Yellowstone: A MONSTER THAT COULD DESTROY LIFE ON EARTH AWAKENS?

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A MONSTER THAT COULD DESTROY LIFE ON EARTH AWAKENSPosted By: IanGurneyWednesday, 10 September 2003, 7:11 p.m.A Monster Awakens?by Ian Gurney.Published in the UK Daily Express. 10th. September 2003."In the heart of America lies a monster that could destroy life on earth."Part of America's Yellowstone National Park was closed to visitors on July23rd. this year and remains closed today due to high ground temperatures andincreased thermal activity in the park. National Park Superintendent SuzanneLewis said that "A portion of the Norris Geyser Basin on the west side ofthe park has been closed."*On August 7th. the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported thatscientists were planning to set up a temporary network of seismographs,Global Positioning System receivers and thermometers to monitor increasinghydrothermal activity in the Norris Geyser Basin and gauge the risk of ahydrothermal explosion.**On August 10th. the Denver Post reported that Liz Morgan, a U.S. GeologicalSurvey research geologist had discovered a huge bulge underneath YellowstoneLake that had risen 100 feet from the lake floor. The bulge is two thousandfeet long and has the potential to explode at any time. Morgan was quoted assaying that "The inflated plain is a potential and serious hazard andpossible precursor to a large hydrothermal explosion event."***Then, on August 24th. The University of Utah Seismograph Station reportedthat a magnitude 4.4 earthquake occurred just 9 miles southeast of thesouthern entrance to Yellowstone National Park. USGS scientists agreed thatthe earthquake was "uncommon" in that it was a very shallow earthquake,occuring just 0.3 miles below the surface.****Jacob Lowenstern, a researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey andscientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory said: "Our goalis to understand what's driving this volcanic system, and are thereindications it could be moving into a period of unrest?"*****This worrying situation was confirmed on September 8th. by Dr. Bruce Cornet,a geologist and paleobotanist with the USGS, who explained: "Steam pressureis apparently building again in Yellowstone, and hydrothermal fluids andsteam are working their way up through fractures and vents. If more steamvents appear, that means a continuous pathway for pressure release has beenestablished to the magma chamber. If that happens, the pressure in the magmachamber will continue to drop until it reaches a critical stage when thesuperheated water within the magma explodes. Unfortunately, as the steamventing subsides, there will be a false sense of security. People will thinkit was just another cyclical event, and the danger is over. But that will bethe farthest from the truth. It will be the quiet before the storm."******Initially this should be of little or no consequence to anyone apart fromthose planning to visit Yellowstone.....................except for onething. Lurking beneath Yellowstone National Park is one of the mostdestructive natural phenomena in the world - a massive supervolcano.Only a handful exist in the world but when one erupts the explosion will beheard around the globe. The sky will darken, black acid rain will fall, andthe Earth will be plunged into the equivalent of a nuclear winter. It couldpush humanity to the brink of extinction.Volcanoes have always been a threat to humanity. The Tambora eruption inIndonesia in 1815 killed more than 90,000 people, while the Krakataueruption in 1883, also in Indonesia, killed 36,000. The last supervolcano toerupt was Toba in Sumatra 74,000 years ago. It created a global catastrophethat dramatically affected life on Earth. Toba blasted so much ash andsulphur dioxide into the stratosphere that it blocked out the sun, causingthe Earth's temperature to plummet, and possibly reducing the population onEarth to just a few thousand people. For a long time scientists have knownthat volcanic ash can affect the global climate. The fine ash and sulphurdioxide blasted into the stratosphere reflects solar radiation back intospace and stops sunlight reaching the planet. Temperatures drop dramaticallyand nothing grows, causing mass starvation.Bill McGuire, professor of geohazards at the Benfield Greig Hazard ResearchCentre at University College London, says that America's Yellowstone Park isone of the largest and most dangerous supervolcanoes in the world. "TheYellowstone volcano can be likened to a sleeping dragon," says ProfessorMcGuire, "whose slow breathing brings repeated swelling and sinking of theEarth's crust in northern Wyoming and southern Montana."Professor McGuire went on to explain that: "Many supervolcanoes are nottypical hill-shaped structures but huge, collapsed craters called "calderas"that are filled with hot magma and are harder to detect. The Yellowstonesupervolcano was detected in the Sixties when infra-red satellitephotographs revealed a magma-filled caldera 85km long and 45km wide. It hasbeen on a regular eruption cycle of 600,000 years. The last eruption was640,000 years ago, so the next is long overdue."Volcanologists have been tracking the movement of magma under the park andhave calculated that in parts of Yellowstone the ground has risen overseventy centimetres, almost two and a half feet, since 1923, indicating amassive swelling underneath the park."The impact of a Yellowstone eruption is terrifying to comprehend." saysProfessor McGuire. "Magma would be flung 50 kilometres into the atmosphere.Within a thousand kilometres virtually all life would be killed by fallingash, lava flows and the sheer explosive force of the eruption. One thousandcubic kilometres of lava would pour out of the volcano, enough to coat thewhole of the USA with a layer 5 inches thick. The explosion would be theloudest noise heard by man for 75,000 years."The long-term effects would be even more devastating. The thousands of cubickilometres of ash that would shoot into the atmosphere would block out lightfrom the sun, making global temperatures collapse. This is called a nuclearwinter. A large percentage of the world's plant life would be killed by theash and the drop in temperature. The resulting change in the world's climatewould devastate the planet, and scientists know that another eruption isdue - they just don't know when.Michael Rampino, a geologist at New York University, quoted in a BBC Horizondocumentary on Supervolcanoes******* three years ago explained: "It'sdifficult to conceive of an eruption this big. It's really not a question ofif it'll go off, it's a question of when, because sooner or later one ofthese large super eruptions will happen."Professor McGuire says "There's nowhere to hide from the effects of asupervolcano. One day - perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in fifty years, perhaps in10,000 - it will erupt; once again wreaking devastation across the NorthAmerican continent and bringing the bitter cold of Volcanic Winter to PlanetEarth. Mankind may become extinct."So the rumblings currently going on underneath Yellowstone should be awarning not just to those who plan to visit the National Park, but to thewhole world. If the increased thermal activity is the precursor to aneruption event, we may well be on the brink of the biggest catastrophe themodern world has ever witnessed.Research Links:* http://www.nps.gov/yell/press/0362.htm** http://www.nps.gov/yell/press/0373.htm **http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/new.html#bulge*** http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E53%257E1561852,00.html**** http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/monitoring.html*****http://story.news./news?tmpl=story & u=/ap/20030904/ap_on_sc/geyser_guessing******http://www.earthchangestv.com/breaking/2003/september_2003/08yellowstone.htm*******http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/1999/supervolcanoes_script.shtmlMap of Past Eruptions:http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/images/volano_lg.jpgMore information on Yellowstone Volcano:http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/new.htmlMaps and Photos:http://www.nps.gov/yell/tours/norris/index.htm© Copyright: Ian Gurney. June 2003.Ian Gurney is a journalist, broadcaster and author of the bestseller "TheCassandra Prophecy" (www.caspro.com) published by International GlobalPress. ISBN 0953581314. He can be contacted at :info