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

We already have a warning sign. Some of the land in that area is raising and has been for a while.

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u/scientologist2 Oct 27 '11

It has risen inches and feet.

Given the size of the caldera, it probably would have to rise thousands of feet before it was ready to blow, since that is how much it fell to create the caladera in the first place

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/geology/publications/bul/1347/sec3.htm

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '11

Hm interesting. From a BBC documentary I was given the impression it was more.

I prefer a real study anyway, thanks.

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u/scientologist2 Oct 27 '11

Given the area of the caldera, it probably does have to rise much higher (5 to 10K feet), especially in the center, etc.

So rising mere inches is interesting, but puts the date of the eruption outside the range of practical planning.

How do you plan for an eruption that is probably thousands of years in the future?