Fortunately this sucker is extinct, but is definitely a heavy weight. Although measurements need to be refined a little more it could be the second biggest volcano in the Solar System. And as the article explains, this might not even be the biggest http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=largest-volcano-on-earth-ocean
Yeah you are not wrong, though if the dating is accurate, when it was erupting it was messing badly with oceanic chemistry
Personally I am more worried about Lake Toba. That thing is not that far from Australia that if it blows we would see at least "a year without summer" I often wonder how big the volcano that created the Mount isa Inlier was
I think Yellowstone is a more immediate concern, we have a shot of surviving that. Lake Toba would be almost an extinction level event. As for Mount Isa, it is hard tell. A lot of folding and stress has happened since that all went down. Makes it hard to decide what belongs where in terms of magma distribution - - - Updated - - - Lol I just referenced Yellowstone
Read about the "Laacher See" in the middle of Germany: The Laacher is a potentially active volcano, proven by seismic activities and heavy thermal anomalies under the lake. Carbon dioxide gas from magma still bubbles up at the southeastern shore, and scientists believe that a new eruption could happen at any time, which, today, would be a disaster beyond all description. http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/read/index.php?pageid=svolcano_index&svid=10
It's only a matter of time until one of the super volcanoes erupts. When it does, it will disrupt the Earth's ecosystems for years, bringing on mass starvation and anarchy. Other than that, have a nice day, and don't worry about the future. Everything will be just fine.
I recall a think tank sponsored by the US government where they went through every possible natural disaster. Looked at what technology that could either mitigate the disaster or stop it from happening. Under mega caldera collapse the report said "There is not even a theoretical branch of technology capable of dealing with this threat.
Let's hope that doomsday comes in the form of an approaching comet instead. We would actually have a chance to blow the thing out of the sky before it hit us. maybe.
I wonder what it was like when it did erupt? Did it just pour lava down its sides or did it eject stuff into the air? As it was underwater I suggest it was the former and not a threat to any land life forms.
Gasses are lighter than water and will eventually end up in the atmosphere making volcanic winter a reality for the decades to come .
The CO2 would come to the surface and heat up the atmosphere. The dust that normally cools the atmosphere after a volcanic eruption would not be ejected into the atmosphere.
probably not, but it certainly would increase the temperature, which in turn would make some radical changes to ocean currents, which would bring on some climate changes that no one could deny. There would be unpredictable changes in the weather for years, crops would fail, oh, yes, it wouldn't be a fun time for the seven or so billion homo sapiens who depend on the Earth for a living.
Well it was a shield volcano so the magma sort of just leaks out like puss from a pimple. Not a lot gas involved hence the almost gentle nature of the eruptions
There is a lot of water in the top few hundred meters of the world's ocean. That would require an enormous amount of energy to evaporate. About the best it would be able to do is rise to within a few meters of the surface and then push the remaining water to one side. However I suggest wizard from Oz is mostly likely to be correct, that it gave out mostly magma at a slow rate.
Yes he is probably correct but pushing out magma is just activity not explosion , i know very little about volcanoes to be sure so how this is different from Yellowstone ? being underwater should mean little for such monsters .
Yellowstone would put out a lot of ash and other material that would spread out in the atmosphere a long way. This ash would prevent the sunlight from reaching the surface of the earth and maybe kill many plants or at least stop them from growing.
Yes but why an underwater volcano will not do the same ? If you are familiar with Santorini eruption the volcano there evaporated half the island , wouldn't ocean water boil into steam?
Not all volcanoes are the same. Read this for more information about different types of volanoes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano.
As Robot pointed out not all volcanoes are the same. Santorini is seen as a Pliny eruption, which contains a lot of gas under exceedingly high pressure. Kralatoa is an example where the crater walls partially collapsed allowing sea water to enter the chamber and the rest is history. The shield volcanoes tend to be far more low key but generally will released more magma than most volcanoes.
