Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Just what we need, a Super-Cauldera event




Yellowstone National Park in Montana is hit with nearly a DOZEN earthquakes in just 24 hours

One model for the depth of the ash field if the Yellowstone Super-Cauldera blew. For the metrically impaired, in round numbers Chicago gets a half-inch, Des Moines gets an inch, Denver gets four inches, Salt Lake City gets a foot of ash and Billings, Montana gets over three feet of ash.
Killer virus, killer hornets, riots...do you suppose Yellowstone could hold off until July? My plate is full.

5 comments:

  1. Hopefully it will wait until July. Then our corn will be tall enough it won't get buried. We might have to sweep of the rutabaga though.---ken

    ReplyDelete
  2. Is there any way to tell if these predictions are any better than the COVID ones that forecast millions of deaths?

    Right now I'm skeptical of models from any scientist ...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are worse.

      The quality of a prediction is limited by the amount of data available to support it.

      We have far more data about epidemics and pandemics than we have about volcanic events of that size. Epidemics are far more common events.

      The ash patterns were based on the ash distribution of maybe three events in North American over the last 70 million years. The ash from specific eruptions could be determined based on chemical profiles and location in geologic strata.

      Delete
  3. No ash for Maine? Once again we are left out.

    ReplyDelete

Readers who are willing to comment make this a better blog. Civil dialog is a valuable thing.