Used to guide in Yellowstone. This has no bearing on the greater Yellowstone Caldera (supervolcano) which spans nearly 30miles by 40miles. In my time there I never saw anything like this. If you're ever in a situation similar to this, run as fast and as far as you can.
The interesting thing about geysers and pools is how relatively predictable they are... until they are not. A mathematical and statistical person would have a lot of fun building prediction models for all the different geysers.
> If you're ever in a situation similar to this, run as fast and as far as you can.
I really really want to underscore this point.
You're literally standing on top of ground and under that is boiling water.
If that breaks and you fall in you're going to be in boiling water with no way to get out and you will die screaming.
Also NEVER walk on ground that has no vegetation. If you look around a geyser you will see that the ground is white and has no vegetation. That's because the temperature is too high and it has water under it that's heating the ground.
Walk on that and there's a chance you will fall in.
In the back country there are no fences so you can fall right through the crust.
>> Also NEVER walk on ground that has no vegetation.
There are also places on this planet where toxicity issues preclude vegetation. If there are fumes coming through the soil so powerful that grass doesn't grow, take the hint.
They mean never in the context of fleeing from these explosions.
My sidewalk has no vegetation, but that is because I weedwhacked on Tuesday not because a geyser 10 meters away is flash boiling water in a pressure vessel made of stone and glass shrapnel-to-be.
Hmmm — isn’t it possible that too much awareness of our pending apocalyptic peril at the mercy of the Yellowstone Caldera is what’s arresting your slumbers in the first place?
If only my late night existential crises were based on realistic apocalyptic peril, rather than some kind of unknown that's impossible to put into words. At least then, there's some kind of science and "natural rules" to limit the exposure.
White Island exploded and killed 22 visitors here in New Zealand in 2019 [1]. As you say, if an eruption starts, run. Video from that day is chilling, with comment made about how different to normal the pools looked.
Those with uncovered skin suffered horribly, and it’s quite surprisingly how little covering was helpful.
I am a groundwater modeler (hydrogeologist) and often work in fractured rock (mainly for mining clients). No experience with modeling for hydrothermal projects though. While the physics of modeling fluid flow in these environments is possible (e.g. discrete fracture networks), mapping and having confidence in the distribution and actual inter-connectivity of the fractures (i.e. preferential flow pathways) is incredibly difficult.
Is the difficulty because the sensing techniques give general but not-localized results? I.e. porosity in an area, but no information about specific connected fissures? Or something else?
My cousin is in hydrogeology as well! Fascinating subject!
Is a geyser not inherently self-destructive? As in its a load-bearing pressure test-run on a random set of connection in stone. Meaning the rock fracks itself, and only the valve to above ground allows for repeated runs? Or do they fix fractures with minerals?
There's nothing about a geyser that requires rock to be fractured during an eruption. Geysers occur due to positive feedback as liquid water is removed, reducing the pressure on underlying heated water, allowing it to boil.
Sort of a temporary equilibrium of boiling temperatures as long as water keeps coming out? but because water supply is finite that will only be a few second or ms?
It's that water that's kept liquid when it's sufficiently deep will now boil when that overlying water is removed. It keeps boiling until it cools enough that it's no longer above the boiling point at the reduced pressure.
Over 60 observations of this hot spring erupting in some fashion over the last 18 years. https://geysertimes.org/geyser.php?id=Black+Diamond Many of the reports mention black water and rocks and "big" -- so not particularly rare. This eruption appears to be larger though -- typically the rocks and debris do not make it to the boardwalk.
A geyser gazer friend of mine shared the following image pair: a "before" Google Earth image and a USGS overhead image captured today after the event. The debris field surrounding the spring is evident -- including the damaged boardwalk. (links to a png) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Dcd55YX7oF8KPrHsog75vPS_Mc9...
They’re not that rare. The USGS statement references a few examples of similar events including one from 2009 in this same basin, one from 1989 in the Norris basin, and another (small) event in the Norris basin earlier this year.
A great followup for someone looking to dive into the statistical side of this would be the Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone. [1] (Worlds tallest active geyser)
It has a pretty irregular major eruption pattern. What people often forget, is that geysers don't wait for the day time, so many events occur at night when nobody is around to witness the beauty. When a geyser like this only erupts a handful of times a year and for approximately 3 minutes, you have to get very very very lucky to witness it. Especially when you take into account how enormous YNP is.
> This has no bearing on the greater Yellowstone Caldera (supervolcano) which spans nearly 30miles by 40miles. In my time there I never saw anything like this. If you're ever in a situation similar to this, run as fast and as far as you can.
What would be the point of running if the Yellowstone Caldera actually goes bang? I mean, where would you run to? The resulting destruction would be greater than that experienced by the asteroid collision that ended the dinosaurs.
You're better off staying put and vaporising than dying of asphyxiation a week later.
I believe the poster was saying two things separately:
1. This issue is not some precursor to the caldera becoming active - it is a irregular but normal part of areas with geysers.
2. If a geyser, hot spring, etc starts looking different, acting different, or there is an unexpected explosion run away from it quickly. The negative effects will be localized so distance is helpful.
Another tip for falling objects (although this applies only on the descent phase, so more for objects falling from cliffs or building above you):
If when looking up, the object has an apparent motion (left/right/back), it won't hit you, and certainly don't move in the direction it appears to be moving. If it appears stationary in the sky, it WILL hit you or very close, so move fast. Best default strategy with limited time & options is to hug the rock face, especially under an overhang.
