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John Cuthber, on 21 May 2012 - 06:02 PM, said:

I like your post. It is concise, poetically stated, and true, for now.

In hundreds or thousands of years from now we may learn enough about Yellowstone to know what we could do to ONLY let out some pressure using advanced technology, without "popping the balloon". There would be some kind of robotic tunneling machines. Well before breaking through to the magma, they set a small nuke, or conventional explosives, to do the final excavating after the tunnelers are removed. Theoretically this planned eruption would reduce the pressure so that it is no longer a threat. Maybe it could just keep erupting, in a minor way, like Kilauea on the big island of Hawaii.

Does anyone know why science programs always say Yellowstone erupts on the average of once every 600,000 years when my calculation is 730,000 years?

"The three super eruptions occurred 2.1 million, 1.3 million, and 640,000 years ago, forming the Island Park Caldera, the Henry's Fork Caldera, and Yellowstone calderas, respectively.[8] The Island Park Caldera supereruption (2.1 million years ago), which produced the Huckleberry Ridge Tuff, was the largest and produced 2,500 times as much ash as the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption. The next biggest supereruption formed the Yellowstone Caldera (640,000 years ago) and produced the Lava Creek Tuff. The Henry's Fork Caldera (1.2 million years ago) produced the smaller Mesa Falls Tuff but is the only caldera from the Snake River Plain-Yellowstone (SRP-Y) hotspot that is plainly visible today.[9]"

http://en.wikipedia....owstone_Caldera

The new issue of Astronomy magazine has an article about planets that get thrown out of solar systems and are wondering around the galaxy. They are estimated to be many more than the number of stars in the galaxy. Young solar systems are thought to have many planets that either crash together, or get thrown out by gravitational interactions.

swansont, on 17 May 2012 - 04:44 PM, said:

Very interesting revelation, thanks for that. I need to do some research on this later. This means very little statistical confidence.

I just read up on wiki. The last 3 supereruptions were 640,000 years ago, 1,300,000 y.a., and 2,100,000 y.a. That means 800,000 years between the first 2 eruptions and 660,000 years between the second and last supereruption. That is an average of a supereruption every 730,000 years (2,100,000 - 1,300,000 = 800,000 and 1,300,000 - 640,000 = 660,000, and the average of the two is 800,000 + 660,000 = 1,460,000/2 = 730,000. That's an average of every 730,000 years. Where did they get an average of only 600,000 years?

Also ground level was rising over the past several decades and then seems to have slowed in 2010.

"...The upward movement of the Yellowstone caldera floor between 2004 and 2008 — almost 3 inches (7.6 cm) each year — was more than three times greater than ever observed since such measurements began in 1923.[24] From mid-summer 2004 through mid-summer 2008, the land surface within the caldera moved upwards as much as 8 inches (20 cm) at the White Lake GPS station.[25][26] By the end of 2009, the uplift had slowed significantly and appeared to have stopped.[27] In January 2010, the USGS stated that "uplift of the Yellowstone Caldera has slowed significantly"[28] and that uplift continues but at a slower pace.[29] The U.S. Geological Survey, University of Utah and National Park Service scientists with the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory maintain that they "see no evidence that another such cataclysmic eruption will occur at Yellowstone in the foreseeable future. Recurrence intervals of these events are neither regular nor predictable...."
http://en.wikipedia....owstone_caldera

Ophiolite, on 17 May 2012 - 03:54 AM, said:

Yellowstone is known to massively erupt, on the average, about every 600,000 years. Last eruption was 640,000 years ago, so we passed the average marker 40,000 years ago. 600,000 is only an average number, so there is no telling if it will erupt in a few years or decades from now, or not for 100,000 years. The expert I heard recently on Yellowstone is that there is no telling when it can erupt, but he thinks the next time it erupts it will not be a supereruption, or not a very great supereruption as many have speculated. If that is true, it could save the Earth from global warming, but only if it erupts not too much.

The Yellowstone supervolcano is overdue, so that seems the most immediate threat, after global warming. If we could only defuse Yellowstone by allowing it to erupt a little, just enough to relieve the pressure.