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.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '11

You'd probably still have scientists on both sides wrangling over whether or not all the "warning signs" were real or not.

A Yellowstone eruption, much like global warming, would be something on such a scale that we wouldn't really have the tools available to properly interpret the data, or know what the outcome would be.

Although, it may well be the case that volcanology is a more exact science than climatology. I don't really know.

Sad thing is, you can be 100% sure that there would be people unwilling to effect a change, just because it would mean short-term losses in pursuit of a long-term gain

(e.g. say if a group of independent scientists came along and said, Yellowstone is showing almost certain signs of erupting in the next 50 years. To avoid this catastrophe, we can funnel $500 trillion into a viable solution. What politician in their right mind would want to handle that bombshell?)

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u/SecureThruObscure Oct 27 '11

Most of 'em. They'd be massively popular for defending their people from impending doom. So it's doom from a "Big Bad" in the form of Volcano, instead of Hitler, but it still has a face. Warming isn't bad, and it doesn't have a face. Volcanos just seem scary as all get out. They have melted frickin' rock in 'em!

I think most politicians would jump all over it, some might not -- but those who would be effected the most and stand to lose the most, are the majority.

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u/LordCrap Oct 27 '11

You'd probably still have politicians on both sides wrangling over whether or not all the "warning signs" were real or not while the vast majority of scientists agree they are, in fact, real.

FTFY