An ancient volcanic super-eruption, one of the largest known in Earth's history, may not have devastated the world and humanity as much as once thought.
The eruption at what is now Lake Toba in the Indonesia island of Sumatra roughly 75,000 years ago was the largest in the last 2 million years. This gigantic blast released at least 7.7 trillion tons or 670 cubic miles of magma, equivalent in mass to more than 19 million Empire State Buildings.
Vast plumes of ash stretched from the South China Sea to the Arabian Sea and likely blotted out the sun and drastically cooled the Earth for years—a "volcanic winter." Scientists have suggested the environmental catastrophe that might have resulted could have influenced the course of human history, with people today evolving from the few thousand survivors of that disaster.
Newly unearthed prehistoric artifacts now suggest the blast might not have been "as catastrophic as before thought," said Cambridge University archaeologist Michael Petraglia.
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Super Volcano Will Challenge Civilization, Geologists Warn
By Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience.com March 08 2005
The eruption of a super volcano "sooner or later" will chill the planet and threaten human civilization, British scientists warned Tuesday.
And now the bad news: There's not much anyone can do about it.
Several volcanoes around the world are capable of gigantic eruptions unlike anything witnessed in recorded history, based on geologic evidence of past events, the scientists said. Such eruptions would dwarf those of Mount St. Helens, Krakatoa, Pinatubo and anything else going back dozens of millennia.
"Super-eruptions are up to hundreds of times larger than these," said Stephen Self of the United Kingdom's (U.K.) Open University. "An area the size of North America can be devastated, and pronounced deterioration of global climate would be expected for a few years following the eruption," Self said. "They could result in the devastation of world agriculture, severe disruption of food supplies, and mass starvation. These effects could be sufficiently severe to threaten the fabric of civilization." Self and his colleagues at the Geological Society of London presented their report to the U.K. Government's Natural Hazard Working Group.
"Although very rare these events are inevitable, and at some point in the future humans will be faced with dealing with and surviving a super eruption," Stephen Sparks of the University of Bristol told LiveScience in advance of Tuesday's announcement.
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IMO, humans need to start looking beyond their lifespans and start preparing for these types of events or we are going to end up in a heap of trouble....
It isn't really a matter of if, but rather of when, and IMO we shouldn't go around with a "it won't happen in my lifetime so I won't worry about it" attitude.
The sad part is, while huge Earth shattering events like super volcano eruptions are rare, there are many other things that nature can throw at us that we neglect to prepare for as well, and even when our knowledge and science give us advanced warnings, we often ignore it.
-------------------- One is never completely useless. One can always serve as a bad example. Posts: 2430 | From: CA | Registered: Jun 2005
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-------------------- One is never completely useless. One can always serve as a bad example. Posts: 2430 | From: CA | Registered: Jun 2005
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How many people in the US central plains are prepared for a large earthquake? I would guess there are not many, despite the fact that it has happened before in modern history and science tells us it is most likey bound to happen again...
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Well, according to the original article Rimasco, the jury is still out, so you may indeed be correct, even though I don't agree.
However, you would have to admit that volcanoes certianly have the potentital to do so, even if they have not done so in the past.
quote:Several volcanoes around the world are capable of gigantic eruptions unlike anything witnessed in recorded history, based on geologic evidence of past events, the scientists said. Such eruptions would dwarf those of Mount St. Helens, Krakatoa, Pinatubo and anything else going back dozens of millennia.
Very hard to imagine what an eruption that would dwarf Pinatubo would look like, let alone the effects it would have on the Earth and our future.
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One should point out that it is a known fact that natural disasters other than volcanoes, and even things as simple as the day's weather have altered the course of human history, though not to the extent suggested in the original article.
The Weather: Everyone's Favorite Topic By FRANK TRIPPETT Time.com
quote:The prime oddity in the whole snarl of attitudes is the fact that almost everybody develops perverse pride in abominable weather when it happens to be their own. Abroad, there are the desert tribes that profess to revere their baked domains. Similarly, the New Englander or the Minnesotan boasts about his frozen Februarys and the snow that waits till spring before uncovering the earth again. The Deep Southerner seems proud of those stifling summers that reduce everybody to sweat and distemper. Human responses to weather are, in sum, as variable as the weather itself.
