I Should Have Been a Geologist

Four years gone by and the most interesting class I've taken so far has been Natural Disasters (in progress). It's incredible to know all the different ways that nature can kill absolutely everyone. Did you know that gamma rays projected from a star that became a super nova millions of years ago, if close enough to our solar system, could dramatically change the planet'sclimate and atmosphere enough to wipe us all out? Sort of gives you a new perspective. Volcanology? Oh yeah, baby. There are several different types of volcanoes. There are some like the volcanoes in Hawaii where there's lava flow that don't really cause any danger to people so long as you're not standing inside of it. But there are some volcanoes classified as Super Volcanoes that can wipe out most of humanity by changing the world's climate and polluting the atmosphere. You ready for this?

Super Volcanoes are volcanoes huge in area where under the Earth's crust huge caverns the size of the area of the volcano fill with magma. After years upon years of build-up, often hundreds of thousands of years, the earth above egins to crumble, pieces of land fall into the magma displacing the already suffocated and trapped magma. Combined with the trapping of gases and the volatility of the volcano, the magma then makes its way to the surface quite violently, erupting for days to weeks. Why would this be bad? Because the eruptions aren't the usual magma that you'd see in a Hawaiian volcano, what you'd see is ash and sulfuric acid being ejected into the atmosphere. When you think of ash, you're probably thinking of wood burning, things heavy in carbon monoxide, but volcano ash is actually quite different. Because of the gases trapped and the eruption combined, the ash is actually a type of glass due to the minerals in the magma shot into the air being super-cooled. What happens with that ash is it gets into the atmosphere along with the sulphuric acid. If the ash gets into your respiratory system then it's like little jagged pieces of glass cutting up your insides. Not only is the scarring and cutting of your insides what can kill you, but the glass, upon entering the body and cutting of the respiratory system, it acts as a cementing agent and seals up your lungs and trachea, suffocating the person who inhales the particles and forcing them to die a horribly painful death. The sulfuric acid that enters the atmosphere also causes harm to the human/animal respiratory system while killing off plant-life. You can see how this could be a problem.

In/around Indonesia near Sumatra there's a place called Lake Toba. Lake Toba is 60 miles long. Those 60 miles are all a Super Volcano. 75,000 years ago Toba erupted. With conclusive evidence of human population, and studies done one aquatic life and other information gathered by scientists, the eruption of the Toba volcano obliterated most of the human population, bringing the entire Earth's population to roughly 10,000 people worldwide. What happened when Toba blew its top, it blanketed most of the globe in sulfuric acid, killing plant and animal life everywhere. This sulfuric acid remained in the atmosphere for roughly 10,000 years. Because the Earth was ina cooling phase, aided by the sulfuric acid and ash in the atmosphere the sun was successfully blocked, causing the temperature of the Earth to drop significantly, but because of the reflective properties of the sulfuric acid, it would appear as though the sky were never brighter. The world essentially plunged into another ice age. The Earth's surface became more reflective, causing the sun's rays to bouce off of the earth more than usual, the temperature continued to cool, taking us further and further into a life that could barely survive. For 10,000 years the oceans were 10 degrees cooler than they normally are and have been for years. Somehow a temperature change in climatte warming came about at the end of that 10,000 years bringing the world back to a state of recovery.

Pretty freakin' trippy, right? Well, we don't have to worry about Toba for about another 300,000 years as that particular Super Volcano's cycle is every 400,000 years. There are a handful of other Super Volcanoes around the world (4-6), two of which are located in North America. One in Long Valley and one in Yellowstone. The one in Yellowstone (which is about half the area of the park itself) runs on a cycle of roughly 600,000 years. When was the last time it blew? About 640,000 years ago! Estimates of what the volcano's damage might produce would be a radius that would obliterate most of North America, almost reaching the East Coast. If something like Toba would occur in this day and age, what would we do? How would the world change? Clearly the climate would change, but what with modern innovations, would agriculture still be able to thrive in man-made contraptions like green-houses? How much of the world's population would die out? What about animal life? How many would go extinct? It's really intriguing. A part of me wants to be around to see it all happen. All I know is I'm buying me a gas mask to prevent the ash from getting into my lungs. Thinking about it, would the world turn into an example of what happens in Cormac McCarthy's book The Road? If you haven't read it, I recommend picking up a copy. It's a real quick read. I know a movie's coming out on it soon with Vigo Mortensen.

Well, I figure I've freaked you all out enough. Time to "study" for my midterm.