Super Volcano...Anybody planning to... (1 Viewer)

[Jack Smith]

watch? I saw it. It's really good and it's really scary too. Especially when you consider we're over-due for Yellowstone to pop. Discovery enters the movie fray with a winner, and "no" pain in the ass subplots about kids hating their parents and boring love triangles. Great!

 

[Carl_G]

I dunno, am getting pretty sick of the over-dramatized doomsday scenario pseudo-science schtick that Discovery et al seem to be pushing lately. All hype, minimal science, all about ratings.

 

[Michael Harris]

For me this is just another sign that the niche cable stations are dumbing down. Don't get me wrong, I like good doomsday flick. Heck, I even saw both volcano movies that came out some years ago, but this kind of stuff belongs on SCI FI or Spike, not Discover.

History Channel showing how to break casinos, TLC is the home decorating channel, and now Discover is becoming the disaster channel. Cable's promise was choice and variety; programming to appeal to various audiences. Guess it was just bait and switch. I'll just switch off.

Oh, to answer the question: No.

 

[BrianW]

I'll watch, and I'll probably enjoy it, but count me among the dismayed that the Discovery channel has lost its way.

I've set my TiVo to record it, but on my third watching, I plan to quit in the middle of it and delete it in disgust.

Or maybe the fourth time through. I dunno, we'll see.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I went to my Sister in laws this weekend and they were all agog about taping this I had no Idea it was an actual movie I thought it was another science show. Of course they also watch Fox News 12 hours a day, so the answer is no I'll pass.

 

[Julian Lalor]

Isn't this produced by the BBC and follows the same sort of factoid structure used in the Walking With... series? At least that's better than those cheesy A&E docos.

 

[David Norman]

It is a BBC production and actually follows rather similarly to "Smallpox" from a couple months ago. Same fake documentary complete with shaky cam filming mixed with a bit of real news footage told in flashbacks from the after the disaster perspective. Very similar scientist/politician/newsmedia presentation showing how things unfolded, how the disaster progressed, and then the aftereffects.

Actually didn't think it was too bad and was told from a somewhat plausible sequence. The real documentary done afterwards with real geologists/news people was rather humorous in that several of the exchanges were almost identical to some the movie dialog I think it shortchanged and underplayed the after-disaster effects on the environment and likely social fallout.

 

[Jerome Grate]

Not to shabby, it kept my interest upto the point where I realized that sitting up at 2:00 in the morning with an alarm schedule to go off at 5:00am for my commute was not in my best interest. But I stayed up till about 1:15 when the ash was begining to subside. Typical as to the newsmedia and the politician involved that end up eating crow, but definetly entertaining. I'm not a t.v. movie purchaser unless it really moves to get it like Day After, I think I would add this along with the Dragons documentary.

Michael Harris, unfortunately it's not surprising to see channels that are meant for documentaries do this type of thing once in a while. I guess Discover Channel decided to use it's status as a channel that posts science facts and create a movie based on those possible facts. It comes across better I guess.

 

[Paul McElligott]

I watched it and it was pretty good. The science was not wonky or unreal, even though it was an extreme "worst case scenario". The acting was pretty decent for a largely no-name cast.

You had to watch the Tom Brokaw special afterward to learn that the "Yellowstone is overdue" angle might be bogus. Scientists believe that there is no sign that the magma pool under the park is building for another super-eruption.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Actually all you had to do is watch the dramatic film itself to see someone explain what rot the "way overdue" notion is, and how useless the fact that a given event happens at a certain interval "on average" is as a basis for future planning. Granted in the film the event does happen, but this doesn't mean the scientist who debunks the "we're overdue" argument is wrong - even the other scientist who said the words in the TV interview admits the statement is scientifically meaningless.

An event - scale unknown - will almost certainly happen at some point. But whether that's tomorrow or 100,000 years from now the "average" of past events really can't tell us. And yet someone who had just watched the film still came away with the impression "we're overdue" because the visuals speak louder than words.

Regards,

Joe

 

[todd s]

I was thinking about..beyond the damage done. What the economic effects would be to the US and subsequently the world. Also, at the end when they showed the US from Space. It looked the the ENTIRE US was covered in snow.