Yup! Also applies to cars on intersecting roads especially at odd angles; if it's staying in the same spot in the windshield/side window, one of you needs to change speeds or you'll have an unscheduled rapid disassembly at the intersection.
It's also a real problem for certain intersection angles where vehicles or bicycles with unfortunate timing will be obscured behind the A-Pillar until nearly too late. There was an article (iirc) on HN years ago about just such an intersection repeatedly injuring/killing bicyclists. I once had to seriously threshold brake at an off-angle intersection to avoid a fire truck running a red light, when the timing/speed/distance/angle all lined up to hide the entire truck behind the A-Pillar for a few seconds approaching the intersection.
And in aviation. Aircraft tracking across your canopy/windscreen? Usually NBD.
Aircraft staying in the same spot on your canopy/windscreen? Potentially a Very Bad Thing.
Ha! yup, heard that a looong time ago, but not from any racer. Having qualified for racing licenses and won championships in several types of racing including road racing, it's actually more complicated than that; you're looking at what direction the wheels are pointing, which wheels are on/off the pavement/grass and what'll hook-up or break-loose in the next seconds... e.g., if someone in front of you is two wheels off on the left side, and starts to turn back onto the track, he'll probably loop straight across the track in front of you and pound the right-side wall or sail across the right-side glass. I have pics of me absolutely threshold braking for exactly that situation, which looks like "huh?" in the first pic, then the next pic, I would have absolutely t-boned the guy if I hadn't braked so hard (and no, driving to where he was, half in the grass, wasn't an option).
So, if you don't have any clues, and have a half second to make your choice, I suppose it's better than no rule of thumb, but I wouldn't rely on it as a primary technique.
Just playing back what you said because it's surprising. You're saying that explosion was not caused by water that was superheated by the supervolcano below the greater Yellowstone Caldera? It was heated by some other source?
A defined hydrothermal basin like this is heated by a very local pocket of magma or more properly magma-that-has-mostly-solidified-into-hot-rock, only a kilometer or so deep in this case, that has leaked up from multiple layers of deeper basins creeping up through faultlines, and which is being gradually cooled by water seepage in a dynamically stable way.
Depending on the area, there may or may not be an intermediary superheated brine functioning as a heat transport mechanism, per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_areas_of_Yellowston...
Local explosions like this are not very indicative of movements in the county-sized reservoir of magma ten times deeper down that underlies the entire caldera.
I think most of them are new to this type of nature so you're stuck in "is this normal? Am I in danger? If I run, will I look like a fool?" So you're standing there and looking for other people's reactions before making your own. So it's a bunch of people frozen and looking at each other before 1 person makes a run for it and everyone else does too.
Absolutely. That's what you see in the videos. Finally one person starts really running, and it prompts the others.
I think of it as the National Park discontinuity: few people these days have experience being in environments that can be rapidly lethal.
And there isn't a sign in National Parks saying "Past this line, there are apex predators, dangerous natural features, no cell phone service, and/or the nearest medical facility being a backcountry airlift away."
That's a big change from most people's everyday normal.
I saw one take a rearview mirror clear off a car with a lazy flick of its head, while walking past without breaking stride, just because it didn't like something about the car.
As Sean Connery says in Hunt for Red October, "We must give this American a wide berth."
Anyone know how apparent bot posts like this wind up here? Third one I've seen today, now easy to notice after someone pointed it out on another topic.
I can only theorize, but my guess is that a human signs up, then allows the bot to post. I get this quite often from clients where they have an online form with a reCAPTCHA, and they are getting regular spam. I have to explain that some bots are able to figure out the reCAPTCHA, as well as let them know that sometimes real humans are just paid to fill out forms and bot detection isn't going to help in those cases. This is especially true with services like Fiverr.
Fair enough. Why don't you fill out your profile? I would love to read it as I'm always curious about the backgrounds of people who's behavior or personality I don't understand, and you're essentially vaguely summarizing the topics in all of your posts, which strikes me as different from anything I've experienced.
I know Sam Altman is revered as a tech god in this forum and and I will likely get downvoted, but there's something deep within his character that doesn't seem genuine or sit well with me. It's almost a tinge of elizabeth holmes (the aspirational part) and likely stems from his desire from a young age to emulate a bill gates, elon musk, or the cohort of silicon valley VC and founders that came before him. I believe this deeply drives his speech and motivation. He pulls certain levers that he knows will shape his persona and plays the tech visionary role. As an outsider, it seems manufactured and disingenuous.
I've long had a theory that aggregating these weather sources to provide higher and more accurate models could create serious alpha for commodities and energy trading. Especially in nodal and ancillary markets.
I'm sure there are people here working at funds that leverage weather data to do exactly that. It would be a really cool job.
A good reminder that the technologies that are most transformative in society often times start out appearing deeply complex with a poor UX for the average individual.
> Crucially, GraphCast and traditional approaches go hand-in-hand: we trained GraphCast on four decades of weather reanalysis data, from the ECMWF’s ERA5 dataset.
As someone who isn't a developer, readingthis was eye opening. It's interesting just how unbundled the state of running a software company is. And this is only your selection of the tools and options, not imagining the entire landscape.
As a longtime kiter and sailor, the durability of the kite and line system seems to be the biggest weakness. Constant uv exposure and stress to these systems would make the economical calculations interesting. I don't know of a current setup that could see sustained continuous use for 1 year without significant material replacements or maintenance...
The interesting thing about geysers and pools is how relatively predictable they are... until they are not. A mathematical and statistical person would have a lot of fun building prediction models for all the different geysers.