Super Volcano in Alps

I think that what is most remarkable about this story is how a stack of rock twenty five miles thick has been up lifted and tilted on its side presumably in order to reveal a surface mapping of the roots of a super volcano. That is a pretty neat trick.

It also gives us a scale of tectonic manipulation that was perhaps suggested in the past but not so nicely proven.
As mentioned, this bit of tectonic good luck will give us a pretty exact understanding, comparable to ordinary volcanoes, of the genesis of super volcanoes. Thus our modeling will have credence.

This luck should not be underestimated. We have one such in the North American Plate and that will eventually go extinct. I know of one other in Sumatra and that is it. They are simply not common at all. So getting one cut and laid out for inspection is a lousy bet.

I grabbed a list from Wikipedia and it adds a bit. We can include North Island in New Zealand. I also think that the other Idaho events on the list are all part of the Yellowstone event which is migrating eastward as is perhaps North Island. So we have three VE8’s known to science. I suspect that we must have another one in Alaska that is unrecognized. The rest are simply extinct if they are recognized at all.


Scientists find “Rosetta Stone” of supervolcanoes in Italian Alps

Ani
September 22nd, 2009

http://blog.taragana.com/n/scientists-find-rosetta-stone-of-supervolcanoes-in-italian-alps-174899/

WASHINGTON - A team of scientists has found the “Rosetta Stone” of supervolcanoes, in the form of a fossil supervolcano in the Italian Alps’ Sesia Valley.

A team led by James E. Quick, a geology professor at Southern Methodist University, US, found the fossil.

The discovery will advance scientific understanding of active supervolcanoes, like Yellowstone, which is the second-largest supervolcano in the world and which last erupted 630,000 years ago.

A rare uplift of the Earth’s crust in the Sesia Valley reveals for the first time the actual “plumbing” of a supervolcano from the surface to the source of the magma deep within the Earth, according to a new research article reporting the discovery.

The uplift reveals to an unprecedented depth of 25 kilometers the tracks and trails of the magma as it moved through the Earth’s crust.

Supervolcanoes, historically called calderas, are enormous craters tens of kilometers in diameter, which erupt hundreds to thousands of cubic kilometers of volcanic ash.

Their eruptions are sparked by the explosive release of gas from molten rock or “magma” as it pushes its way to the Earth’s surface.

Supervolcanoes have spread lava and ash vast distances and scientists believe they may have set off catastrophic global cooling events at different periods in the Earth’s past.

Sesia Valley’s unprecedented exposure of magmatic plumbing provides a model for interpreting geophysical profiles and magmatic processes beneath active calderas.

The exposure also serves as direct confirmation of the cause-and-effect link between molten rock moving through the Earth’s crust and explosive volcanism.

“It might lead to a better interpretation of monitoring data and improved prediction of eruptions,” said Quick, lead author of the research article reporting the discovery.

Calderas, which typically exhibit high levels of seismic and hydrothermal activity, often swell, suggesting movement of fluids beneath the surface.

“We want to better understand the tell-tale signs that a caldera is advancing to eruption so that we can improve warnings and avoid false alerts,” Quick said.

Quick likens the relevance of Sesia Valley to seeing bones and muscle inside the human body for the first time after previously envisioning human anatomy on the basis of a sonogram only.

“We think of the Sesia Valley find as the ‘Rosetta Stone’ for supervolcanoes because the depth to which rocks are exposed will help us to link the geologic and geophysical data,” Quick said. (ANI)

Known super eruptions (from Wikipedia)

VEI 8

VEI 8 eruptions have happened in the following locations.

