A massive volcano that scientists can't find
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Re: A massive volcano that scientists can't find
#2Spoilers: The volcano is unlikely to still be massive. Probably a good sized crater or two though.
(Ice core evidence shows a pair of eruptions around the 1460s, likely the cause of major famines across the planet in following years. The locations of the eruptions are still unknown, though.)
Re: A massive volcano that scientists can't find
#3Imagine observing these events and trying to explain them with rudimentary scientific understanding. At the time, the best explanations for volcanoes involved wind causing friction in narrow canyons or subterranean rivers of fire, but nobody really knew. One can appreciate mythology more in this light, given the titanic scale of volcanic eruptions and an entire species agape in wonder.
Cool stuff. Really drives home that we are guests of this planet.
Re: A massive volcano that scientists can't find
#4Imagine observing these events and trying to explain them with rudimentary scientific understanding. At the time, the best explanations for volcanoes involved wind causing friction in narrow canyons or subterranean rivers of fire, but nobody really knew. One can appreciate mythology more in this light, given the titanic scale of volcanic eruptions and an entire species agape in wonder. Cool stuff. Really drives home…
Subterranean rivers of fire is pretty close to how we understand them today.
Re: A massive volcano that scientists can't find
#5They say it could have been caused by an asteroid, but don't explain why this theory is seemingly discarded.
Edit: 2min of googling and I find a not very well know 20km impact crater dated at exactly the right time (mid 15th century): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahuika_crater
Re: A massive volcano that scientists can't find
#6> they estimated that Kuwae’s eruption had released vast quantities of magma, enough to fill the Empire State Building 37 million times over
This is a unit of journalistic measurement I have never come across before.
Re: A massive volcano that scientists can't find
#7Imagine observing these events and trying to explain them with rudimentary scientific understanding. At the time, the best explanations for volcanoes involved wind causing friction in narrow canyons or subterranean rivers of fire, but nobody really knew. One can appreciate mythology more in this light, given the titanic scale of volcanic eruptions and an entire species agape in wonder. Cool stuff. Really drives home…
Subterranean rivers of fire is pretty close to how we understand them today.
River of fire comes out of the ground. Hmm. Where did it come from?
Re: A massive volcano that scientists can't find
#8> they estimated that Kuwae’s eruption had released vast quantities of magma, enough to fill the Empire State Building 37 million times over This is a unit of journalistic measurement I have never come across before.
Apparently the volume of the ESB is about 1e6 m³. So that's about 37e12 m³ of magma. But yeah, using a weird unit of measurement no one even knows and using 37 million as a factor pretty much guarantees that no one can relate this to anything.
Re: A massive volcano that scientists can't find
#9Re: A massive volcano that scientists can't find
#10> they estimated that Kuwae’s eruption had released vast quantities of magma, enough to fill the Empire State Building 37 million times over This is a unit of journalistic measurement I have never come across before.
Apparently the volume of the ESB is about 1e6 m³. So that's about 37e12 m³ of magma. But yeah, using a weird unit of measurement no one even knows and using 37 million as a factor pretty much guarantees that no one can relate this to anything.
> using a weird unit of measurement no one even knows and using 37 million as a factor pretty much guarantees that no one can relate this to anything
Manhattan has a land area of 59.1 square kilometers [1]. 37e12 m³ of magma would fill the land area of Manhattan to over 600 kilometers, i.e. well past the boundary of space.
Alternatively, it would fill California's 424,000 thousand square kilometers to 100 meters, or about halfway to the top of the Transamerica Pyramid [2].