melting roadway in Yellowstone
Not that alarming: they replace walkway now and again, but this one is in the path of car traffic.
A little heads up re travel within Yellowstone and which ‘gateway’ you might want.
by CJ | Jul 14, 2014 | Journal | 23 comments
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They’re also reminding people to stay on the walkways, because they don’t know where there’s a hot spot about to come through.
It is kind of scary when your road melts, though.
Not so great when the road is disintegrating under your feet. Around 3 years ago, the main crater at Kilauea decided to go active again and eat the overlook area:
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/multimedia/index.php?tableName=pub_main_multimedia&newSearch=true&display=custom&volcano=1&keywords=overlook&startDate=&endDate=&searchType=inclusive&resultsPerPage=10
Considering Yellowstone is on top of a supercaldera, which hasn’t erupted in over 600,000 years, and is geologically due for an eruption…..it’s a wonder more of the roads haven’t been melted. Been there once, would like to see it again before the caldera blows it all to hell and gone, though……
I have a sneaky suspicion if the caldera at Yellowstone blows to hell and gone, we’ll have other things on our minds than seeing the sights….
It would probably put a real crimp in future Shejicons.
They always remind people to stay on the walkways: there’s a book called Death in Yellowstone that has some really appalling demises. That crust can be unexpectedly thin.
I remember the tar in the sidewalks going viscous and bubbling of a summer in my girlhood. Does anyone else?
absolutely…especially the tar they used to patch the cracks in asphalt streets. You could ride over it with a bike and leave a treadmark, step on it and leave a footprint….I remember it bubbling, too.
Heh. We used to steal the clean bits when they were laying down new tar, and use it for chewing gum. We lived in a not too affluent neighborhood, and candy was hard come by!
If you had a couple of popsicle sticks, you could dig it out and make licorice for your mud pie store.
Took me a while to track down a vague recollection of something I was told in gradeschool…
Parícutin is a cinder cone volcano in the Mexican state of Michoacán, close to a lava-covered village of the same name. The volcano is unique in the fact that its evolution from creation to extinction was witnessed, observed and studied. … The volcano began as a fissure in a cornfield owned by a P’urhépecha farmer, Dionisio Pulido, on February 20, 1943. He and his wife witnessed the initial eruption of ash and stones first-hand while working in the field. The volcano grew quickly, reaching five stories tall in just a week, and it could be seen from afar in a month. Much of the volcano’s growth occurred during its first year, while it was still in the explosive pyroclastic phase. The nearby villages Parícutin (after which the volcano was named) and San Juan Parangaricutiro were buried in lava and ash; the residents relocated to vacant land nearby.
Paul, are you in ‘Temple of Doom’ mode today? 😀
No, not at all. 🙂 Just a parallel data point about taking geological processes for granted. 😉
Well, and it’s just kinda funny to think one could be out plowing your cornfield and up pops a volcano behind you! “Set the plow a little deep, didn’t you Dionisio?”
ROFL!!
Hee hee hee!
Seriously…too funny!!!
Paul, I thought your icon’s costume would be perfect for a “Temple of a Doom” party.
It’ll change next month. 😉
I would suspect that Paricutin is dormant rather than extinct, unless they have evidence that the magma chamber is known and definitively cold. New Mexico has a set of cinder cones including Capulin (with its driveable road and carpark on the summit) — but the area still has heat, and hot springs, and I don’t know quite how they define extinction, now. They used to say extinct, regarding those volcanoes, but the entire field is still lively, though at a low level, subject to change on fairly short notice.
Is a volcano its specific vent, or is it the condition under the earth which can break out again from the same larger source?
Volcanos which are not part of a ‘plume’ or ‘hot spot’ that characterizes itself by a chain of cones as plate movement carries the earth’s shell past the ‘spot’ —are produced usually 80 or so miles from a seacoast, where an oceanic basaltic plate dives under a continental granitic one, which tends to float like a marshmallow in chocolate. The water helps the rock melt and pressurize, or pressurize and melt, and bang! volcano—
The plumes are different, however. And near Albuquerque there is a nice little chain of vents…
Are they evidence of a ‘spot’ and a moving plate? Or are they an ancient plate boundary from the long dead pre-Rockies sea?
Honestly, I think the answers are probably out there, but they may be subject to revision: I’ve seen some revision of statements about the New Mexico field, new work tending to shed new light on what’s going on down there. I’m not sure they’ve reached a really accurate picture.
The image is kind of vivid in recent memory: we passed Capulin last month on the way down to Oklahoma…
That is rather extreme popcorn, that cornfield. Heckuva way to toast marshmallows too.
Dionisio…perhaps Vulcan/Hephaestus would’ve been more appropriate. But then you’d need a Sehlat and C3PO…you know, bronze mechanical man, Hephaestus….
Mood music: “I don’t know where I’m a-gonna go when the volcano blow,” by Jimmy Buffett.
Correction: That song title is just, “Volcano.”
On the other hand, if Yellowstone blows, it is mostly downwind of us, so y’all will be welcome to come to only slightly ashy Spokane.
Errm, if it blows anything like it did last time I suspect Spokane will be dodging clinkers!
but most of us would be coming from the East, having to drive through that stuff…..oh no, look out for that hurtling ball of lava coming down toward us! turn left, no, turn right, no, back up! back up!
BCS, I have the earworm now………..I think the song is hilarious, but then, I like Buffett….
Coincidentally, today I ran into this study showing the Cascadia Subduction zone creating the “plumbing” of Mt Ranier. The image is here.
Obviously, we needn’t fear only another major eruption of the Yellowstone Super-caldera, Mt Ranier could ruin the day of about everyone in Washington State! 🙁