Robert Brockway - Everything Is Going to Kill Everybody

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah fuck fuck I wish I could run but there will be fire eeeverywheeere ahhhhhh.

Well, he was probably thinking that, anyway.

• Steamy Eruptions

• Sizzling Encounters

• Spurting Plumes

• Burning Love 3: Literal Edition

Considering that the minimum size for an eruption to be considered “supervolcanic” is 1,000 cubic kilometers, and the pool of magma beneath the Yellowstone Caldera is estimated to be 28 by 45 miles across, screaming panic seems like the most logical reaction. Now, I’m not exactly sure what those numbers translate to in kilometers, because I use God’s System of Measurement (which is pounds or ounces or, really, whatever we make up off-the-cuff here in America), but I’m pretty sure that’s equal to eight bazillion cubic kilometers of magma. And that, my friends, is eight bazillion more kilometers of flaming rock than anybody should be comfortable with.

Because volcanology is not an exact science, experts have little to no idea of what to expect from an active supervolcano. They believe that four signs, like metaphorical horsemen to the Rock Apocalypse (which would be the best metal band name ever) will herald its eruption. First, the ground will rise from the pressure of all that magma, then geyser activity will increase, swarms of earthquakes will register, and a large release of volcanic gases will occur before just before the eruption.

Database Error:Fart joke not found. Please insert Taco Bell reference for humor substitute.

So far, three of these four signs are present in the Yellowstone Caldera! It’s been named a High Threat for Volcanic Eruption by the U.S. Geological Survey, who went on record as stating that the eruption from Yellowstone would entail “global consequences that are beyond human experience and impossible to anticipate fully.”

That is without question the single most ominous quote ever to be issued from a government agency, and that’s coming from the Geological Survey Team! That’s the least threatening team that has ever been assembled short of the Super Friends, and if they’re issuing quotes so ominously epic that they’re almost biblical, well, I don’t want to say it’s time to panic… because that time probably passed about a year ago. This is more like “make your peace” time, if anything.

Volcanologists do say that, thanks to their advanced technology and years of study, they can give us something: About a week’s time to prepare. While that may seem an inadequate amount of time to try to figure out how to run away from an entire planet, at least you have a whole week to live in perpetual fear! An entire week! Why, that’s enough time to start a garden! That’s enough time to get over the flu! That’s enough time to buy and receive something from eBay! And hell, if you’re really lucky, that might be enough time to practice putting matches out all over your body in order to help brace yourself for the coming storms of fire that will consume all of your flesh, turn the air to poison, and kick off a nigh-eternal winter!

…

Or you could knit a scarf!

THE JAPANESE CALL it iminami , which means “the purifying wave.” They do this partly because it is a wave of such devastating strength that it completely erases the land of all impurities (impurities, in this case, being such blighting defects as your house, your car, and probably you, depending on how fast you can run and how well you float).But they also do this because they are much, much better at elegantly naming horrific events than the English-speaking world. We have a name for it too; we call it the megatsunami. Judging by the American tendency to just slap superlatives on existing terms, I guess we should just consider ourselves lucky that it’s not called the Biggie Wave or the Supersize Water Punch.

The concept behind the megatsunami is simple: If you throw a pebble into the water, you’ll see a reaction in the form of a rippling wave. If you threw 500 million tons of rock into the water, you’d be a total dick, but you would also see a wave of proportionate size… one so powerful that it jumps forests, snaps cities in half, and floods entire coastlines. But the phenomenon was predominantly thought to be a myth until just recently. See, scientists already know how tsunamis are triggered: Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other seismic events create waves that can crest at tens of meters high and hundreds of kilometers long that travel vast distances, surging onto land with unstoppable force. Conventional tsunamis, however, don’t really look like waves; they’re more akin to gargantuan tides, and the damage they do, though terrible, is mostly through flooding and not so much due to the impact of the water itself.

• Supervolcano

• Hypercane

• Megaquake

• Überdiarrhea

But in 1953 in Lituya Bay, Alaska, geologists searching for oil stumbled across something much, much worse. By taking measurements of the tree line along the coast, they came to realize that a cataclysmic wave had completely destroyed the area in recent history. Seeing as how the bay was mostly isolated from the open ocean, they were able to determine that a gargantuan landslide was the likely cause. Forty million tons of debris had to tumble into that bay in order to spawn a tsunami large enough to account for the destruction they were witnessing. This would be a wave unprecedented in recorded history. A wave with an initial surge height estimated at over 1,700 feet.

Armed with this dire new information about a terrifying and impending threat, the geologists decided to issue absolutely no statement whatsoever, addressed to nobody, which would have probably just read “fuck it,” if they had even bothered to give it to anyone in the first place.

“My God, I’ve discovered evidence of an entirely new scale of disaster!”

“We must tell the world!”

“That sounds hard…”

“You’re right. Screw it. Wanna beer?”

“That also sounds hard. Will you pour it into my mouth for, me?”

As the geologists in question whiled away their time—presumably playing a few games of grab ass and maybe frolicking hand-in-hand through a sun-kissed meadow—Lituya Bay was busy preparing another watery jump kick to the throat of reason. And only five years later, in that exact same bay, it happened again. An earthquake that measured 7.7 on the Richter scale caused a chunk of the Lituya Glacier to drop three thousand feet into the bay waters below. After the initial surge that topped out at 1,700 feet (that’s taller than the Empire State Building), a much more modest, practically meager wave with an initial height of only 1,000 feet swept across the bay, and out to sea. A local fisherman, Howard Ulrich, and his son were not only caught up in the ensuing megatsunami, but even managed to survive it—presumably by virtue of their giant, grizzly bear–sized balls and maybe some sort of Eskimo Magic. They reported being carried just behind the crest of the wave, which surged dozens of meters above the bayside cliffs, and over the local forest… while still in their fishing boat! Another survivor, Bill Swanson, gave this description to the local papers:

The glacier had risen in the air and moved forward so it was in sight. It must have risen several hundred feet. I don’t mean it was just hanging in the air. It seems to be solid, but it was jumping and shaking like crazy. Big chunks of ice were falling off the face of it and down into the water.