HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
June 9, 2009 You know how it goes: the more we fret about global financial collapse, the more we save. Consequently, the economy plummets to the very portals of hell, we lose our jobs, and before you know it our savings are gone, and the only bank we visit anymore is the one that hands out free Twinkies., The way we stop this vicious downward spiral is to start spending like crazy again. This, we are taught by our trusted economic advisers, is the paradox of thrift—one of their more devious ways of shifting blame back to the victim. Should we therefore liquidate what’s left of our now pitiful retirement savings and the kids’ college fund and buy more cheap stuff from China for the greater good? Well, of course not. No, we would need a reason far more compelling than mere altruism. How about something fueled by monumental greed or fear; something truly apocalyptic, perhaps; something all too scary and believable. Have you ever wondered about all that mud and hot water bubbling up in Yellowstone National Park, not to mention the geysers? We tend to think of the park as an ancient volcano that let’s off a steam once in a while. Well, yes, it is, and it does. Recent science, however, may well persuade you it’s time to reach for those withdrawal slips. After all, what’s the point of having money in the bank if money just went out of fashion?. Not to be alarmist, but when Yellowstone next erupts we could well be looking at a genuine extinction event (notice, I didn’t say, if). Reliable indicators tell us the fourth Yellowstone calamity is seriously overdue. For relatively minor events, like Pompeii, the time interval between eruptions can range from a few decades to many centuries. The bigger the blast, the longer you have to wait. When it comes to Yellowstone, you have to think back three million years or so to get the big picture. Back then, long before you had to pay to get in, it seems the young continent shifted and tore a hole in the earth’s crust. The tear went from somewhere east of Salt Lake City all the way past Bozeman, Montana. Think of it as a cistern, except that it didn’t fill with water. For more than half a million years, magma seeped in. When the ‘cistern’ was full, the magma was forced to go elsewhere or blow the lid off. The magma boiling beneath Yellowstone had nowhere to go but up, and it so happened Yellowstone is where the crust is at its thinnest. Experts describe the subsequent event as mega-colossal. Bear in mind, mega-colossal is at least ten times more powerful than super-colossal, which is ten times bigger than colossal, which is ten times bigger than mere paroxysmal (e.g., Mount Saint Helens), which is ten times bigger than cataclysmic, which brings us back to Pompeii. The experts can only estimate the magnitude of a mega-colossal because they have no way of knowing the full extent of the blast. It goes without saying that anybody unlucky enough to survive the last one would hardly have wandered about clutching a measuring stick and notebook—quite the bummer for precise science you might say. Not to mention, writing hadn’t been invented yet. In any case, once you reach mega-colossal it doesn’t much matter how big the thing is, does it? The term ultra-mega-colossal would be academic, to say the least. Apparently, it took around six hundred thousand years before the lid first blew off the park. We say, apparently, because we know it took six hundred thousand years to fill up the hole again. After the second event, another six hundred thousand years passed before the third incident. Number three happened six hundred and forty thousand years ago. Is that sufficient cause for alarm? Maybe not, but consider this: earlier this year an unprecedented swarm of near-surface tremors prompted the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO) to suspend its daily report of seismic activity in the park. The Yellowstone caldera (a ginormous crater left by the last eruption) is swelling at a rate that has been increasing steadily in recent years. To quote from the YVO web site: The general uplift of the Yellowstone caldera is scientifically interesting and will continue to be monitored closely by YVO staff. Really! So, assuming number four happens, what might we expect? First, there will be massive outpourings of lava and volcanic ash, which might last for hours, days, or even weeks; we don’t know. Then you will get the absolute mother of all eruptions—they don’t come any bigger. Billions of tons of ash particles and sulfuric acid droplets will spread across the upper atmosphere. Global telecommunications will shut down: no more Direct TV, no more GPS, and no more Monday Night Football. Soon, all of that ash will come back down. It will stay dark for at least a year in affected regions. Temperatures may drop anywhere from five to fifteen degrees worldwide. Before long, secondary effects such as widespread famine and the collapse of civilizations will contribute to the end of all life as we know it.. For example, some seventy three thousand years ago, a similar eruption took place at Lake Toba in Sumatra. Experts calculate that less than 10,000 of the planet’s human mating couples survived, possible as few as 1,000. Yellowstone will be at least as destructive – probably more so when you factor in global interdependence. Think of it: no more shipping, no more air travel, NO MORE TEXTING, no more technology, no more industrialized anything – including agriculture. And when all that ash starts to fall, the greatest horror of all. You see, volcanic ash is essentially ground glass. When you breathe in the ash, it shreds your lungs. Within a few months, you will be coughing up a gray sludge. Shortly thereafter, you will drown in your own blood. In case you’re interested, the condition is known as Marie’s disease. Check it out.
Now, this is of course, a vastly over-simplified primer, and you may or may not be persuaded there is cause for alarm. |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
