One of our more popular editions of the Signs page was the "Super Volcano Special!", which we then followed up with the occasional article as we ran across an informative one in our daily forays into cyber space. We decided to pull them all together into one convenient document, for those interested, so they do not have to search through our ever growing archives.

If you run across an article that you think would add to this page, feel free to email us. We will continue to keep an eye out for further information regarding this topic and update the page accordingly.

Also see our other Signs Supplements:

Meteors, Asteroids, Comets, and NEO's

Sonic or "Mystery Booms"

Ethinic Specific Weapons

Deep carbon could trigger mass extinction

Richard Ingham
Agençe France-Presse

Carbon stored beneath the Earth's crust could be released by volcanic eruptions (NASA)

A vast reservoir of carbon is stashed beneath the Earth's crust and could be released by a major volcanic eruption, unleashing a mass extinction of the kind that last occurred 200 million years ago, German geologists report. [...]

Bulge in lake worries YNP scientists

By CAROLE CLOUDWALKER

Beneath the serene surface of Yellowstone Lake, where death from hypothermia comes within 30 minutes, seethes a boiling underwater world.

And like a pot too long on the stove, it could boil over, says U.S. Geological Survey geologist Lisa Morgan, Ph.D., of Colorado.

She and others from the USGS have been studying the hottest hot spot in the 7,731-foot elevation lake, a spot which Morgan has termed an "inflated plain." It lies south-southwest of Storm Point near Mary Bay, in the northern end of the lake. [...]

"We're thinking this structure could be a precursor to an hydrothermal explosive event," Morgan said last week. "But we don't think this is a volcano." [...]

Supervolcanoes

BBC

Hidden deep beneath the Earth's surface lie one of the most destructive and yet least-understood natural phenomena in the world - supervolcanoes. Only a handful exist in the world but when one erupts it will be unlike any volcano we have ever witnessed. The explosion will be heard around the world. The sky will darken, black rain will fall, and the Earth will be plunged into the equivalent of a nuclear winter.

The last supervolcano to erupt was Toba 74,000 years ago in Sumatra. Ten thousand times bigger than Mt St Helens, it created a global catastrophe dramatically affecting life on Earth. Scientists know that another one is due - they just don't know when... or where.

It is little known that lying underneath one of America's areas of outstanding natural beauty - Yellowstone Park - is one of the largest supervolcanoes in the world. Scientists have revealed that it has been on a regular eruption cycle of 600,000 years. The last eruption was 640,000 years ago... so the next is overdue.

Comment: Could there possibly be a connection between the above story of the "bulge" at Yellow Stone National Park, this BBC article mentioning the fact that the last of these "super volcano" eruptions was 74,000 years ago in Sumatra, and Mars about to make it's closest pass for 73,000 years? What, if any are the possible gravitational effects on earth of such a close pass? We don't know, but we may know the answer soon.

Very interesting also is that this figure of 73,000 years, initially calculated by Jean Meeus was revised to 60,000 years as of May 2003, by Myles Standish at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, "as new calculations were supplied"

New research proves existence of super volcano beneath Loch Ness

Professor Tom Plume PhD (51) of the EU Volcanic Research Committee has warned that the famous fault-line, known as the Great Glen, may be about to rip apart as a result of a Super Volcano, which has lain dormant for millions of years. [...]

Super Volcano In Yellowstone National Park

Comment: Take a look at the maps of volcanoes in the Western United States.

Tiny Crystals Predict A Huge Volcano In Western United States

[...]With insight gained from new analytical techniques to study crystals of zircon and quartz, minerals that serve as veritable time capsules of geologic events, a group of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has proposed a new model for the origin of volcanism in young calderas.

These are volcanoes that occur over "hot spots" in the Earth and they erupt every few hundred thousand years in catastrophic explosions, sending hundreds to thousands of cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere and wreaking climatic havoc on a global scale. [...]

Super Volcanoes: Satellites Eye Deadly Hot Spots

By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer

[...]A host of U.S. and European satellites have been trained to see "hot spots ," where underground molten rock is pushing its way to the surface. The new view is giving researchers an unprecedented peek into how volcanoes work.

