Would a super volcano eruption wipe us out?

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xenoview's picture
Would a super volcano eruption wipe us out?

Throughout our planet’s history, massive volcanic eruptions have devastated life. Could one bring an end to human civilisation?

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170724-would-a-supervolcano-eruption-w...

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watchman's picture
Only a matter of time ,I fear

Only a matter of time ,I fear.... a matter of WHEN...not IF ...

Look at the problems the recent Icelandic volcano (Eyjafjallajökull) caused northern Europe...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_eruptions_of_Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull

and that was small and short lived... so at the very least we are looking at the end of this period of our civilisation .... maybe an extinction if a super volcano erupts..... and there is not a damned thing we can do about it.

Randomhero1982's picture
I would feel reasonably

I would feel reasonably confident in saying 100% yes we will be devastated as a species in the not to distant future by mother nature.

I work as a seismic engineer and have done deployments and data analysis for various places that are in severe danger of causing huge problems.

The trench on the coast of La Palma in the canary islands, when it goes the resulting tsunami could potentially be catastrophic.
Also the super volcanos such as the one at Yellowstone could wipe us off the face of the earth.

Luckily though we can just use Ken Ham's arķ!

algebe's picture
There have been several super

There have been several super-volcano eruptions during the lifetime of homo sapiens. They've caused massive climate change and population decline, but we've always bounced back. Our modern civilization would take a beating, but I think we'd get through. What I'm less sure about is whether we'd rely on science and technology to save us, or turn to religious fundamentalism and wind up kneeling in prayer as the hot ash turns us into Pompeii figures.

Those of you thinking of fleeing to New Zealand to escape the Trumpocracy should consider that two of the biggest eruptions in our species history occurred in the central North Island near Lake Taupo. The last one was 1,800 years ago, and another one is overdue. New Zealand is a fault-line jigsaw punctuated with active volcanoes.

LogicFTW's picture
I certainly read, from

I certainly read, from multiple sources, that if the Yellowstone caldera were to erupt in a worse case scenario way, that: dumped a large portion of the available material in the caldera into the atmosphere. Such an event would wipe out 99+% of all life on the planet, and only a very select group of humans that had the stored food and water accessibility and air functions for decades of toxic air and inability to grow food, and the resulting sudden major ice age from the total cloud coverage that could persist for centuries. Also un managed unwatched toxic waste facilities including nuclear waste management facilities (cooling pools.) will fail and cause further wide scale devastation. Unmanaged forest fires, entire cities burning w/o working fire departments etc.

If such an event were to happen I would be terrified for my life and those close to me and know I am going to die likely, very soon, or starve to death/dehydrate. But I would gain a tiny comfort in a bunch of people realizing their imaginary god is not going to save them, at least in their minds, in this life. Instead their god will let them die a horrible death including all their family children and friends. That no amount of "praying" or worshiping was ever going to save them or their children or anyone else's. Only the most extreme, super wealthy doomsday prepper could possibly hope to survive such an event, (and they were able to quickly reach this "vault".) And possibly a few powerful government officials in their own doomsday vault that could support them entirely for over a century in worse case scenario. That also then provided equipment to find and reach a part of the world that can still support human life during a major ice age event w/o any existing human survival infrastructure. It is also possible the event could be so catastrophic it creates an ice age event that covers the entire earth in a layer of ice at least a mile thick for a millennium. Their will be no human survival in that scenario no matter what we humans did unless we could plan for a known event such as that, years in advance. (Enormous nuclear powered underground facilities that was capable of growing its own food, providing water and dealing with waste.)

Also there is gamma ray bursts, while super unlikely, if one occurred in our little corner of the galaxy and we got caught in its path, you can say goodbye to just about all life on earth, (including the cockroaches!) The side of the earth in the path of it will die instantly with no possible warning. Those unlucky people/living things on the other half will die within a few days as our atmosphere is completely wiped away and the surface of the planet will no longer be capable of supporting and protecting life, radiation exposure will be extreme, all moisture that is not deep within the earth will evaporate, and oxygen and just about everything else in our atmosphere will be gone.

Randomhero1982's picture
Some wonderfully insightful

Some wonderfully insightful and educational posts here and what I love about them most is that creationists and apologists say "the uniferse is fine tuned for life only here proving intelligent design".

Really? It's trying to wipe us out on a daily basis and one day it will very well succeed... not entirely fine tuned I'd say!

More like a kinky dominatrix with a psychotic tendencies that now and then murders...

mykcob4's picture
From what I know about Yellow

From what I know about Yellow Stone, there is a volcano there that is due to erupt that would be the biggest eruption ever on record. Could it wipe out all humans? Probably, because it could wipe out all vegetation.

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