 

[Paul McElligott]

That's the problem with movies like these. The "voice of reason" always ends up looking like he had his head in the sand.

At least I wasn't laughing all the way through like 10.5.

 

[LarryDavenport]

Ok, let's start a pool. Which is going to happen first? Yellow Stone erupting? Mount Ranier erupting? A 10.5 earthquake on the U.S. West coast? Revelations? Or the Cubs winning the World Series?

 

[Jerome Grate]

My guess, all the above on the same day before the Cubs wins a World Series.

 

[Jason Smalley]

Does this movie really suprise you when the slogan of the Discovery channel has changed from "Explore Your World" to "Entertain Your Brain?"

As a science educator, it does not make me happy.

This kind of stuff belongs on Coast to Coast AM.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

That was fun to watch! I remember the National Geographic documentary that was done on that a few years ago. At least, I think it was them.

Anyway, I laughed when they said it was true, but that it just hasn't happened yet. If/when it does, that will be the world's worst. I have no doubt about that.

I disagree with the way that they played down the fact that we can't say we're overdue based on past eruptions, though. I look at it like this:

Let's say that the park is on a geologic plate, which I'll call 'A'. It shifts, and erupts. Then it is over. But when Plate A shifted, it had to push Plate B, and so on. Sooner or later it would cycle around back to A again, wouldn't it?

Glenn

 

[JeremySt]

Since I live right in one of the towns featured in the show, I felt compelled to watch it. Its (sorta) common knowlede around here that Yellowstone is a big Volcano. I thought the whole show was pretty weak. More appropriate for the Sci Fi Channel

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Yes, but you can't say when "sooner" or "later" might be. The whole business of "overdue" is based on the idea that the "average" time between past events predicts the timing of a future event. And it just doesn't.

If you flip a coin enough times you'll end up with roughly half heads and half tails. But that doesn't mean if you do it 100 times you'll end up with exactly 50 of each. You could end up with 60/40. Nor does it mean that you're going to alternately get heads/tails/heads/tails. You could get a run of 10 or 15 "heads" in a row. If you do, the odds of the next flip being heads are still 50/50. You can't "predict" that the result will be tails because you're "overdue". You aren't "overdue" because there is no schedule.

If I had a cold last November and another last December then I was sick "on average" once every six months. (2 incidents in 12 months.) Does that mean I'm "due" for a cold this coming June because 6 months have passed? Will I be "overdue" in July? Should I book a sick day in June now, based on this "scientific" data? Convert "months" to "millions of years" and you have an idea of how worthless the whole notion of "we're due" really is.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Nice Joe! I just wanted to state what I thought. Overdue 'geologically speaking', means a period of what - how many thousand years?

The coin toss wasn't too bad, but how many times you get a cold has nothing to do with science. If I locked you in your house and you never went outside or had any visitors you'd never get another cold now, would you?

I look at the plates like dominoes with an infinate amount. Who knows? Mayby the quakes in Indonesia have postponed it for another 100,000 years!

Glenn

 

[BrianW]

I don't think the coin toss or frequency of catching the common cold are very good analoges. For both of these, there is no evidence that can be had that would predict that a coin will eventually, and with certainty, come up heads, or that you will ever get another cold. Both of these events are pretty much left solely to chance, with no leading indicator to help us predict anything.

This is not so with the magma dome under Yellowstone. We have seen the ground rise and lakes move about because of the rising pressure of the magma dome. This is measurable data that indicates not only that an eruption is inevtable, but also how quickly the pressure is rising toward that event. In stark contrast, there is NO evidence to suggest you'll ever get a cold outside of a purely statistical analysis.

And these things--especially magma dome eruptions, which have little or nothing to do with plate movements--do occur on a schedule, though predicting is still difficult.

It's more like having a pack of latex balloons and hooking them up, one after another, to a faucet with a steady stream of water. Every one will eventually burst, but since the balloons are not all identical, some will last longer than others. Even so, an approximate "schedule" can still be deduced, and a quick glance at an inflating balloon will give you a good indication of how soon it will burst. So it is wth erupting magma domes, albeit a bit more complex. Like a succession of bursting water balloons, their behavior is determined not by chance, but by a repeating process that can be understood to increasing degree the more we study it.