volcanoes

[kermit911]

If all volcanoes in the world erupted at once, would that cause a problem?  and just the oposit.  If all volcanoes stopped and never erupted again, would that cause a problem?

Thanx

[myron21]

I was reading in Bill Brysons 'Brief history of nearly everything' that when the Caldera in Yellowstone national park USA erupts  its going to cause us all serious problems, apparently it will make Krakatoa look like a tuppeny sparkler.

[dk_psy]

yes, it's a supervolcano isn't it? more a large pool of magma under the crust slowly increasing in pressure as opposed to the normal mountainous type.

think that's right, feel free to correct me though!

[jake-the-peg]

This is indeed true but thankfuly there's no immediate sign of the supervolcano under Yellowstone getting ready to blow (not that we could do much about it)

With regard to volcanic activity stoping, there is something called the carbon cycle: volcanoes release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (as we do) and it gets into the seas as rain and eventually gets to the sea bed as sedimentation the sea bed is subducted beneath the continental shelf and comes back up through volcanos again.

This is a very long term cycle over millions of millions of years but eventually without volcanoes there'd be no carbon in the atmosphere and the greenhouse effect might cease and the planet would cool - this may be what happened on Mars

theres a nice diagram of the long term carbon cycle here: http://www.acad.carleton.edu/curricular/GEOL/DaveSTELLA/Carbon/long_term_carbon.htm

[Loosehead]

Yep Jake, I watched the series "Earth Story" recently and it explained very well the long term carbon cycle. Mars was given as an example of what happens when the volcanoes stop. The thing that struck me was that at any one time man has control of about 3% of the carbon, the rest is locked in the cycle. It just brought it home what little effect we have on the planet and what complete cobblers get's spouted by the Eco mafia. No one doubts the cycle of global warming and cooling but the real cause is very little to do with mankind. 

[reportmonkey]

How about if all the volcanoes just went on holiday to the same place, errupted at the same time and then went back home again.  Perhaps its like farting and they should stand in a corner and erupt quitely, so as not to upset anybody.

[jake-the-peg]

Oooh I wouldn't be so certain about that Loosehead!

The work on ice cores shows CO2 levels the highest in 420,000 years and sediment data suggests the highest in 20 Million years.

Even if we're not directly responsible for what is now generally accepted to be a period of climate change, putting this amount of CO2 into the atmosphere right now when we don't properly understand what's going on is well let's say "unwise"