A massive volcano that scientists can't find

A massive volcano that scientists can't find(bbc.com)

113 points by dimitrov 8 years ago | 38 comments

Pitarou 8 years ago |

> 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.

ygra 8 years ago | |

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.

JumpCrisscross 8 years ago | | |

> 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].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transamerica_Pyramid

tbrake 8 years ago | | |

Enough to completely fill the Grand Canyon(4.17T m³[1])almost 9 times over.

[1] https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/management/statistics.htm

fijal 8 years ago | | |

I think you (or the journalist) are off by a few zeros. According to wikipedia it's 32-39km^3 and I think km^3 = 1e9m^3

lostlogin 8 years ago | |

I agree, I thought the Olympic swimming pool was the only unit of measure for journalism.

Pitarou 8 years ago | | |

In the UK, they used to use the volume of Wembley Stadium (a well-known sports ground), but then it was demolished and rebuilt.

maxxxxx 8 years ago | | |

the question now is: How many Olympic swimming pools fit into the Empire State Building?

But seriously, I am OK using this kind of unit to illustrate that something is really big but at a minimum they should also add some real units.

smoyer 8 years ago | |

Everybody knows that the empire state building is a unit of measure for length!

jsmthrowaway 8 years ago |

Imagine 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.

dredmorbius 8 years ago | |

The study of the evolution of understanding of geology itself, particularly from the late 18th century, when things started hotting up, is pretty interesting.

A lot of initial observations and attempts to reconcile those with the biblical record, but that didn't add up. Lyell establishing gradualism. Lord Kelvin noting that thermodynamic cooling only allowed for about 30 million years of Earth history (pretty clearly not consistent with the structural geological record). Rutherford, Soddy, and Hardy establishing radioactivity and radiodating. Plate tectonics being proposed (initially as "continental drift"), rejected as patently absurd, and adopted some 50 years later as the fundamental organising principle of geology.

Added gloss from discoveries such as the Chixulub impactor, etc.

thaumasiotes 8 years ago | |

Subterranean rivers of fire is pretty close to how we understand them today.

Pitarou 8 years ago | | |

River of fire comes out of the ground. Hmm. Where did it come from?

agucho 8 years ago |

Mighty interesting, sure. Still, I can't stand these awe-driven narratives. The formula is getting old and in the jumping from one wow to the next a lot of the real questions and facts are left half-explained. And as somebody already pointed out, the units... football fields, Hiroshima bombs and the area of California... they should standardize those already, right? Journalists could use abbreviations and the rest of us would get to write unit converters when learning a new programming language.

dTal 8 years ago | |

Well, you know the trouble with standards...

https://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards-conv...

mirimir 8 years ago | |

Right. I could probably rewrite it in about five sentences, plus footnotes ;)

pokemongoaway 8 years ago | |

Exactly! When future historians read back at writing from our time period - if it is still around - then how do you think they'll characterize it?

agucho 8 years ago | | |

ha! Good question, I guess they'll say its magical realism with strong late-cuneiform influences, judging from what little is left from the devastating eruption from a vulcano no one ever found.

maxxxxx 8 years ago | |

They should just write "really big".

mrb 8 years ago |

They 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

Taniwha 8 years ago | |

You'll notice that Wikipedia includes it in: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unconfirmed_impact_c...

it's existence/size/effects is controversial to say the least, TV shows about it show up on the History channel along with all the ancient aliens crap

mirimir 8 years ago | |

I doubt that impacts would inject as much sulfate as was observed in the ice cores.

DuskStar 8 years ago |

Spoilers: 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.)