Simviation Forums

Hey all
I recently saw a documentary on the YellowStone super volcano. Did you know it erupted millions of years ago, spewing out, 2500 cubic kilometres of ash, 'causing a Nu-ca-lar Winter?

I decided to fly there myself!

Climbing west from some airport north of Jackson hole (KJAC)

Enroute

Look at the giant Caldera that I'm decending into, it's something like 40km wide!

Turning final. (Yes, them hills are the Caldera wall)

Safe for a nice camping trip inside the Yellowstone natl park.....


Sorry about the compression in some of the shots, and sorry about not showing the giant Caldera enough, I don't like creating 2-4 threads for some screenshots

Comments Welcome

Wasnt this the mono lake your talking about? I had seen the end of the documentary and just recently found a hint about were it was located, mind sharing info on this?

Yellowstone sits on top of a super-volcano. Its a lava pool that sits below a flat solid cap and builds pressure under it over hundreds of thousands - millions of years. The last time it errupted it laid debris all over what we know as the the US and Canada (from mexico to the arctic) and was considered the lesser of the eruptions that have come from it. Each eruption over the millions of years it has been active is estimated to have gotten smaller and smaller. The current estimate is that it may go off one more time but probably not in our lifetime or anytime in the foreseable future. If it does, life as we know it may change on the entire planet.

With the current plate movement, the Rockies are falling in elevation and the Cascades are rising. That means the pressure on the area has dropped and also accounts for the smaller and smaller erutpions from the area. At one time the US was located next to what we know as Africa and with the plate movement the Rockies gave rise. There is a shift in that now which has a direct bearing on pressure the area builds.

Interesting bit of history, and amazing shots !  #3 is very different from what we usually see and #4 is !

Great work!

- Kevin

Great shots.  Did you get to see the Tetons after you took off?



And, just to clarify, the caldera is actually almost as wide as Yellowstone itself, and not visible from the air.  It is the cause of all the earthquake, geyser, and hotspring activity in the area, and it has slowly moved to the southwest over thousands of years as the North American tectonic plate moves east.



Sorry, my step-dad was a geologist and park Ranger in Yellowstone for quite a while, and we go on vacation out there every summer, so I hear this particular story quite often.

Thanks for comments and lessons guys