If man sees the weather differently according to his circumstance, healthy fear works at the hub of his obsession with it. Facing the awesome grandeur and cruel humors of the weather, ancient man was forced to attribute the mysterious cosmic moil to deities. Wishing desperately to better his odds against the weather (or lessen its against him), he invented innumerable prayers, supplications, sacrifices, all intended to coax the gods to bestow better weather. Wanting exactly like modern man to know about tomorrow's wind, he developed the practice of looking for omens of coming weather in the conduct of animals, the tones of the sky or the turnings of foliage. He tried rituals, such as dancing, to control the weather. They did not work, of course, but they made for some lively times.
Through human history, weather has altered the march of events and caused some mighty cataclysms. Since Columbus did not know where he was going or where he had arrived when he got there, the winds truly deserve nearly as much credit as he for the discovery of America. Ugly westerlies helped turn the 1588 Spanish Armada away from England in a limping panic. Napoleon was done in twice by weather: once by the snow and cold that forced his fearful retreat from Moscow, later by the rain that bedeviled him at Waterloo and caused Victor Hugo to write: "A few drops of water ... an unseasonable cloud crossing the sky. sufficed for the overthrow of a world." In 1944 the Allied invasion of Normandy was made possible by a narrow interval of reasonably good weather between the bad. It was so narrow, in fact, that Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisen hower later expressed gratitude to "the gods of war." Paganism dies hard.
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Yes, and there are things that mankind has done other than burn fossil fuels that have led to unforeseen calamity.
The great Mayan cities were abandoned, many believe because of drought or such, but one substantial theory is that they burned up all the reasonably accessible fuel (they relied on wood) making whitewash, with which they painted their buildings.
There are similar studies of ancient European and African human population centers being abandoned after the readily accessible wood supplies were used up.
Man has a history of altering his environment to the point of disaster.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by bdgee: Yes, and there are things that mankind has done other than burn fossil fuels that have led to unforeseen calamity.
The great Mayan cities were abandoned, many believe because of drought or such, but one substantial theory is that they burned up all the reasonably accessible fuel (they relied on wood) making whitewash, with which they painted their buildings.
There are similar studies of ancient European and African human population centers being abandoned after the readily accessible wood supplies were used up.
Man has a history of altering his environment to the point of disaster.
Where was Al Gore during all this, I don't believe I saw it in his money making movie. lol
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Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Underwater Landslides, Tsunamis... None of these are a result of man abusing his environment, but they still have the potential to change our future.
I do agree with your point Bdgee, that man can bring on his own disasters, however, the point I was trying to make is that nature is going to throw us a curve ball no matter what, and we need to be ready for it, and IMO, we are not.
Sadly, we are not even prepared for the most 'basic' disasters as a society. The New Madrid fault zone is a perfect example of this.
-------------------- One is never completely useless. One can always serve as a bad example. Posts: 2430 | From: CA | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by bdgee: Yes, and there are things that mankind has done other than burn fossil fuels that have led to unforeseen calamity.
The great Mayan cities were abandoned, many believe because of drought or such, but one substantial theory is that they burned up all the reasonably accessible fuel (they relied on wood) making whitewash, with which they painted their buildings.
There are similar studies of ancient European and African human population centers being abandoned after the readily accessible wood supplies were used up.
Man has a history of altering his environment to the point of disaster.
Where was Al Gore during all this, I don't believe I saw it in his money making movie. lol
That movie was not about prehistoric manipulation of the environment.
You really do like to look like a wiseazz fool, don't you?
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by bdgee: Yes, and there are things that mankind has done other than burn fossil fuels that have led to unforeseen calamity.
The great Mayan cities were abandoned, many believe because of drought or such, but one substantial theory is that they burned up all the reasonably accessible fuel (they relied on wood) making whitewash, with which they painted their buildings.
