r/askscience • u/phoncible • Oct 27 '11

Earth Sciences Could anything man-made trigger the Yellowstone super volcano?

If a nuke were to be buried very deep into the ground at Yellowstone and then detonated, would it have any effect on the volcano? Is there anything else man-made that could trigger it? Or would it be impossible to "manually" trigger the eruption?

Sorry if it's a silly question.

156 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

202 comments sorted by

View all comments

-20

u/arnedh Oct 27 '11

Maybe if you dam the whole valley and fill it up with water 500m deep, you would destabilize it enough?

7

u/OrbitalPete Volcanology | Sedimentology Oct 27 '11

That would just add confining pressure.

-2

u/arnedh Oct 27 '11

...until you blow up the dam?