Solar Flares and Old Cars?

General Discussion
21

Yes, the “Super Volcano” show. Been a while since I’ve seen that, but I believe I recall the basics. I am also from that part of the country…not implying that matters.
<please preface with the FACT I’m no Geologist>
So perhaps it is just another early stage Grand Canyon…but several differences exist. While there does appear to be some tectonic up shifting of the Grand Canyon plates, there is really no extremely localized volcanic activity. There are several cinder cones and old volcanic left overs (San Francisco Peaks in Flagstaff are from a massive former volcano) nothing resembles Yellowstone in it’s plethora of current volcanic activity. Your perfectly right about the plates moving over the active area but Yellowstone IS the currently active area. The “former” Yellow Stone areas (that have moved away) are to the west (Craters of the Moon in Idaho, etc.) Also the fact that Yellowstone is rising several inches a year is very compelling. Really…it’s pretty damn freaky. The best hope I guess is that pressure is relieved slowly, which certainly has happened more frequently than a mega-oober explosion that sends us into another ice age or whatever.

Bottom line, I guess I see many differences between the two to make them very distinct.

22

Thanks for your thoughtful reply, but just to play devils advocate one more time at your leisure, What do you suppose Yellowstone looked like before it became the hotbed of activity that exists today? I see the activity as remnants of the previous history with a thin scab over molten earth, but not necessarily an indicator of future activity. Thanks for your response.

23

Play away, it’s fun and how we all learn. I really don’t know what the hell I’m talking about but having fun.

I suppose that it could have always looked something like it does today with variations due to soil, rock, type and how the heat, steam, lava, yada yada effects and interacts with that. I’ve been to Crater’s of the Moon and while I don’t for sure if that’s the direction of the plate movement it would seem to make sense that it used to be over the Yellowstone hot spot…although there are also active regions to the west of that too (Cascades; St. Helens, Rainer, Baker, etc…)

Just did a quick web check, and would appear plausible that the area now known as the Cascades indeed did used to be over the Yellowstone hot spot. So perhaps it was flatter and more like what is now over Yellowstone at one time, then took on it’s current features when hitting the Pacific plate driving it down and the NA plate up. If true, there should be evidence in the Cascades, and Craters of the Moon of that.

24

They will need electical power to start. And if you want things like headlights to function.

25

Ahhh…headlights would be a luxury in that situation. But I wonder what effect massive flares would have on batteries. They essentially convert a chemical reaction into electricity right? If they are NOT effected by flares that may be a great alternative for many things in this scenario? If they are effected though, is there an alternate method to start?

26

An old diesel,with a air starter(mechanical injection shouldn’t be affected) store you a bunch of spare electronic and eletrical parts in a grounded metal container or Faraday cage.
Had a lively exchange with a Librarian about global warming(she apparently holds Al Gore in high regard) told her she should worry more about Yellowstone blowing then global warming. She said you cant do nothing about Yellowstone,but you can Global warming.Really?(You can stay away from there I suppose and lay in some supplies and such)(About Global Warming,I suppose you could go to the poorhouse)-Kevin

27

Wow, so I guess that would take care of the dirt bag’s super subwoofer audio system blaring at 9,000 dB sitting right next to me at the traffic signal. This is starting to sound agreeable…

28

Well I do have some inconsiderate people in the area-you either smell em,hear em or see em.Just because a person lives in the country,no guareentee of peace(maybe the EMP would quiet them down a bit)-Kevin

29

Ha!! Awesome. Nothing like finding something that’s happening naturally that nobody really thinks about anymore (climate change) claiming to be a pro at it and telling people that humans are causing it and using it for political influence. The UN and others are going to feel pretty damn stupid (but will never admit it) if this “climate change is natural” group continues to gain momentum. Some amazing statistics on, I think it was Glenn Beck, about the miniscule percentage effect all human production ever of CFC’s et. al. compared to just the eruption of all the volcanoes in the last 50 years which is nothing historically.

Then these crazy ideas that the Gore-ites have of cooling the planet? I’m concerned would do much more harm than good. Similar to the Fish and Game trying to restore habitats from supposed evil human effects and just really decimating things. Interesting times.

30

Absolutely would. We (humans) would have to go back actual live acoustic music…what a concept.

31

A little, then they would find their voices. But at least they wouldn’t be electronically amplified. The smell would probably get worse for a while though without electricity and pumps to transport and heat all our water. Solar Shower here I come! You’ve ever tried those? They work great when there is sun.

32

Or you could shower like they do in africa when the power goes out (which FYI is everyother day) Bucket shower.

33

Yes, like in movie Australia…although I would have preferred Nicole Kidman in the scene. In colder climes I suppose a method to warm that H20 a bit first would be nice. Australia and Africa…both quite warm.