Lake Taupo, North Island, New Zealand - Oruanui eruption ~26,500 years ago (~1,170 km³)
Lake Toba, Sumatra, Indonesia - ~75,000 years ago (~2,800 km³)
Whakamaru, North Island, New Zealand - Whakamaru Ignimbrite/Mount Curl Tephra ~254,000 years ago (1,200-2,000 km³)[6]
Yellowstone Caldera, Wyoming, United States - 640,000 years ago (1,000 km³)
Island Park Caldera, Idaho/Wyoming, United States - 2.1 million years ago(2,500 km³)
Kilgore Tuff, Idaho, United States - 4.5 million years ago (1,800 km³)
Blacktail Creek, Idaho, United States - 6.6 million years ago (1,500 km³)
La Garita Caldera, Colorado, United States - Source of the truly enormous eruption of the Fish Canyon Tuff ~27.8 million years ago (~5,000 km³)

The Lake Toba eruption plunged the Earth into a volcanic winter, eradicating an estimated 60%[7][8][9][10][11] of the human population (although humans managed to survive, even in the vicinity of the volcano[12]), and was responsible for the formation of sulfuric acid in the atmosphere. However the coincidental agreement in above sources about percentage value of extinction is contrary to differing estimates of human population size at that time.

VEI 7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Long_Valley_Caldera_cross_section.jpg

Cross-section through Long Valley Caldera

VEI-7 volcanic events, less colossal but still supermassive, have occurred in the geological past. The only ones in historic times are

Tambora, in 1815, Lake Taupo (Hatepe), around 180 AD,[13] and possibly Baekdu Mountain, around 979 AD.[14]

Tambora, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia - 1815 (160 km³)
Baekdu Mountain, China/North Korea - ~969 AD (96±19 km³)
Lake Taupo, North Island, New Zealand - Hatepe eruption ~181 C.E. (120 km³)[13]
Kikai Caldera, Ryukyu Islands, Japan - ~6,300 years ago (~ 4,300 BC) (150 km³)
Campi Flegrei, Naples, Italy - 39280 years ago (500 km³)
Laacher See, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany - ~12,900 years ago (~300 km³)
Aira Caldera, Kyūshū, Japan - ~22,000 years ago (~110 km³)
Reporoa caldera, New Zealand - 230,000 years ago (~100 km³)
Aso, Kyūshū, Japan - four large explosive eruptions between 300,000 to 80,000 years ago (last one > 600 km³)
Long Valley Caldera, California, United States - ~760,000 years ago (600 km³)
Valles Caldera, New Mexico, United States - ~1.12 million years ago (~600 km³)
Mangakino, North Island, New Zealand - three eruptions from 0.97 to 1.23 million years ago (each > 300 km³)[15]
Henry's Fork Caldera, Idaho, United States - 1.3 million years ago (280 km³)
Walcott Tuff, Idaho, United States - 6.4 million years ago (750 km³)
Bennett Lake Volcanic Complex, British Columbia/Yukon, Canada - ~50 million years ago (850 km³)
Bruneau-Jarbidge, Idaho, United States - ~10-12 million years ago (>250 km³) (responsible for the Ashfall Fossil Beds ~1,600 km to the east[16])

Arsenic and Old Algae

This item will surely mean very little to folks who are not into the vagarities of the mining industry. Arsenic, unlike copper and zinc and most other metals that we use is extremely toxic. It also does not remove itself from the environment very easily. It is also toxic to most of the critters that might handle it.

It is the one impurity that you can usually count on to be present and to be an inconvenience. What is more, it loves to hang around and surprise you from time to time. It is the sucker that gets into the local water supply and gets noticed.

In other words it is like a stack of dirty clothes belonging to a long departed boarder that no one wants to or can deal with and use.

So discovering an unusual bug that just loves to take out the wash is very welcome. We now have the inkling of a biological process able to render arsenic and its compounds harmless or at least less toxic. This will be helpful at many mine sites were arsenic is often a managed hazard.

Yellowstone arsenic no match for toxic-loving alga in MSU study

March 10, 2009 -- By Evelyn Boswell, MSU News Service

http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=6911

http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/images/articles/img200903091236616214.jpg


Tim McDermott at Lemonade Creek in Yellowstone National Park. The hot spring fed-creek is green because the arsenic-eating algae have formed a thick mat. (Photo courtesy of Tim McDermott).


BOZEMAN -- Arsenic may be tough, but scientists have found a Yellowstone National Park alga that's tougher.

The alga -- a simple one-celled algae called Cyanidioschyzon -- thrives in extremely toxic conditions and chemically modifies arsenic that occurs naturally around hot springs, said Tim McDermott, professor in the Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences at Montana State University.