What they see is often illuminating. Sometimes it is just plain frightening. [...]

Supervolcanoes could trigger global freeze

By environment correspondent Alex Kirby
BBC

[...] The threat of climate change caused by human activity could turn out to be a minor problem by comparison with a scarcely acknowledged natural hazard.

Geologists say there is a real risk that sooner or later a supervolcano will erupt with devastating force, sending temperatures plunging on a hemispheric or even global scale.

A report by the BBC Two programme Horizon on one supervolcano, at Yellowstone national park in the US, says it is overdue for an eruption.

Yellowstone has gone off roughly once every 600,000 years. Its last eruption was 640,000 years ago. [...]

Red Planet at brightest for 60,000 years

Alan Pickup
The Scotsman

IT IS almost 60,000 years since Mars was as bright and close to the Earth as it gets this month. It shines at magnitude -2.4 and stands 62 million km away when it rises in the east-south-east during the evening twilight on the 1st. By the 27th, though, the Red Planet is 55,670,000 km distant and blazes at magnitude -2.9, more than three times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star. [...]

Comment: Sky maps are included in the above article.

New Volcano Portland

Move over, Mount St. Helens. There's a new volcano in town.

The Oregon Geographic Names Board has formally renamed the massive volcano that sprawls across 630 square miles of Central Oregon.

Newberry Crater is now to be known on maps and in conversation as Newberry Volcano. [...]

And geologists say Newberry is not extinct. Evidence indicates that magma lies about two or three miles beneath Newberry Crater, and scientists say the next eruption probably will be in the caldera. [...]

GIANT CRATER FOUND UNDERSEA

By Irene Brown, Discovery News

[...]A quest for oil in the North Sea has turned up an ancient impact crater so well preserved that it could give scientists fresh insight into the effects of large meteorite impacts on Earth. The 12-mile wide crater is buried under 120 feet of water and more than 900 feet of sediment, which has helped preserve features that on Earth's surface would have been eroded away. [...]

"540A.D."

The Science Show
Radio National

[...] Mike Baillie: Well what really made this event take off was when it became obvious from chronologies built by colleagues in Germany, Finland, North America that we were able to see the same event, a growth downturn in trees all the way from Siberia across Scandinavia, across Northern Europe, across North America down into South America, it became obvious that this was a global event and that the confines of it are between 536 and 545AD it’s centred on 540.

Robyn Williams: Do you know what happened then?

Mike Baillie: I wish I did. There are two basic schools of thought that all of these events were initially thought to be the results of volcanic dust fields, big volcanoes loading the atmosphere with dust and acid causing an environmental effects, basically cooling on the earth’s surface. The problem with that is that there in fact there is no categorically good evidence for a volcano in the vicinity of 540 and certainly not a very big effective volcano. This event stands out as being the worst environmental event as far as the trees are concerned in the last 1500, possibly in the last 3000 years. And just any old volcano won’t do. This would have to be almost a super volcano and there just isn’t any evidence for a super volcano or a really massive eruption around that time, and that caused me to then look at the next most likely possibility, which is something to do with bombardment from space. You’re loading the atmosphere with dust from outside the earth rather than from inside the earth. [...]

When humans faced extinction

By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor

"Humans may have come close to extinction about 70,000 years ago, according to the latest genetic research. The study suggests that at one point there may have been only 2,000 individuals alive as our species teetered on the brink." [...]

The 79 AD Eruption of Vesuvius

Vesuvius entered the history of volcanology with the eruption of 79 AD, described by Pliny the Younger. The eruption destroyed Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplonti and Stabiae and caused the death of Pliny the Elder among many other people.
Before the eruption of 79, earthquakes occurred for some time, but were disregarded by local inhabitants because of their familiarity with the phenomenon. Seneca reports that an earthquake occurred on 5 February of 62 (according to Tacitus) or 63 AD. [...]

Dio Cassius (150-235 AD) also reports some precursors of the eruption. He tells that for several days before the eruptions there were earthquakes and subterranean rumblings and giants were seen wandering on the earth (giants are a common feature associated with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions; Scandone, 1987).

