First thing's first, spoilers will be involved within this post.
Obviously 2012 is centered around the superstition and fear that the world will end on 12-21-12 according to the Mayan Calendar. The plot follows John Cusack and his family around the world as biblical destruction that would make Michael Bay jealous wash across the world (literally). The point in the movie that hooked me was when the Yellowstone supervolcano erupted. Now given that this is a disaster movie, the effects and mithos around Yellowstone are a bit construed, but the sheer impact and causality of the eruption were spot on (save for the fact that the pyroclastic flow would not reach DC, let alone destroy Pittsburg before Las Vegas...)
I was also drawn to this because I have been working for over a year (off and on sadly) on a post-eruption world following a man and a young girl struggling to make thier way from California to Seattle during and after Yellowstone's eruption. As this is an uncompleted work and is still recieving tweaks, I won't be publishing the opening chapter here.
Here are some quick facts about the forthcoming Yellowstone Eruption I have collected in my own research for those interested to see if the movie got it right.
- The Yellowstone Caldera, or Yellowstone Valley sits directly above the super volcano magma chamber. This allows for all the geysers and Old Faithful to shoot off.
- When the eruption happens, the pyroclastic flow will consume a 500 mile radius from anywhere to 3 feet to many hundred feet of ash.
- Cheyenne, Denver, Billings, Salt Lake, Reno and quite possibly Las Vegas would be washed aside.
- The ash cloud (not the pyroclastic flow) would hit the East Coast within a day, while it would take a number of weeks to strike the West Coast. The only way it could reach the West Coast is by the air current. This means that the Ash cloud would span the world.
- It's theorized that this ash cloud "could" trigger a rapid drop in temp, possibly creating a new ice age.
No comments:
Post a Comment