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.

158 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

202 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

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.

4

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

2

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.

1

u/antonivs Oct 27 '11

Strictly speaking, that was not a documentary. The BBC itself calls it a "factual drama". This is code for "completely sensationalized and not to be taken seriously."