Michael Thorne a seismologist at the University of Utah uses seismic waves to study what goes on inside volcanoes, he, like hundreds of other scientists is looking for changes deep in the Earth that may point to when an eruption is likely.
Thorne is interested in super volcanoes, such as the massive sleeping giant that lies under Yellowstone National Park. Super volcanoes are nothing like the volcanoes that we have witnessed erupting so far. A super volcano spews hundreds of times more magma than a regular volcano and their eruptions can last for hundreds of years.
There is good evidence of super volcano activity in the ancient past. The Siberian Traps show prove a massive and centuries long eruption occurred at the time of the Permian extinction event. The Deccan Traps in India located on the Deccan Plateau cover an area of 500,000 square km, they formed some 60 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period.
Thorne thinks another super volcano may be rising from the superheated mantle at the center of the Earth. He has discovered two areas of magma, one of them the size of Florida, with other smaller pools around it. These huge magma lakes are moving around. They currently lie under the Pacific plate in the Samoa area. Another slightly smaller one has been found under Africa.
The eruption of a super volcano is an extinction level event and its impossible to avoid all of its effects regardless of how far from it you are. The tremendous amount of gases and ash pumped into the atmosphere during the eruption would lower global temperatures for decades. Crop growing would be challenging if not impossible and the majority of livestock would die from inhaling volcanic ash, which in reality contains enough silica to make it akin to breathing in tiny shards of glass. The ash sets like concrete in the lungs and effectively kills by suffocation.
With the huge increase we have seen in earthquake and volcanic activity recently Thornes’ research should be taken seriously. Long term survival preparations would be crucial to those who survived the initial blast from a super volcano.
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Contributed by Chris Carrington of The Daily Sheeple.
Chris Carrington is a writer, researcher and lecturer with a background in science, technology and environmental studies. Chris is an editor for The Daily Sheeple. Wake the flock up!