the simple fact that some funny s**t happened to me not too long ago. We were in the process of filling a holding pond with water when the discharge side of our pipe broke off at the pump. It was toward the end of the day so we decided to knock off for the day while our pipe drained to allow us to fix it. We didn't even think about the end of the pipe being submerged in the pond causing a siphoning effect. By the time we got back, we had all but drained a 5 acre, 15 foot deep pond. The explanation for that one didn't go over to well.

[DrRocket]

Bob Smith is an expert on this subject. See his web page,and the links contained there.

 

http://www.uusatrg.utah.edu/RBSMITH/public_html/rbs-home.index.html

 

 

[Temporocitor]

I agree that there really hasn't been any genuine support for the siphoning case either. I was mildly entertaining the idea for the simple fact that some funny s**t happened to me not too long ago. We were in the process of filling a holding pond with water when the discharge side of our pipe broke off at the pump. It was toward the end of the day so we decided to knock off for the day while our pipe drained to allow us to fix it. We didn't even think about the end of the pipe being submerged in the pond causing a siphoning effect. By the time we got back, we had all but drained a 5 acre, 15 foot deep pond. The explanation for that one didn't go over to well.

 

I've been out of touch with this thread for a bit... no Mitt Rmney jokes on that either

 

I've been asking around for opinions in different ways about this and the most who I actually end up having something resembling scientific con fabbing with (a couple others :eyeroll: ) to exchange info, seem to find some consensus in centrifugal force versus siphoning that feeds the caldera at nominally 10,000 ft. One bit of data was the depth of brine and depth of the water sources ranging from 1.5 to 3 miles deep. The maximum freeze depth would be around 4500 ft. That surprised me. I was actually using 100 feet deep as my floor. Even 1000 ft being deep frozen for a couple years even would be capable of causing further fracturing. The park didn't just pop up in 1823. Assuming the consensus is correct that the basin has gone through fracturing for millions of years, we also know it didn't simply happen 2 or 200 million years years ago then stop. The last known eruption was around 70,000 years ago. There would certainly be a great deal more fracturing going on not unlike we frack for gas and deep well water, only the expansion be carried out by freezing instead of chemical reactions. The deeper the water veins run, for the longer the period, the deeper the divergence point of the fractures. Crazy as it may sound, an ice vein left in deep freeze long enough could drill deeply while being compressed at the deeper depth. Wouldn't that tend to produce compressed deuterium over a long period of just such deep freeze?