Thwarting a super volcano! - any ideas?

[Comrade Wraith]

Firstly, please don't take me too seriously on this

I was recently jovially discussing with some friends how a super-eruption (for example's sake lets say yellowstone) could be stopped. Initial suggestions were of course to plug it with miles of concrete and the like, and it was quickly pointed out that the eruption would likely break through or simply spill around the plug.

One friend suggested drilling to relieve pressure in the magma chamber, but on researching it became apparent that this would in fact increase the likelihood of eruption (I think the evidence for this was an earthquake causing something similar in the mount St Helens eruption).

Quite an interesting idea, all though I haven't had time to look it up yet, was to place geothermal plants around the area as this has already reduced the severity of eruptions in other areas.

Anyway, just for fun: any suggestions, far-fetched and wacky or serious for this sort of thing?

[blackcherry]

I don't think there is much you can actually do to stop an eruption, merely delay it. Especially when it comes to super volcanoes. Its just a matter of when really. Though some have suggested draining the chamber somehow.

[AndrewGPaul]

I doubt you can eve do that; how exactly do you drain off a couple of hundred cubic miles of molten rock, and which particular midwest state do you intend to dump it over?

[blackcherry]

The ocean perhaps? Though that would be a logistical nightmare.

[Burnthem]

I think the best way to thwart a supervolcano would be to be as far away as humanely possible when it goes off. When yellowstone goes, goodbye US of A.

[Hrw-Amen]

How about sending the planet on which the super volcano is about to erupt spiralling down into its parent star, that would stop the super volcano from going off assuming you got it to crash quick enough.

How about somehow increasing the mass of the core to the point where the gravitational attraction was strong enough to not allow the magma to escape? Would there be a point at which it could be strong enough to prevent that without causing the crust to collapse as well?

Come to that you could just separate the magma from the continental crust with a force field of some description.

[Daniel36]

I would say a Freeze Ray is the way to go... I mean, there has got to be a maniacal evil genius out there willing to part with his for the right price, right?

[de Selby]

It's an interesting problem. I'm not sure of the numbers so I don't know if we could do anything (even theoretically) with real life technology. Honestly i don't know how bad a full scale eruption would be.

Major threats would be local devastation (explosive damage, poisoning, heavy ash falls) and climatic problems due to fine ash and CO2 in the atmosphere. So you could maybe evacuate the US and employ the kind of geoengineering ideas they talk about to mitigate extreme climate change. I can sort of imagine some kind of solution involving irrigating the thing with massive amounts of sea water to take heat out the system and slowing it that way.

Lets face it, we can't stop ordinary volcanoes and we aren't doing anything about real climate change, so it doesn't seem terribly hopeful.

[theunwantedbeing]

Drilling to release the pressure in multiple area's would be the most sensible solution.
You can then prevent the dangerous pressure buildup that would cause the super erruption by creating lots of miniature controlled erruptions.

You can use Fracking techniques to prevent catastropic earthquakes in the same way, you gradually release the pressure over multiple small area's causing very minor quakes.

[Terminatorphoenix]

Create a naked singularity in the center of the magma chamber. It wont stop the eruption, but you wont have to worry about it for many thousands of years.

[Sojourner]

Piping sea or ground water through the crust to the chamber and exhausting it....somewhere conveniently out of the way. Reducing the temperature of the upper region of the magma chamber will cause it to contract, and encourage the thickening of the crust in that area. Keep doing it for long enough and you might be able to close the magma chamber.

However, bleeding that much heat out into surface water supplies would produce so much vapour that we'd probably end up in a nuclear winter anyway.

[Greendragon]

I don't think there is much you can do to prevent it, but good damage control could be in place. Even building some sort of chanels to divert lava flow away from populated areas into the ocean etc. That would build new islands perhaps :P

I don't know, lets get the Avengers on this one...

[Comrade Wraith]

Some interesting ideas chaps!

It seems given the number of disasters that would cause a nuclear winter or equivalent (nuclear war, super-volcanoes, meteor strikes) it would be rather wise to begin construction on my very own underground concrete shelter.....

[blackcherry]

Poke it with sticks then. Thats always worked in the past.

Anyway Comrade Wraith, north Wales is an inhabitable wasteland anyway. I'm not sure theres much a world changing event could do to make it worse

[Easy E]

I'm surprised to be the first but....

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[Comrade Wraith]

Poke it with sticks then. Thats always worked in the past.

Anyway Comrade Wraith, north Wales is an inhabitable wasteland anyway. I'm not sure theres much a world changing event could do to make it worse

Well... could rain a bit more I guess... locals might take even less kindly to other type round ere....
That said people still complain about the effects of chernobyl rain so I guess its not that far from nuclear wasteland... would explain a lot...

I'm surprised to be the first but....

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Damn you! that made me laugh.

[AsleepByDay]

Detonate a nuke such that it bores a hole in the side of the chamber up into the sea...

repeatedly teleport the center of the chamber into space...