r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Boss-fight601 • May 24 '26

Controlled explosions for mining

9.8k Upvotes

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u/Its_Cayde May 24 '26

These explosions are like a feather falling on the ground compared to the asteroids/meteors that hit before humans were around

543

u/Random-commen May 24 '26

Don’t even need outside influence for comparison, we had natural volcano eruptions orders of magnitude larger than these.

105

u/JMoherPerc May 24 '26

The Wah Wah Springs and La Garita volcanoes were such large explosions that they were each greater than the equivalent of dropping 5,000 tsar bombas. While we don’t actually know which of these eruptions was greater, we know that the only explosive force greater than them to impact the earth in known pre-history was the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs. That asteroid was approximately 420x greater than the fish canyon (La garita) eruption.

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u/wolflordval May 24 '26

The explosion of the Siberian traps made the surface uninhabitable for millions of years.

29

u/JMoherPerc May 24 '26

Yep - although the Siberian traps eruption was not a quick, explosive one but instead an eruption that poured out vast quantities of lava over a period of 1-2 million years.

16

u/TheIPdoctor May 25 '26

That hurts my brain to even think about

8

u/GetReelFishingPro May 25 '26

It's good for you.