GO HERE!
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No. This isn't another supervolcano like Yellowstone. Rather, this is a volcano named "Cumbre Vieja" (require Adobe acrobat pdf reader to read the geologic study of this volcano) on one of the Canary islands located in the Atlantic ocean just off of the west African coast. This volcano is the most active and the island it resides on, La Palma, is the most unstable where a whole side of the Cumbre Vieja volcano - a rock slab about the size of Manhattan - has begun to separate and is poised to plunge into the Atlantic should there be another eruption. The western flank, a mass comprising some 500 billion tons of rock, is gradually becoming detached as volcanic activity forces magma to the surface. The island has had seven known eruptions. And the last eruption was in 1971, which occured at the island's southern tip. Far enough away from an unstable ridge at the volcano's summit.
And when the massive collapse of dirt, rock and debris slide into the Atlantic ocean, a tsunami-generated wave would be produced. Now, the collapse of materials the size of Manhattan would be terrifying. Cities from Miami to New York would get swamped by waves up to 160 feet high, capable of surging up to 12 miles inland. The tsunami-generated waves would travel up to 500 mph and would reach American coastlines within hours.
According to calculations by geologists, these killer tsunami waves would hit New York city first before it hits Miami by about an hour earlier. The Cumbre Vieja (or La Palma) tsunami would make the recent December 26, 2004 tsunami disaster produced by an earthquake look comparatively quite small. The La Palma tsunami would reach the Manhattan island in about 7 to 8 hours versus Miami in about 9 - 10 hours.
Now, considering the highly congested Manhattan island of approximately 2 million people with poor escape routes, cars and people would get stuck trying to get out into the mainlands (inward of at least 12 miles) at the same time. A seven hour warning advance won't help. The best way to escape is by going up, and that's by going up to one of the many high rise buildings in NYC and elsewhere. But, the problem is you'd have to go at least to anywhere from the 10th to the 16th floor or higher since waves could come in as high as 160 feet. I'm sure when people hear "160 feet high waves" they'll surely try to go to the very top. So, that narrows down the number of spaces available to escape upward. And certainly with 2 million people trying to go up would be severely limited. Imagine the mess in the stairwells.
You have your options. Best bet? Go up at the first sign of warning. However, a 160 ft high tsunami wave hitting a city may look like this in a rendered fake photo:
So, you think going up 16 stories would be enough? At least this super-tsunami would be more likely to occur in the short term than an eruption from a super-volcano in Yellowstone park.
Forewarned is forearmed.
But I'd rather see that these natural disasters target terrorists who terrorizes innocent human beings for fun just to fulfill their own stupid, mindless agenda. However, these natural disasters are an equal opportunity killer. Nobody's immune. Even people of all persuasions, including the ones in NYC.
You've been warned.
UPDATE: Apparently "R" likes to read my blog, too. Nice to see a confirmation in print. One thing tho, volcanic activity can be monitored on land. However, under-water landslides, which are a virtual unknown, cannot be monitored as effectively or as well. It can only be detected when they occur using seismic data to triagulate to the source of the landslide(s).
There are underwater mountains beneath the ocean higher than land-based mountains. Seventy percent (70%) of earth is underwater. That's a lot of land where landslides could occur producing killer tsunami waves. In fact, the east coast of the United States is in danger of underwater landslides where numerous cracks were recently discovered along the shallow Atlantic continental shelf only because of our latest technology has allowed us to see these dangers. As for volcanos erupting, forest fire fighters do not deal with volcanic (pre/post) eruptions (e.g. forest fires resulting from heat or lava). The danger is just too great to hang around a mountain that could blow at anytime. Even a kid would recognize this danger, let alone some adults who don't have this common sense.
As for ash turning into "liquid-like cement" in your lungs is balderdash. The free crystalline silica can lead to what is called "silicosis", a disease resulting in the scarring of the lungs and impairment of their function. It is quite disabling and usually becomes a fatal lung disease. Silicosis were found in miners and quarry workers who were exposed to high concentrations of siliceous dust over long periods of time. All volcanos that emit ash have silica "free silica" content of a certain amount anywhere from a minor to a major amount of the percentage of the ash' contents. However, long-term health effects of volcanic ash have not yet been demonstrated.
Please, kiddies, get the correct source of information here, and not from some fiction movie as a source for "facts". Pretty disgusting. Although the super volcano movie stayed pretty close to keeping geology and geophysics (i.e. volcanism, earthquakes) factual about what may happen geologically without too much exaggeration. Except for the "ash turning into cement" in the lungs ballyhoo. And the movie's supposition that if the supervolcano continues with the eruption for more than 7 days the earth's climate would change drastically. Hello! The Tambora (go here for graphic scale size of known volcanic eruptions) "mini" supervolcano eruption in 1815 of a few days was puny in size and affected the world's climate causing a "mini" ice age for several years with the 1st year being the worst causing mass starvation due to crop failures. It was known as the year without "summer." Even the recent Pinatubo eruption in 1991 was similar in size to Mt. St. Helens affected the world's climate causing colder than normal seasons. So, for a single real supervolcano to erupt fully like Tambora and Mt. St. Helens in one day would in fact cause a world climatic shift going into the decades and not just a few years. You don't need "7" days for a major climatic change to occur from a supervolcano's eruption! Mt. St. Helens would have to spew the same amount of ash for nearly a year to equal that of what a single supervolcano would emit in ONE DAY! Seven days? My god.
Mt. St. Helens "TNT" or "power" eruption had the equivalent 27,000 Hiroshima bombs (1 per second for 9 hours). The Tambora eruption had the equivalent of a few million Hiroshima bombs. And a supervolcano? Try a few hundred million Hiroshima bombs. Now, you get the picture of how a simple one day supervolcano eruption would affect the global's climate for decades to come.
As for when it might erupt better go here and get some educated facts for a change. You see, the magma chamber in a supervolcano is huge! When the magma (e.g. lava) starts to push upward it can takes years. Mt. St. Helens took a few years til it finally blew once scientists began monitoring magma/lava movements upward. Now, Mt. St. Helens' magma chamber is much, much smaller compared to a super volcano's. In the movie it said, if I'm not mistakened, 1500 cubic Km^3 (approximately 7 miles by 7 miles by 7 miles in volume) magma chamber. This is bigger than Mt. St. Helens itself! You'd have years and years of detected movements for magma/lava just to move upward into one of the many possible vents. It takes a very, very long time to build up pressure exerting outward until something gives. The last known modern "mini" supervolcano eruption was Tambora.
The largest known eruption in the last several thousand years is believed to be that of Tambora, Indonesia, in 1815. It was tens of times more massive an eruption than Mount St. Helens in 1980. Despite pouring out 7 cubic miles of ash and causing short-term global cooling, Tambora was small fry compared with any of Yellowstone's big "supervolcano" eruptions, or even the eruption of Toba 74,000 years ago.
Certainly, "R's" science isn't his forte. Granted. The taser 50,000 volts misconception and now the lungs. And he had to resort to taking "facts" from a movie when Hollywood is known for their embellishments and distortion of facts. Just when you thought he would know better.
Please, a lesson here folks. Go to a reputable website for the best, most accurate facts available. Even I, with a M.S. degree in geology/geophysics (I was an assistance in this (multi-year) map making and data collection effort. See under "Introduction") ought to know better than to rely on movies for facts. Only an idiot would use a Hollywood fiction movie as a source for facts. In this case, geologic and geophysics facts regarding volcanism and earthquakes.
Just a little kiddie educational tip there. Just don't go to "R"s site for factual information in the sciences.
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