For those who'd like to get their minds off the War Against Islamism, and contemplate lighter fare, consider the possibility that Yellowstone could explode.

This is due any day now, geologically speaking (meaning any time from tomorrow to tens of thousands of years from now), and when it does, we won't have to worry about global warming any more--it will mean (among other things) several years of planet-wide winter, and perhaps even a return to the glacial period that we just came out of a few thousand years ago.

Try writing the environmental impact statement for blasting much of western North America with magma and ash, and then encasing Canada, much of the US, Europe, and Russia in a couple-mile thick sheet of ice...

"Try writing the environmental impact statement for blasting much of western North America with magma and ash..."
That's easy. Two words:
"We're fucked."

Heck, the entire surface of Venus, or 'sister' planet, broke up and sank into the magma about 100 million years ago (i.e., recently). I wonder if, on that day, the vesuvian trees and rocks came to life and told the vesuvian muslims where to find all the evil vesuvian jews?

Thanks, but I think I'll stick to the Islamo-assholes. They seem to be easier to deal with.

Hmm. Do the global warming folks know about this?

Who needs a stinkin impact statement. As long as it destroys all of those defilers(ie. humans) except Mother Earth's true worshippers like me.

Kook in a Tree

"So I built another surface of Venus, just to show 'em! It burned down, fell over, then sank into the magma."

Yeah, that could just ruin our day. Discovery channel did a piece on this about a year ago. The most recent "Supervolcano" was on Sumatra about 70,000 years ago, I believe even larger than the Yellowstone one. This corresponded with a fairly severe documented bottleneck in the gene pool at that time. Food for thought.

The 75,000-year-old supervolcano was Toba, which I think is at the southern tip of the Philippines.

More food for thought: two major advances in human evolution coincide roughly with the first (Huckleberry Ridge) and third (Lava Creek) Yellowstone eruptions. _Homo ergaster_ first appeared in Africa about 1.8 to 1.9 MYA, shortly after the Huckleberry Ridge blast, and the split between _Homo neandertalensis_ and _Homo sapiens_ happened around 500-600,000 years ago, right after the Lava Creek eruption.

Actually, what I find sad about this is that a science reporter can't seem to do arithmetic. 2.1 to 1.3 to 0.6 million years is not a 600,000 year cycle (even ignoring that it's not a clock, so 630,000 years in a 600,000 year cycle doesn't really qualify as "overdue")

I saw the Discovery thing to. Between this and the sun going supernova in about 3 million years, I've stopped planning for the future and am only living in the moment. Has anyone over at IndyMedia blamed the car or McDonalds or Starbucks for this yet? If not, they are getting kinda slow.

Is there any way that we could use drilling technology to create a 'relief valve' for some of the gasses building up to escape? I know that would require an even longer impact statement. Do it, or we're fucked.

Is there a connection between the recent siesmic activity around Sumatra and a possible reacurance of a supervolcanic eruption there at lake Toba?