Volcano Monitoring at Yellowstone National Park

Earthquakes Of Yellowstone

[...] The earliest account of Yellowstone's earthquakes was given by Ferdinand Hayden (1872, 1873) based upon his late 19th century, pioneering field expeditions into Yellowstone. Hayden recognized that Yellowstone was the center of a giant volcanic system and remarked on the occurrence of numerous earthquakes that he and his colleagues felt [...]

So persistent were earthquake tremors at Yellowstone Lake that Hayden named this camp "Earthquake Camp", an aptly named site as Yellowstone Lake has persisted as one of the most notable areas of earthquake swarms in the entire Yellowstone region. [...]

Ecuador volcano rumbles to life

From correspondents in Quito
August 22, 2003

ECUADOR'S Tungurahua volcano, in a state of simmering eruption since October 1999, rumbled to life overnight, sending a column of smoke and ash three kilometres high, the Geophysical Institute said.

The development followed reports from the institute on Wednesday that the volcano, in the country's central Andean region, had entered “a new phase or state of activity” signaled by a small sequence of earth tremors and gaseous and ash emissions over an extended period. [...]

Sleeping Giants: Keep One Eye Open

May 20, 2002

[W]hen a volcano grows four inches in four years, there's cause for alarm. Something is happening underground — and that something might just signal the events leading up to an explosive volcanic eruption. [...]

Aftershocks still rumble in Te Anau

August 23, 2003

The New Zealand South Island town of Te Anau continues to be rocked by aftershocks from Friday's big earthquake.

The quake, which measured 7.1 on the Richter scale, was centred 70km west of Te Anau, at a depth of 20km...

The quake was followed by a 6.2 shake at 2.12am, and GNS duty seismologist Warwick Smith told NZPA that aftershocks had been recorded throughout the night. Many of them would have been strong enough for people to feel, he said.

"We've had one event of magnitude 5.0 and about five others above 4.5 throughout the night. This is totally expected, and will continue for a few days. Probably all of those would have been felt in Te Anau, maybe the biggest one as far away as Queenstown."

Tilting at volcanoes

Posted by HVO at 9:50 AM on Aug 22, 2003

Volcano Watch

Last week, Maurice Sako and Kevan Kamibayashi, physical science technicians from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, spent three cold nights high on Mauna Loa's southwest rift zone. Their objective was not to see a bright red Mars or the brilliant trails of Perseids -- although they did see both -- but rather to install two electronic borehole tiltmeters...

As most Hawaii residents are well aware, Mauna Loa began to reawaken in May 2002. The gradual swelling has continued for more than a year. Last week's installation of the two tiltmeters is part of a long-term plan for better monitoring of Mauna Loa, a plan that has been accelerated significantly in the wake of Mauna Loa's stirrings...

Eruptive activity at the Pu'u 'O'o vent of Kilauea Volcano continued unabated during the past week...

Two earthquakes were felt in the Kapoho-'Opihikao area on the evening of August 18.

British Scientist Puts Odds for Apocalypse at 50-50

Mon Jun 9,
By Deena Beasley

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - This is the way the world might end: A genetically engineered pathogen is released, debris from an erupting "supervolcano" blocks the sun or scientists in the biggest "bioerror" of them all accidentally trigger a matter-squeezing "big bang."

The demise of civilization has been predicted since it began, but the odds of keeping Planet Earth alive and well are getting worse amid a breakneck pace of scientific advances, according to Martin Rees, Britain's honorary astronomer royal.

Rees calculates that the odds of an apocalyptic disaster striking Earth have risen to about 50 percent from 20 percent a hundred years ago.

The 60-year-old scientist, author of the recently published "Our Final Hour," says science is advancing in a far more unpredictable and potentially dangerous pattern than ever before.

He lists as mankind's biggest threats: nuclear terrorism, deadly engineered viruses, rogue machines and genetic engineering that could alter human character. All of those could result from innocent error or the action of a single malevolent individual.

BIOTECHNOLOGY COULD CHANGE HUMAN NATURE

"For the first time ever, human nature itself isn't fixed. Biotech drugs and genetic engineering are empowering individuals more than ever before," Rees said.

With rapidly advancing DNA technology, "even a single person could cause a disaster," Rees warned, noting that the United States, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and anthrax scare, is well aware of this threat.

