The Most Dangerous Volcano In America Is Roaring To Life

When Yellowstone Explodes
Beneath Yellowstone Park a monstrous plume of hot rock is causing the earth to heave and tremble. Past volcanoes have erupted with a thousand times the power of Mount St. Helens. The future is anybody’s guess.
By Joel Achenbach
Art by Hernán Cañellas
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, scrambled his way to the summit of Mount Washburn above the Yellowstone River. Looking to the south, he noticed that something was missing from a stretch of the Rocky Mountains: mountains. For miles and miles, the only elevations were in the distance, forming parentheses around a huge forested basin. Doane saw only one way to explain the void. "The great basin," he wrote, "has been formerly one vast crater of a now extinct volcano."

The lieutenant was right: Yellowstone is a volcano, and not just any volcano. The oldest, most famous national park in the United States sits squarely atop one of the biggest volcanoes on Earth. Doane was wrong, however, in one crucial respect. Yellowstone's volcano is not extinct. To an unsettling degree, it is very much alive.

Under Yellowstone — National Geographic Magazine

 

When they said it would potentially render 2/3rds of the US inhabitable, do they mean permanently or temporarily?

Did some research on 'The Year Without A Summer' that took place in the 1800s due to a similar event, growing food would be a challenge because if the ash in the sky is not letting enough sun through, plants that require lots will not survive. This is one advantage to our current state of technology with being able to use gro-lights. The air quality however is a big problem. Having forest fires nearby with the smoke was bad enough, but that would be like a gecko to Yellowstone's 'Godzilla'. One of the guys on Doomsday Preppers, that was his diaster he's preparing for(only mentioning DP again because it has a good effect on my mother, it reminds her we are really needing to be so much more prepared than we are...I gotta find my list of what we need to stock up on).

 

Time to stock up on marshmallows and hotdogs. And some really long sticks...

Probably start a new homesteading movement......

Park would no longer be closed by armed guards when government shuts down for a much needed rest.....

Isn't ash supposed to be very good for growing things?....

Global warming my a$$.......

Geothermal heating source just went into mass marketing.....

Local hunting species (herds) would grow greatly in size, as animals leave that region......

Ten foot of ash? Teamsters and heavy equipment operators should be working overtime, and at increased rates. Get that licence now.....

Lots of free firewood, help yourself......

 

Oh and of course also reduced sunlight would hamper solar powered systems as well, so other means of electricity would be advisable.

 

And the mice admire the wire sculptures scattered about as well....

 

Have been thinking about this since I first heard that the ground on the north side of yellowstone lake was rising.. I moved north and west for a start. I know it's no garontee of safety, but.... May want to think more in terms of a nuke accident and the long term needs that would present.. And lots of grow lights!

 

After research was done on the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens, volcanic geological timetables came into doubt. However that said if things are happening much more quickly than the steady state geologist surmised then we are very overdue for a Yellowstone Cook Off. Link to some interesting info from the University of Utah.

 

I believe those of us West of Jellystone would be safe from the immediate effects of the ash. We would be overwhelmed by evacuees, California especially. The global cooling afterwards would be a problem for us as well. You know the .gov would throw the flyover states under the bus and write them off. Foodstuffs would get real scarce without the Great Plains. Not sure if I could count on the Pineapple Express to keep us warm enough to keep the garden going. I could see the .gov confiscating rural and suburban property West of the Rockies for centrally controlled crop programs. At least the Oglalla Aquifer could recharge for a little while.

 

Naw, California would drop off. Taking maximum Obama voters with it. Let's move them all there!

 

nah, a show of obama's solidarity troops on the caldera. Free camping for all of them.

 

Way west of there, yes.. Then there is the ballistic damage from all the debrie thrown "up" by the eruption.. How far out that would extend, as well as how deep you could expect it to penetrate back into the earth, is the question that really needs to be answered.. Prep like you expect a nuke attack.
True that the .gov would come trottin in to "save" all the survivors .. Save them for work camps maybe..

 

Let it leak out that there is a golf course at the rockafellers ranch just outside yellowstone.. Just before it go's off..

 

oh nuevo mexico atleast your clean filtered water that supplies most of the west will be safe.....

 

I have seen only one volcano, Mt. Redoubt across the Kenai, Enough to make a believer out of me !

 

Been in and through yellowstone a few times and it will make an impression when you reolise just how big it is.. But then it is a volcano without the mountain parts..

 

And then it could go on just as it has for thousands of years. Why worry about things we have no control of. Do what we can do with what we have. There have been many eruptions around the globe that did nothing other than spew ash, spit lava, and do a bit of mountain building. Most of the islands in the Pacific are from volcanoes. Long as it is venting there should be no problem--when it is contained (like powder in a rifle bullet) is when the danger rises. That is when the top of the mt blows off. Look at the Uwharrie mts--oldest in the US--used to be the tallest but now not much more than big rolling hills. Things change, the earth goes on, and this too will fade away in a few more thousand years---if it doesn't blow--lol.