34

The effects of EMP from solar flares and atomic explosions on electric/electronic machines may be of interest; but, there are some effects which are stranger than conjecture. Here is a short paper of the effects of EMF on people: http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/emf-war.html

35

too true too true. Most of the buildings in Ghana where I lived are open air style (because the coldest it ever got in 11 months was like 15 C) In the building where I was living one Nigerian girls asked me how do we take showers in Canada?? I said how do you mean? She said, that it would be too cold to go from the showers to your room in the negative -35C whether.

I told her that we don’t tend to live in open air buildings. Could you imagine that?? I think I would die in that case.

36

Large solar flares occur frequently. The Aurora Borealis (sp?) is actually a storm of ionized particles from solar flares discharging in the ionosphere, whoch protects us from the effects of the flares.

While satillite communications can be interfered with from large solar flares, automobiles cannot.

37

As I understand it solar flares can damage electronics. In fact some flares in the recent past have damaged some of our and other nations satellites. Those in “the know” suppose to be able to verdict when any increase of solar flare activity may occur. They have expressed concerns that if we were subject to a massive series of flares it could “fry” electronics in most everything. AM radios are very susceptible to flare activity. Remember years ago we would hear nothing but static when there was a lot of flare activity. For the younger group, AM was the only radio years ago. 50 years before the iPod.

38

Unless it’s a large enough flare to push through the atmosphere?

39

You know that is REALLY interesting. I have always noticed that at night, as the sun wanes, AM station reception gets really crappy. Although you can also pick up stations from…like…Hobokan and Calgary! What the hell is up with that?

40

This happens to be vaguely in my area of expertise so here goes… sorry about the long post!

So, first off, if you look at a relief map of Idaho, you’ll notice the Lower Snake River plain in the south which looks basically like a giant line running from the Owyhee area of SW Idaho/SE Oregon/NW Nevada all the way to present day Yellowstone. The valley is almost exactly as big as the caldera in Yellowstone so it is obviously the hotspot track. The whole track is filled with much later basalt lava flows (such as those at Craters of the Moon) but these are only a few thousand years old (CotM could erupt picturesque Hawaii-style lava any day!) and their exact relationship with the Yellowstone hot spot isn’t quite clear. But by mapping minor variations in the local gravity and by analyzing the pressure waves of small earthquakes, they’ve been able to see through this material and they’ve found a series of calderas roughly the same size as the current Yellowstone one.

The ash flows from these can also be found on the margins of the Snake River Plain and these can be radiometrically dated. The oldest one, which is the one right about at the ID/OR/NV border, is about 17 million years old. This is the same date as the columbia basin flood basalts, which are the very thick basalts that cover most of eastern Washington and which also erupted from basically the same spot. These are almost certainly related, though how exactly is unclear. But this is probably the date and location of the first eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano so it never really had anything to do with anything further west, like the Cascades.

The rest of the calderas get younger as they move to the east towards present day Yellowstone. The rate and direction of these corresponds with other measurements of the rate and direction of movement of the North American plate so it has usually been claimed that the hot spot is stationary and the plate has been moving over it. (this is now the subject of a somewhat complicated controversy, but I can explain it and some of the possible origins of the hot spot if anyone’s interested).

The scary part of this is that the calderas are dated at an average of 600,000 year intervals and the last one was almost exactly 600,000 years ago. Granted, the variation from this interval is larger than the span of human civilization, but it is “due” and it’s just as likely to go off now as any other time and it’s 100% certain to go off in the next few thousand years.

As for the effects, the people who say “don’t have to worry, I never go there” are missing the point. The earlier eruptions have left tephras (the result of extremely hot debris clouds that run off the volcano) in about a 100 mile radius, so anything in that area would likely be dead, although there should be ample warning and time to evacuate this area. The extremely thick ashfall might kill some, since the practicalities of evacuating the area affected by these will be much more difficult (keep in mind this would be thousands of times the size of the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption). But the real killer will be the fact that volcanic gasses and debris will essentially blot out the sun causing extreme global cooling for a few years. This, along with world-wide ashfall of varying thickness, will cause several years of failed crops and it is likely that a very large portion of the Earth’s population will die. The effects will last for many years so it’s not a matter of just stockpiling food and who knows what the societal effects of it will be. I don’t think there’s any way to prepare for that, so just hope it doesn’t happen.

To answer the question of what it looked like before the present activity, before the hot spot, it would have been like any of the other surrounding country. Immediately after the eruption, there would have been a massive pile of tephra, but this material erodes easily and so it would have worn down pretty quickly and other than occasionally being enveloped in glaciers during the various ice-ages it would have been pretty similar to how we see it at any point from 600,000 years ago to the present.

(I can also give you a long boring post about why the forces that have caused the Grand Canyon to uplift are different if you want)