Thousands of people have the ability to engineer viruses and bacteria to cause deadly plagues. Even if one such "weirdo" didn't kill many people, that type of biological terrorism would profoundly change daily life, the scientist warned.

Nanotechnology -- the subject of a recent Michael Crichton thriller about the havoc caused by runaway microscopic machines -- are also a potent threat, he said.

If the field advances far enough, rogue self-replicating nanotechnology machines -- feeding on organic material and spreading like pollen -- could devastate a continent within a few days, Rees said.

The dangers of global warming (news - web sites) are also addressed in the book, subtitled "A scientist's warning: How terror, error, and environmental disaster threaten humankind's future in this century -- on Earth and beyond."

Rees does not discount the possibility of disaster caused by scientific experiments involving particle accelerators. "Perhaps a back hole could form, and then suck in everything around it," he cautions.

So what's to be done? The British scientist calls for better regulation and inspection of sensitive data and experiments. "We need to keep track of those who have potentially lethal knowledge," Rees said.

Volcanic hot zone seethes five km beneath Arctic ice

Margaret Munro
CanWest News Service
Thursday, June 26, 2003

Scientists have discovered a remarkable hot zone beneath the Arctic ice, where the Earth's thick, rocky crust has come apart at the seams and lava and scalding water spew out of volcanoes and hot vents.

An international research team spent two months dangling probes and dredging gear off icebreakers in the high Arctic to get a close look at the "spreading" ridge. It stretches 1,800 kilometres along the seafloor from Greenland to Siberia, most of it in international waters.

The scientists retrieved tonnes of rock, including chunks of "black smokers" created as hot, mineral-rich water gushed out of the seafloor, lava tubes from volcanoes and rare samples of rock from deep inside the Earth.

The researchers describe the scientific treasure fished from the deep in the journal Nature today.

They have also produced the most detailed map yet of the zone, called the Gakkel Ridge.

The ridge is about five kilometres beneath the Arctic ice and is the most remote and deepest spreading ridge on the planet.

Such ridges, which are also found in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, form when hot rock from inside the Earth wells up between the 100-kilometre-thick crustal plates that cover the planet.

"The Earth is pulled apart at these ridges and material from the interior comes up," says Prof. Peter Michael of the University of Tulsa, one of the expedition's chief scientists.

The Gakkel Ridge has proved unexpectedly active. At least 20 volcanoes rise out of the ridge, and one erupted as recently as July 1998, Michael says. The largest rises about two kilometres off the sea floor...

Michael says the Arctic vents are so isolated they likely harbour life that is different from the tube worms, clams and other creatures that inhabit other deep-sea vents.

But Michael, a geoscientist, is most intrigued by the exposed mantle rock they discovered. Mantle is "white-hot" rock that rises from as deep as 2,900 kilometres inside the Earth. Normally, mantel rock is covered by magma and crustal rock, but on the Gakkel Ridge it is exposed in a canyon about 100 kilometres long and two kilometres wide...

Comment:

Feb 27, 1997

Q: (T) Is the Earth expanding? That's just putting it bluntly, but, is the Earth expanding, how did you put that? (Ark) Yes, that's the theory: the idea is that the continents move away because the Earth
is expanding, and this is much faster than you know, than geologists were thinking.

A: Continental "drift" is caused by the continual though variable, propelling of gases from the interior to the surface, mainly at points of magnetic significance.

Q: (J) What causes the change in the axis?

A: By slow down of rotation. Earth alternately heats up and cools down in interior

Dome of Montserrat volcano collapses

Monday, July 14, 2003 Posted: 1030 GMT
OLVESTON, Montserrat (AP)

Explosions rocked Montserrat's volcano on Sunday, spewing thick clouds of ash into the air after heavy rainfall caused part of the volcano's dome to collapse.

Tree branches were snapped off from the weight of the ash and significant damage was done to surrounding vegetation, said Richard Herd, director of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory on the British Caribbean island.

"There's no one in the area right now but as a precaution we're asking people in surrounding areas to stay indoors. There's still a chance of more explosions and rock fall," said Herd.