There are similar studies of ancient European and African human population centers being abandoned after the readily accessible wood supplies were used up.
Man has a history of altering his environment to the point of disaster.
Where was Al Gore during all this, I don't believe I saw it in his money making movie. lol
That movie was not about prehistoric manipulation of the environment.
You really do like to look like a wiseazz fool, don't you?
Now where is that sense of humor you talk about? It's a joke. Get it.
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Yep. I do agree, NR. Much of that unpreparedness is due to being unable to comprehend such vast alterations (or even minute ones that effect us in ways we can't easily foretell but have devestating consequences) in what we feel must be solid and constant (and maybe God given).
(Sadly, much of it also is due to the teachings of various religions, that wish us to acceed that their god or gods drive disasters in order to keep us in line.)
A potato disease nearly killed off Ireland's civilization, not because they had overpopulated or shirked their religion or failed at much of anything other than understanding and predicting, but because they had almost stopped growing any other crop but the one particular potato variety that was susceptible to that disease.
It was the boll weevil and not the loss of slavery or war that plunged the South into multi-decades of poverty driven loss of culture and opportunity for its young. (Air conditioning is finally bringing back its hopes. Now, to find a way to drive the air conditioners without hastening global warming!)
Too much of our real research is done by commercial interest whose bottom line is their real incentive. Even in the great university research centers, if one looks beyond the surface, it is easy to learn that the corporate dollar and interest are overwhelming. Something needs to be done to keep such influences out of scientific development (socialized science, anyone?).
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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You follow orders and flit about the net "poking fun", as you say, at democrats to create an illusion that they are not serious and you object to that activity being pointed out for what it is.
I've never read anything by Franken and I doubt you have. I haven't seen any evidence of any of you goose stepping rightwingers reading anything but excerpts from Ann Coulter's trash and the RNC talking points to learn how to serve the Party before and above the country. Mostly, you simply repeat the garbage and lies you collect from Fox news and Fat Rush the Doper.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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You follow orders and flit about the net "poking fun", as you say, at democrats to create an illusion that they are not serious and you object to that activity being pointed out for what it is.
I've never read anything by Franken and I doubt you have. I haven't seen any evidence of any of you goose stepping rightwingers reading anything but excerpts from Ann Coulter's trash and the RNC talking points to learn how to serve the Party before and above the country. Mostly, you simply repeat the garbage and lies you collect from Fox news and Fat Rush the Doper.
... Almost thought you were talking to me for a minute there Bdgee....
-------------------- One is never completely useless. One can always serve as a bad example. Posts: 2430 | From: CA | Registered: Jun 2005
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You have a good and informative thread going here and I guess I get a bit POed when some jerk wants to lower it to a bunch of Party line crap.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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You follow orders and flit about the net "poking fun", as you say, at democrats to create an illusion that they are not serious and you object to that activity being pointed out for what it is.
I've never read anything by Franken and I doubt you have. I haven't seen any evidence of any of you goose stepping rightwingers reading anything but excerpts from Ann Coulter's trash and the RNC talking points to learn how to serve the Party before and above the country. Mostly, you simply repeat the garbage and lies you collect from Fox news and Fat Rush the Doper.
I have no problem doing something about pollution and global warming. What I object to are alarmists like your high priest Al Gore who go around preaching that the sky is falling, all the while picking our pockets. Al Gore is all about Al Gore and as long as you star struck groupy's take his every word as gospel nothing will get done.
By the way I don't listen to Rush, but is he any different than your Star. Their out to make themselves lots of money.
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What I object to are dunderheads like you that can't comprehend what is going on, flitting about making noises to indicate you do. What do you know of Gore that you didn't plagiarise from far rightwing propaganda. Hell, you can't even be original in lying and BS.
You make a serious and insulting misconsideration. I do not proscribe to any other source for opinions. I do not listen to any to develop opinions. You sound very very like Fat Rush the Doper and are every bit as hypocritical.
