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mikeodds

Yellowstone supervolcano eruption https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/yellowstone-vol...

pros:

- band aid on global temperatures

- interested in any others commenters may know of

cons:

- several states getting reset

- volcanic ash covering the North American bread basket

- pretty long list really

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I do not have links for you, but the last time I checked there was a general consensus among the majority of scientists that given the low percentage of molten lava in the upper chamber and low percentage of molten magma in the lower chamber we would have at least 10K years of low probability of a VEI 8 eruption. An eruption currently may damage part of the park from low basaltic flows and part of the park would be shut down. Should that happen it may impact the park's tourist revenue but the governor is working on diversifying the states income. The risk level of eruption was a decision making factor in my moving so close to Yellowstone.

Thanks, it does look a great part of the world to live in.

I’ve taken liquefaction maps into account previously when finding places to live, but not had to look up magma chamber reports yet.

My only concern is flood plains. I had 8' of water in my basement at the first house I lived in. Technically not in a flood plain but close enough to a river. Never again.

8 '!

How high were your basement ceilings - was there any breathing room at all?

Yeah: common risks across a neighbourhood will usually lead to severe problems trying to claim your cover. And subsequent property resale issues: if insurance is unavailable, a mortgage is unavailable; if a home can't get a mortgage then you can only sell for cash at extreme discounts.

Avoid risky areas unless you can afford to lose your home.

Lots of people in Australia got caught out during floods, in part due to unobvious exclusions. https://mdlaw.com.au/news-insights/flood-insurance-australia...

In my city Christchurch, an earthquake led to problems for many many people.

>Should that happen it may impact the park's tourist revenue but the governor is working on diversifying the states income.

Oh no! Wyoming might lose 0.007% of their GDP. I hope the governor can save them in time!

If you want to worry, worry about Newberry.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newberry_Volcano

There truly is a website for everything:

https://hypotheticalvolcanoes.fandom.com/wiki/2081_Eruption_...

I’ll be sure to give it a wide berth in 2081

I go to Paulina Lake every year. It's a glorious place, even with all the geological activity.

Hey, I live right there, and just hiked it a couple months ago! I didn't realize it was still active (dormant?). Kinda cool to think about.

If it goes boom, I'll try to take pics and report back.

"If it goes boom, I'll try to take pics and report back."

Better do a livestream then, in case we cannot recover your camera/mobile.

2124 Show HN: I found a GoPro buried in lava from the GPT era

A fair bit of the rich soil in the mid west, west, and north west are from previous volcanic eruptions. Substantial areas have 1 meter or more of high quality soil, which we are squandering by over watering, overly intense agriculture, not preventing erosion, and using too much fertilizer.

Not only is fertilizer very energy intensive to produce, it also contributes to de-oxygenation of lakes, rivers, and the ocean. It's no exaggeration that this might well end civilization on earth. If we lose the oceans (which are already becoming oxygen depleted) it's going to be that much harder to feed everyone.

So I'd consider volcanic ash a pro, not a con. Sure we might lose a single growing season, but could help us for centuries, if properly managed.

Fertilizer isn't just energy intensive, the phosphorus part of it is non renewable. We get it from mining, there are limited deposits, the process of building the deposits happens on geological timescales. My hope is that the running out will be a slow process that comes with a slow price increase so people are eventually incentivized to find alternatives.

Also, the mining process leaves very toxic tailings, but that is true for most mining.

Eventually we'll be mining average crustal rock for phosphorus, at 0.1% concentration, as well as recycling phosphate-containing wastes back to soils. It could be the mineral that sets the minimum global annual mined volume after fossil fuels are done (those currently dominate, ignoring such things as gravel and ground water.)

On the positive side, I believe most phosphate fertilizer is not immediately absorbed by plants, but instead goes into forming relatively insoluble phosphates in the soil (phosphate fertilizer is formed by solubilizing phosphate minerals by treatment with large amounts of acid). This forms a phosphate bank in the soil. Over time, if I understand correctly the residual solubility of these minerals (especially under the influence of organic acids secreted by plant roots) will reduce the need for additional phosphate additions, assuming the soil doesn't erode away.

Volcanic ash is extremely acidic, you will lose more than just a single growing season.

It also pulverized rock and volcanic glass, which causes all manner of hell when the wind blows.

pros:

- volcanic ash would replenish the NA bread basket soil erosion

Yellowstone will not explode and end civilization (or American civilization for that matter) in many many lifetimes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypn3Fe_PLts

cons:

- would set back solar adoption

Supervolcano for the president! Vote for TRUE destruction!

If Yellowstone blew up like it has before, human civilization would end as would our contribution to global warming. More than a band-aid!

As far as I remember, the caldera erupting is not an extinction level event (for humans at least)... would be bad for sure, but southern hemisphere would manage I think

Depending on size, duration and prevailing winds, there's a pretty good chance the EU would be fine. Even parts of the USA could survive!

I wouldn’t say “fine”. It would be a year without summer, and the loss of life due to starvation would be rather severe.

Would starvation be a problem? Don't most countries have food reserves for these cases? At least enough food for one season?

Ha ha ha ha ha where is the profit in that?

You are unsure where is profit in having alive workers/military/etc?

Leftist radical.

Having a supply of something that is suddenly supply constrained is pretty much a literal definition of how to make a profit. No need for a ??? step on that one. Of course you will take a storage cost loss for potentially thousands of years first.

We didn't have toilet paper because some people freaked out, you think there's a maintained warehouse of perishable supplies? Or just a big vault of cans somewhere?

No, nations do not have the means to feed their constituents in a nation ending disaster. It's easy to move food from Florida to California in a state sized crises, but the logistics of maintaining a just in case food supply for hundreds of millions distributed around the country? It's a safer bet to assume you'd die in the disaster than to convince people to plan for the future.

I find this result in researching many things. For instance in nuclear armageddon, the southern hemisphere is relatively ok, temperature and fallout wise. Wondering if I should move there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1bvy6sz/by_popular...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(novel)

https://youtu.be/dNNsahI49IE?si=vOfeEnlbSH6SS1QU

Ok, but it did just blow up a little.

That was just blowing off a little steam, right? Not a multi-mile caldera explosion

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