Forget alien invasion and climate change, the biggest threat we could face are from volcanic eruptions.
1500 years ago.
https://www.science.org/content/article/why-536-was-worst-year-be-alive
74,000 years ago.
https://geographical.co.uk/science-environment/explainer-the-toba-supervolcano-and-the-biggest-eruption-in-human-history
We can do something about climate and pandemics, but volcanoes never.
Last year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cged3jd8llyo
Can't do anything about landslides of this magnitude, either.
Quote from: zorkan on September 27, 2024, 01:03:09 PMWe can do something about climate and pandemics, but volcanoes never.
im not sure we can do anything about climate change. i believe its baked in. it will take a major disaster before anything happens.
but with volcanoes, you can move away from the initial sources of danger. i lived on top of the san andreas fault in western america for 17 years, and the earthquakes were things you eventually took mostly for granted. with some major exceptions.
but the climactic impacts of major eruptions look to be similar to meterorite impacts, with cooling and light reduction.
with asteroids, we get big ones periodically, and theres debate about what can be done about them.
If Yellowstone ever blows, it's adios Muchacha.
Quote from: billy rubin on September 27, 2024, 09:45:10 PMwith asteroids, we get big ones periodically, and theres debate about what can be done about them.
If Tunguska was an asteroid or comet hit we couldn't have done anything, but now we could send up a rocket with a warhead to divert it.
Well, couldn't we?
I'm impressed by continental drift.
Had that not happened then humans would have found it easier to kill each other.
If something like Yellowstone blows the skies will darken, sunlight will be cut off, photosynthesis will cease, humans will be reduced to cannibalism.
Mass panic and total mayhem.
If humans have not terraformed Mars by then the whole race could become extinct.
is that a problem in some way?
Quote from: zorkan on September 28, 2024, 12:17:09 PMQuote from: billy rubin on September 27, 2024, 09:45:10 PMwith asteroids, we get big ones periodically, and theres debate about what can be done about them.
If Tunguska was an asteroid or comet hit we couldn't have done anything, but now we could send up a rocket with a warhead to divert it.
Well, couldn't we?
No I don't think so, Bruce Willis has dementia now, we're doomed.
If not Willis, surely Trump will save the world.
https://www.astronomy.com/science/nuclear-bombs-really-could-deflect-asteroids-lab-tests-suggest/
On the subject of impact craters Mars has the largest yet discovered.
"The largest crater on Mars (and, arguably the largest so far discovered in the solar system) is the Hellas basin measuring 1600 x 2000 km, roughly twice the size of Alaska. "
Earth's are small by comparison.
https://www.astronomy.com/science/these-5-impact-craters-highlight-earths-wild-history/
Maybe life on Mars was obliterated by an asteroid.
In the UK there are no active volcanoes but here is a list of extinct ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volcanoes_in_the_United_Kingdom
I have visited quite a few and the nearest is Barrow Hill.
In the unlikely event it erupts again there is a hospital only a few hundred yards away.
Isn't that a little too close? :D
i would think so. but you never can tell.
Very silly building a hospital (it's called Russells Hall) so close to a volcano.
But it's a "A very British volcano."
https://depositsmag.com/2024/05/11/barrow-hill-an-ancient-very-british-volcano/
It's like building a city under Vesuvius.
Seems like the ground around is fertile.
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14wu2e8/eli5_how_could_neapolitans_build_a_city_under_the/?rdt=43725
1783 was the year Europe was blanketed in a mysterious fog.
Crops failed and people starved, and nobody knew why.
https://www.encyclopedie-environnement.org/en/society/laki-fissure-eruption-1783-1784/
As speculated by Benjamin Franklin, but it might be wrong.
https://phys.org/news/2011-09-ben-franklin-wrong-volcanic-eruption.html
When fossils were found in a slate quarry in Oxfordshire, this one attracted the attention of William Buckland of Oxford University.
https://paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2024/02/20/200-years-of-the-great-fossil-lizard-of-stonesfield/
Buckland described the first dinosaur, ate every animal he could find, and is said to have eaten the heart of a French king.
https://www.iflscience.com/eccentric-scientist-who-described-first-dinosaur-allegedly-ate-the-heart-of-a-king-67876