Part of the volcano's dome that faces the Tar River Valley collapsed late Saturday, sending a torrent of mud and ash down the valley and pelting distant houses and buildings with a hail of rocks. In October, 300 residents who live near the valley were evacuated after scientists warned the volcano's dome had shifted its growth toward the north.

The Soufriere Hills volcano sprang to life in 1995, chasing away more than half the island's population. An eruption in 1997 buried much of the south, including the capital, Plymouth, and killed 19 people.

Today, the peak still casts a reddish-orange glow at night. Scientists monitor it and report any changes to the island's 4,500 residents, who live in northern areas declared safe.

Once a bustling island where sheep and cattle roamed the hills and chartered yachts pulled in weekly on tourist runs, Montserrat's economy has been hard hit by losses in tourism and farmland in the south, which is now uninhabitable under mountains of volcanic, gray ash.

Comment:

August 22, 1997

Q: Okay. Now, we are onto the subject of our friendly local volcano down on Montserrat. What is it up to?
A: Seismic swarms... Much fear and concern by officials; muted...
Q: Can you give us an idea about what this volcano is going to do? What are the percentages in favor of a cataclysmic eruption in the near future?
A: Look to geologic map patterning for answer.
Q: What in particular should we be looking for?
A: Sequences, locators, historical telltale hints and signs. The signs always point the way for those who bother to read.
Q: Is there something about sequences of locators? Is it like a moving series in a general direction or pattern?
A: Yes.
Q: What general way does the sequence move? East to West? What?
A: Reverberatory.
Q: So, if something occurs in one place...
A: Like the wavelets in a small pool of water.
Q: Well, where does the stone drop?
A: Look to 18 degrees North and South.
Q: What, in specific, is at 18 degrees, that we need to see?
A: Magnetic colliders that balance.
Q: What do they balance? Magnetic fields of the earth?
A: Close.
Q: Would there be specific points along this 18 degree line, and if so, how many lines of longitude apart would they be?
A: Think of a parallelogram.
Q: What is this parallelogram going to tell us?
A: Cosmic "puncture points."
Q: You mean like cosmic windows?
A: Closer.
Q: And these parallelograms are located along the 18 degree lines of latitude.
A: Yes.
Q: And these parallelogram windows do they straddle this line, or are they above or below it?
A: Near, as measured on the surface.
Q: Where do they originate from? Within the globe, or externally?
A: Both, as in positive/negative charge.
Q: What is within the globe, the positive or negative?
A: Think of static electricity to "ground" your answer.
Q: How many of these parallelograms are there along this 18 degree line of latitude?
A: Four shooting energy bars.
Q: Where are they shooting energy to, space?
A: And back.

The Volcano That May Destroy Mankind

By  Zaynab El-Fatah

Approaching Lake Toba in North Sumatra, one could be forgiven for thinking that the beauty of the lake was heavenly, without thinking of how it was formed. [...]

In Britain, a scientist has predicted that another volcanic super- eruption the size of Toba could pose twice as much of a threat to civilization as a collision with an asteroid or a comet. [...]

White Island Volcano (New Zealand)

Sunday 10th August 2003

Over the last few months a substantial lake has formed in the active crater at White Island. This is the largest lake to have formed within this crater and has recently drowned the active vents. As a consequence future eruptions will occur through the crater lake and, if ejected by eruptions, moderate volumes of water could flood down the Main Crater floor towards the sea.

This is a significant change in the nature of volcanic hazards on the island. The current lake volume is large enough that it will influence the next phase of eruptive activity from the volcano and result in a new hazard to people visiting the island.

Comment: Interesting, considering all the recent earthquakes and aftereshocks that have occured in New Zealand recently.

Yellowstone Volcano (USA)

Saturday 9th August 2003

Scientists plan to set up a temporary network of seismographs, Global Positioning System receivers and thermometers to monitor increasing hydrothermal activity in the Norris Geyser Basin and gauge the risk of a hydrothermal explosion...

A Dream Of a Mountain, A Nightmare Of a Volcano

Mount Rainier Called 'Monumental Threat'

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 11, 2003

[...]"A monumental threat," said William E. Scott, scientist in charge of the Cascades Volcano Observatory, a USGS center that monitors volcanoes from California to Alaska.