Global Warming Deniers Find Comfort in Geophysical Meetings PaperA paper presented at the American Geophysical Union is one of the few papers, if any, you will see mentioned on Fox News. The story claims that volcanoes under the ice sheet in Greenland are melting the ice cap. This could be an alternative explanation for what others see as global warming.The truth? Research has shown that there is a correlation between how thick the Earth’s crust is across Greenland, and how thick the Ice cap is, adjusting for various factors. Thinner crust is overlain by thinner ice. The idea is that geothermal effects … not volcanos (though that is possible, it is unlikely) contribute to ice sheet thickness.
Tag Archives: Earth Science
Debate Emerging on Origin of Giant’s Causeway
The rock formation depicted here is believed to have been built by the giant Fin McCool (a.k.a. Fionn Mac Cumhaill) as a causeway to Scotland allowing the giant Benandonner to cross over so the two could engage in a competition of strength. However, a newly formed group called the “Causeway Creation Committee” now asserts that the rock formation is the result of the Noachian Flood.From the Causeway Creation Committee’s web site: Continue reading Debate Emerging on Origin of Giant’s Causeway
Larry Brilliant: The case for informed optimism
Google.org director Larry Brilliant uses a clip from an old Frank Capra movie to show that we’ve known about global warming for 50 years — yet in half a century, we’ve done almost nothing to solve it. He explores this and other megatrends that could inspire pessimism. But, he says, there is a more powerful case for optimism.
Fossilized Food Chain
One time I found an intact skeleton of a large python that had eaten an antelope, but died with the antelope still inside. Cool. But this is even cooler:
Continue reading Fossilized Food Chain
John Doerr: Seeking salvation and profit in greentech
Cyclone Sidr is now a Category Five
The situation, as predicted by, it seems, very few people, has worsened in the Indian Ocean. Cyclone Sidr is heading straight north, expected to strike land east of Calcutta, on the coast of Bangledesh, in several hours from now. This is a low-lying area that will undoubtedly be flooded very badly.
This may be the worst case scenario for hurricanes on this planet. Continue reading Cyclone Sidr is now a Category Five
The Yellowstone Problem
As you have surely heard, the Yellowstone Caldera … the place where Old Faithful and the Geyser Basin reside … has been undergoing increased “activity” including some earthquakes and a rising up of the land. Is this a big problem? Should the evacuate? Should those of us living only a few states away start wearing earplugs?
The paper reporting this, in the current issue of Science, concludes:
The caldera-wide accelerated uplift reported here is interpreted as magmatic recharge of the Yellowstone magma body. Although the geodetic observations and models do not imply an impending volcanic eruption or hydrothermal explosion, they are important evidence of ongoing processes of a large caldera that was produced by a super volcano eruption.
A little vague. I’m pretty sure, from my reading of this paper, that there is not a major imminent danger. But it is interesting to contemplate the magnitude of these things.
This volcano, the volcano we affectionately know as “Yellowstone National Park” (the caldera takes up something like a third of the park area, and is entirely enclosed within it) last erupted in a big way about 600,000 years ago. That was the third in a series of “giant eruptions.” Subsequently, there were several smaller volcanic eruptions, the most recent being about 70,000 years ago.A caldera is a hole left behind when a very large and explosive volcano blows everything out more or less at once. As calderas go, Yellowstone is on the list of the largest known. Here is a rough outline of the Yellowstone Caldera very approximately superimposed over New York City:
Here is a little historical perspective, a list of exenmlar volcanic eruptions of this type (leaving a big caldera, ejecting lots of stuff).
- Tambora, Indonesia
- 192 years ago, a mere 30 or 40 square km in area, ejected about 100 cubic km of stuff.
- (About ten other similar sized eruptions have happened during the last 10,000 years, Tambora possibly being the largest.)
- Toba, Sumatra
- 71,000 years ago, about 3,500 square km in area, ejected about 2800 cubic km.
- Yellowstone
- 600,000 years ago about 4,000 square km in area, about 1,000 cubic km ejected.
- La Garita, Colorado
- 28,000,000 years ago, about 2,600 square km in area, about 5,000 cubic km ejected (possibly the largest volume of any known volcano)
- So, as you can see, the Yellowstone Volcano was a doozie. Comparatively speaking._______________Source:
Chang, W., Smith, RB., Wicks, C. et al.. (2007). Accelerated uplift and magmatic intrusion of the yellowstone caldera, 2004 to 2006.. Science 318, 952-956.