Cyanidioschyzon could someday help reclaim arsenic-laden mine waste and aid in everything from space exploration to creating safer foods and herbicides, the scientists said.

The alga and how it detoxifies arsenic are described in a paper that's posted the week of March 9 in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS. Principal investigators are McDermott, Barry Rosen of Florida International University, and X. Chris Le of the University of Alberta, Canada. Among the six co-authors is Corinne Lehr, who formerly worked with McDermott as a postdoctoral scientist at MSU and is now a faculty member at California Polytechnic State University.

"This is a nice example of productive interdisciplinary collaboration," Le said. "I am pleased that we were able to contribute our analytical expertise to the identification and detection of the volatile arsenic compounds released by the algae."

Arsenic is the most common toxic substance in the environment, ranking first on the Superfund list of hazardous substances, the researchers wrote in their paper. McDermott said arsenic is very common in the hot, acidic waters of Yellowstone and presents real challenges for microorganisms living in these conditions. Indeed, there are challenges for the researchers.

McDermott said the acid in the soil and water is strong enough that it sometimes eats holes through his jeans when he kneels to collect samples.

McDermott has worked in Yellowstone for more than a decade and travels year-round to the Norris Geyser Basin to study the microbial mats that grow in acidic springs. Over the years, he noticed thick algae mats that were so lush and green in December that they looked like Astro Turf, McDermott said. By June, they were practically gone. While investigating the change, McDermott and his collaborators learned about the Cyanidiales alga and its ability to reduce arsenic to a less dangerous form.
"These algae are such a dominant member of the microbiology community that they can't escape notice, but for some reason they have not attracted much attention," McDermott said.

The Cyanidioschyzon algae grow all over Yellowstone, but the researchers concentrated on the Norris Geyser Basin, McDermott said. The alga thrives in water up to 135 degrees Fahrenheit (too hot to shower) with a very acidic pH factor ranging from 0.5 to 3.5. Creeks are considered acidic if their pH factor is less than 7.

"These algae live in areas of Yellowstone that are extremely toxic with respect to arsenic," McDermott said. "You couldn't drink these waters even if you changed their pH."

The scientists cloned genes from the alga, then studied the enzymes to figure out how they transformed arsenic. They learned that the alga oxidizes, reduces and converts arsenic to several forms that are less toxic than the original.

Rosen said one significant form is a gas that can evaporate, especially at the high temperatures of the Yellowstone springs. That allows life to exist in "really deadly concentrations of arsenic," he said.

"It gives us insight into how life adapts to extreme environments," Rosen added. "If life can grow at high temperatures and high concentrations of heavy metals like arsenic, life might be able to evolve on other planets or moons such as Titan or Enceladus."

McDermott said the scientists conducted basic research that may have implications someday for acid mine drainage and acid rock drainage remediation efforts.

"Any time you learn anything about eukaryotic algae and their potential application for bioremediation, that's always good," he said.

Eukaryotic refers to microorganisms that have cells with membranes enclosing complex structures. Cyanidioschyzon is a simple one-celled organism classified as a red algae.

Rosen added that the alga they studied is a primitive plant, so it might shed light on how plants can tolerate arsenic, which is used in several types of herbicides. The knowledge they gained could also be used someday to help create a new type of rice.

"Some plants, such as rice, accumulate high concentrations of arsenic. This endangers our food supply," Rosen explained. "Rice with high amounts of arsenic won't kill anyone quickly, but does increase the risk of cancers such as bladder cancer."

McDermott said when he first thought about investigating the changing colors in the Yellowstone algae mats, he figured that something more than photosynthesis had to be involved. He thought altitude and latitude played a role. Some of the hot springs have no trees around them, so he wondered if the intense June sun was hammering the algae.

Molecular evidence suggests that the algae in these springs are comprised of two different population groups, McDermott said. One flourishes in the winter and the other in the summer. The algae that dominates in the summer can apparently tolerate high levels of ultraviolet rays.

McDermott's study was funded by the National Science Foundation and partially by a NASA grant through MSU's Thermal Biology Institute. Rosen's work was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Evelyn Boswell, (406) 994-5135 or evelynb@montana.edu