In particular, I am not a groupie of Al Gore and have not studied his book. I do note that research I became involved in many years ago is being correctly interpreted by him, rather than lied about as is done by you and Fat Rush the Doper. And, I note that he is 10,000 % more honorable and honest than any of the slime balls in the Party you champion that have usurped the name of the republican party in order to drive this Nation toward fascism.
In spit of what you advocate as truth and worth, there is cause very much deep than financial gain.
Noting that Gore is now and was born among the fabulously wealthy, exactly how much money would he need to make from his book in order for that amount to even be seen in his overall wealth? I really don't believe what would be a significant sum for him could accrue from that book in his and his children's and grand children's lifetimes. So much for your tossing his efforts off into the financial benefits column of your rightwing fantasies.
Simply put, you appear to be totally ignorant of what science is and to have even less knowledge about climate science. No one with any actual scientific substance AND intellectual integrity could allow himself to make the trivially absurd statements you do.
Maybe you need to read Gore's book and learn some things. If you insist on holding rigidly to what is permitted by the far rightwing evangelical extreme and putting Party before Country and just can't read Gore, then I suggest he is about two decades behind the cusp of research on global warming and there are other sources out there that detailed what he is saying years before.
Gore has provided a source of credible evidence interpretable by the common person. You, in contrast, provide nothing but character assassinations of Gore ...... cheap political lies and insults in place of information and facts.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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I agree we need to vigilant against alarmists such as Pat Robertson, the Bush admin, etc.
I can understand why you would lump Gore in. He is a one issue passionate speaker preaching immediate change is necessary.
However, you have spoken about picking pockets... can you elaborate and provide an example?
Posts: 5178 | From: Up North | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by bdgee: What I object to are dunderheads like you that can't comprehend what is going on, flitting about making noises to indicate you do. What do you know of Gore that you didn't plagiarise from far rightwing propaganda. Hell, you can't even be original in lying and BS.
You make a serious and insulting misconsideration. I do not proscribe to any other source for opinions. I do not listen to any to develop opinions. You sound very very like Fat Rush the Doper and are every bit as hypocritical.
In particular, I am not a groupie of Al Gore and have not studied his book. I do note that research I became involved in many years ago is being correctly interpreted by him, rather than lied about as is done by you and Fat Rush the Doper. And, I note that he is 10,000 % more honorable and honest than any of the slime balls in the Party you champion that have usurped the name of the republican party in order to drive this Nation toward fascism.
In spit of what you advocate as truth and worth, there is cause very much deep than financial gain.
Noting that Gore is now and was born among the fabulously wealthy, exactly how much money would he need to make from his book in order for that amount to even be seen in his overall wealth? I really don't believe what would be a significant sum for him could accrue from that book in his and his children's and grand children's lifetimes. So much for your tossing his efforts off into the financial benefits column of your rightwing fantasies.
Simply put, you appear to be totally ignorant of what science is and to have even less knowledge about climate science. No one with any actual scientific substance AND intellectual integrity could allow himself to make the trivially absurd statements you do.
Maybe you need to read Gore's book and learn some things. If you insist on holding rigidly to what is permitted by the far rightwing evangelical extreme and putting Party before Country and just can't read Gore, then I suggest he is about two decades behind the cusp of research on global warming and there are other sources out there that detailed what he is saying years before.
Gore has provided a source of credible evidence interpretable by the common person. You, in contrast, provide nothing but character assassinations of Gore ...... cheap political lies and insults in place of information and facts.
Thanks for allowing a pleasant debate on an issue, without your personal insults and ignorant filler comments I quess you truly would have nothing to say. Go buy your masters book and spend you money on his movie. Maybe if your lucky you can catch him at you local college passing the hat.
-------------------- Let's Go METS!!! Posts: 3317 | From: CT | Registered: Dec 2006
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I see what you believe to be how Gore is profiting from his success.
Let me clarify a few points.
All profits from "An Inconvenient Truth" (both the book and the movie) go towards a fund to support environmental education.
Also, I have been at his presentation before and he does not ask for donations. I am sure he collects a fee for speaking, most all public speaks do, but I don't think that is any more inappropriate than Donald Trump or Ann Coultier doing so.
