'We're All Goners If This Thing Blows....'

[Panther_99FS]

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/supervolcano/supervolcano.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/01/110119-yellowstone-park-supervolcano-eruption-magma-science/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1350123/Worlds-largest-volcano-Yellowstone-National-Park-wipe-thirds-US.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43329798/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/keeping-eye-yellowstones-supervolcano/

[Cag40Navy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH7qq7OjJO8

i think that sums it up well.

[Naismith]

Not me, I have an aluminum hat.

[stansdds]

I think it's not a question of "if", but of "when" it blows. I have no control over it, so I will continue in my daily life, blissfully unaware of the doom that may come to me tomorrow.

Zombie apocalypse, however, I am preparing for.:icon_lol: :icon_lol:

[Dain Arns]

Not doubting it, but they've been saying that since the early 70's, when I was a kid sitting at Ranger fireside chats within the Park.
I've heard from 50 years to a few thousand years, from all at once, to decades of volcanic activity.
Depends on which expert.

That thermal hotspot is currently sliding underneath a fairly thick mountain range, the Absarokas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absaroka_Range
Beautiful mountain range too. Already has some dormant volcanoes within it.
It'll only add pressure as it continues under the Absarokas.
Then, "POP"!

If you look closely at the center of this pic, you see where it looks like someone has run their finger along and smudged out a bunch of mountains like a smile.
That is where the continent has run over the hotspot, and its removed all those mountain ranges over the past few million years.
Yellowstone is on the right end of the smile.

55256

Someday the continent will slide far enough, that Billings Montana is projected to be within that thermal zone.
But not in anyone's lifetime who is reading this currently.

So if its not the Yellowstone Thermal Hotspot that gets you, still got Mt. Rainier in the Cascades, Asteroids, Comets, Mexican Drug Cartel, Terrorists, Cancer, Heart Attack, that stupid teenage kid down the street with his over-tuned riceburner...

[EMatheson]

Yellowstone won't blow up anytime soon. After the last few explosions, the crust left over is too thin to hold sufficent pressure to cause another big one. All that heat and pressure is instead relieved by the huge number of geothermal features in the park. If it ever does erupt, it'll be a small thing. I'd be more worried about the motion of the hotspot to other locations - which itself is going to take several million years before said motion begins to pose a hazard. Yellowstone, though, is not the only potential super-volcano in the US - check out this one, which hasn't erupted recently in any meaningful way:
----->>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Valley_Caldera

[SSI01]

Tell the author of the cover piece that it's "VULCANISM," not "VOLCANISM."

Not something I'm going to be sitting up nights worrying about, although sometimes I feel so old and tired I'd swear I've been around for some of the things described as already happening in that area.:kilroy:

[Dain Arns]

Yellowstone won't blow up anytime soon. After the last few explosions, the crust left over is too thin to hold sufficent pressure to cause another big one. All that heat and pressure is instead relieved by the huge number of geothermal features in the park. If it ever does erupt, it'll be a small thing. I'd be more worried about the motion of the hotspot to other locations - which itself is going to take several million years before said motion begins to pose a hazard. Yellowstone, though, is not the only potential super-volcano in the US - check out this one, which hasn't erupted recently in any meaningful way:
----->>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Valley_Caldera

Exactly. You said it better than I did.
It has to slip under the Absaroka Range to get that pressure.
That's not going to happen in any of our lifetimes.

[SpitXIV]

Check out this map.

http://www.timeline2012.net/timeline-2012/future-maps

scroll down.