Cassi Creek: In case
the government shutdown doesn’t irritate you enough to cost sleep, there’s
always the threat of the Yellowstone Super Volcano.
The USGS has
a very competent and active volcano monitoring program to analyze the activity
of the various volcanoes in and around the U.S.
Excluding Hawaii, the biggest,
most potentially dangerous site in the nation is the Yellowstone Super
volcano. This single hot spot, ready to
ramp up and blow through is somewhat behind its estimated eruption
frequency. As with all volcanoes, it
could blow tomorrow or remain active but non-eruptive for centuries.
Yellowstone
NP, along with Grand Teton NP comprise one of the most beautiful and
fascinating places on earth Along with mud
pots, hot water springs, and other small geothermal features it also has the
greatest number of geysers of any nation on earth.
It sits atop
an enormous hotspot of magma that drives the geothermal features and which will
someday blow out the caldera once more.
When it does erupt, the face of North America will change into something
that will no longer support millions of people or be arable land.
Yellowstone,
source of one of the most massive volcanic eruptions ever to occur, is a hot
spot. It is a magma intrusion through
the planet’s crust. It is freestanding
as opposed to being located at submergence zones or along crustal rifts. It has more similarity to the Hawaiian hot
spot than to the Pacific Rim of Fire. Or the Atlantic mid-ocean riff.
Gloria and I
got some trimming accomplished today.
Dinner will be hot dogs and beans for me with bratwurst and beans for
Gloria.
No comments:
Post a Comment