“Too bad we don’t have more historical data. No one has ever been on hand for the awakening of a caldera of this scale,” Liz noted.
“I’d say,” Yardley piped up from his workstation, “Yellowstone is entering a very cranky stage in its customary behavior. The place is like some spoiled brat acting up because mom didn’t give him a cookie.”
“Some kid,” chuckled Liz. She gave Yardley a playful cuff on the shoulder.
“Just how cranky?” asked Wesley, fiddling with his moustache.
Yardley tapped the screen and pointed to the hot zones on the graphic. “Carbon dioxide and SO2 levels are unhealthy around the old resurgence domes. The infrared data is convincing. Are we seeing conditions where we might eventually see an avenue for magma to reach the surface? I think that’s possible. ”
“No volcanic vent of any size has opened here for 70,000 years, Germaine,” Womack pointed out matter-of-factly.
“I think there’s cause for concern,” argued Liz, “but I don’t think the domes are our concern. They’re emitting robust signals, yes, but no more so than half a dozen other points. You’ve got a thousand square miles singing. I’ve never observed anything quite like this over such an immense area.”
“So, where do you think all this may be heading, Ms. Liz?” asked Womack.
“I concur with Yardley to some degree. In the near term, I think there’s a very real potential for additional phreatic explosions, perhaps near one of the domes or in Brimstone Basin. We’ve had wholesale spikes in surface temperature readings across the park; that’s driving the unusual hydrothermal phenomena. It speaks volumes about conditions in the magma chamber. I think we’re at the threshold where we see magma crystallization underway. Water vapor is being driven out of the melt, supercharging everything.”
“Could you imagine the consequences of an eruption in the park?” Wesley wondered aloud.
“I’d be very uneasy about the larger consequences of such an event,” said Liz. “Let’s say, just for sake of argument, the Sour Creek dome area deforms, then blows out. Well, then, we’d have a new vent on our hands. Fine. But what’s terrifying to consider is the potential for caldera-wide decompression should a vent open.”
“Decompression of the magma chamber,” Womack said, rounding out Liz’s thought.
“Yes, the lid comes off.”
“And?”
“Think of it. Billions of cubic feet of CO2 in suspension uncapped. Vents open everywhere. More gas expands. What does that say to you, Frederick?”
“Worse case? Catastrophic collapse!”
“A truly ominous thought.”
Wesley threw up his hands abruptly, scoffing. “Ah, spare me. I’m not in the catastrophist’s camp, and I never will be. A new volcanic vent—I could entertain that remote possibility. Yellowstone has had its share of them in the past and there will certainly be more in its future.”
“We’re not confined to a run-of-the-mill chamber beneath a single peak, Wes,” Liz countered, raising the decibels of her voice.
“I know full well what we’ve got below us,” Wesley sputtered, as if annoyed. “And I know that magma reservoir has resided below us here for eons, and single vents have opened and closed over the chamber dozens of times.”
“In your experience, Wes, have you ever witnessed what we’re seeing over such vast terrain?”
“Will you let me finish?” scowled Wesley. “If we’re going to see some activity, it’s probably going to be there,” he said emphatically, pointing to the computer screen.
Liz scoffed, “What about Norris?”
“What about it?”
“And the Firehole, Brimstone….”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” yodeled the CVO director, cutting the conversation off. “It’s time to say goodnight to our little mental exercise. It’s late. Folks are tired. We can speculate all we want, but we need to let our instruments do the talking quite a bit longer.”
Liz deflated, and slumped in her chair. Wesley closed his eyes and rubbed his temples with the palms of his hands.
Womack cracked a wry smile, downed the last of a Vitamin Water and took an abrupt conversational detour. “Tell me something. Have any of you read the theories of David Keys?”
Liz rocked forward in her seat beside Womack and looked over the man with the Spartan physique. “Keys? Does this have anything to do with, what, dendrochronology studies?”
“Yes, tree rings. That, ice core samples and the global social upheavals after 535 A.D.”
“I’m familiar with a smidgeon,” Liz said.
Womack eyed the others. Wesley wrinkled his face and squinted at Womack. “I haven’t read any papers by anyone named Keys,” said Wesley. “Is he in vulcanology?”
“He’s a science writer, not a field scientist. His specialty is archeology, I believe, not the earth sciences. But he’s come up with some compelling ideas.”
“Such as?”
“There’s a good deal of evidence coming to light about a truly massive eruption in the Sunda Straight between Sumatra and Java in 535 A.D.”
“Sunda? You mean of Krakatoa fame?” Yardley queried.
“Yes, our old nemesis, Krakatoa,” said the CVO director, nodding with a great sweep of the head. “Tree ring data from Siberia, California, Canada, and Scandinavia indicate forests stopped growing in high temperate latitudes for half a decade—stopped cold, literally. Ice core samples from Greenland, from the same period of time, show a wild spike in volcanic sulfides. Something substantial happened, and the evidence points to the continental plate subduction zone in Indonesia, and specifically to the Krakatoa archipelago.”
“How massive an event?” Wesley wondered.
“According to estimates from the Icelander, Siggurdson, and Krakatoa specialist Ken Wohletz, we’re talking an eruption the equivalent to millions of Hiroshima-size bombs.”
“Ooo, not small change!” blurted Yardley.
“Whatever it was, it was massive enough to profoundly affect cultures the world over. Empires collapse and new nations rise from the ashes. Mind if I divulge a few of Keys’ suppositions?”
Liz perched at the edge or her chair. “Enlighten us.”
“Well now, according to Keys, people of all cultures everywhere record that the sun grows dark in early months of 535 A.D., and remains so for some years. The term ‘Dark Ages’ may very well have its origin in these written observations. Deep cold descends and crops fail for many summers in the temperate zones. Red rains fall in Asia. Yellow snows are recorded in China. Weather patterns swing wildly out of sync. Catastrophic droughts strike repeatedly at Central America, Africa, the Middle East and China for some thirty years.”
“What about humankind?” asked Liz.
“For starters, Constantinople, the world’s wealthiest city and the last great heart of the Roman Empire, undergoes a thorough shakedown within three decades, thanks to famine, plague and strife brought on by cold conditions. A world away, in Mexico, something similar is going on. The New World’s largest city, Teotihuacán, is besieged by a crushing decades-long drought. Once 125,000 people strong, the world’s biggest city at that time is abandoned completely within a generation. In England, Celtic tribes are decimated by cold, hunger and disease, setting the stage for Anglo-Saxon newcomers who build the united England we know today. In Asia, the Mongolian Avars suffer terribly on the freezing steppes of Central Asia and soon gallop off on a 4,000-mile migration to the west. Brutal warriors and the world’s most skilled horsemen, they terrorize populations from China to the Balkans.”