Some do criticize that he has set up an investment group to invest in environmentally friendly companies and tech. They suggest that by doing his series and then providing a source of financing for these types of group he is profiteering ...I think that is a bit of a stretch though don't you? The City I live in does the same thing with a small business loan program that targets areas where they want to see growth.
Anyway, is Al Gore a great guy? No, I've heard he's a bit of a jerk. But I think he's already made his money and now is genuinely more interested in making an impact.
BF
Posts: 5178 | From: Up North | Registered: Dec 2005
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"Go buy your masters book and spend you money on his movie. Maybe if your lucky you can catch him at you local college passing the hat."
I don't have a master, like you. Are you really so ignorant and suckered in by the rightwing BS that you believe Gore is collecting money for himself? If that is the case, you are really sick. The man inherited more money than you can count. He doesn't need it!
If, on the other hand, as it appears to be, what you are doing is, knowingly or without question, spreading and regurgitated lies of the evangelical rightwing extreme in order to sucker in those ignorant and innocent persons that can be scared by your ignorant trash science and power mad religious dogmatizers, whose desire is to destroy the Constitution, then you are worse than scum, you are preaching anti-American fascism.
In either case, you are yourself merely a dogmatizer and are presenting nothing healthy to anyone.
Stop posting lies, trash science, and character attacks and claiming they constitute rational participation in mature and logical debate and conversation.
If you can not establish actual incontrovertable substance to your post , with credible and available authority, just bow out and admit you are what you are.
It's one thing to have an opinion and you have every right to have one, but quite another to declare anyone not preaching that same quasi-religion is personally unfit to an opinion of their own and that their opinion isn't to be allowed. The second of those is all you do! (That's the kind of BS that got us in Iraq.)
Either provide evidence that is credible, or shut the f-ck up!
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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It is entirely the result of volcanoes and were it not there, where would the December 7, 1941 attack have been, if anywhere?
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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-------------------- No longer eligible for government service due to lack of tax issues. Posts: 5178 | From: Up North | Registered: Dec 2005
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Either provide evidence that is credible, or shut the f-ck up!
Ah you've finally shown that your vile attacks are nothing but that of an ignorant DNC operative.
You're fuller o' s-it than a Christmas turkey, and, in your case, way way over done.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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volcanoes may be the real reason we are here at all:
The Volcanic Origin of Life
By Michael Schirber, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 05 November, 2004 8:00 a.m. ET
How the primitive Earth cooked up proteins is a chemical mystery. These molecules - vital to biological functions - are made of long strands of hundreds of amino acids, but researchers are unclear how even some of the shortest amino acid chains, called peptides, formed prior to the dawn of living organisms.
Recent experiments have demonstrated how a volcanic gas, carbonyl sulfide (COS), may have been instrumental in the "prebiotic" build-up of peptides.
There are several mechanisms for connecting amino acids. Organisms use enzymes, and chemists have identified other catalysts that can do the job. However, Leslie Orgel from the Salk Institute points out that few of these things were ingredients of Earth's environment billions of years ago.
"With carbonyl sulfide, we have a very realistic agent," Orgel said. This gas is known to fume out of volcanoes today and was likely present in the planet's fiery past.
the Hawaiians mythology gives credit for all of creation to Pele the Goddess of the volcano.
In Roman mythology, Vulcan, the god of fire, was said to have made tools and weapons for the other gods in his workshop at Olympus.
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Was talking with Mrs. Foot about this one last night.
I rarely do so with this stuff cuz Mrs. Foot is really booksmart Anthropologically speaking and I usually just end up getting left in the dust during her explanations.
I gleaned out that there are no super volcanoes around today that could do much more than cool the earth for a couple years. In 15,000 years maybe but not right now.
She also says a good chunk of our knowledge about human evolution is due to volcanism down in Southern Africa.
Then I had to pull back and shake out my ears.
BF
Posts: 5178 | From: Up North | Registered: Dec 2005
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