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NEWS > SCIENCE > SCIENTISTS WORRIED THAT TERRORISTS MAY GAIN CONTROL OF VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS IN U.S.
SCIENTISTS WORRIED THAT TERRORISTS MAY GAIN CONTROL OF VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS IN U.S.
February 3 2012
Washington, D.C. – For centuries the threat has been right below our feet. Underneath the great cities of America, underneath the network of highways that have allowed the country to become one of the greatest in history, the threat has laid in wait, ready to burst at any second.
For decades, scientists have known about the explosive power of the magma pools lying underneath the surface and, as we are in most natural disasters, are helpless to do anything about it except try to get as many people away as possible. Eventually the volcanoes in Death Valley and Yellowstone will explode, possibly causing massive destruction. It’s simply a matter of when.
When, for most of those decades, has been about the only questions scientists have been asking. The if has been answered, the volcanoes will explode, but the when has been the question that has baffled scientists and is the one that really needs answering if lives are to be saved. Now though, new concerns about the security of those volcanoes and magma pools has some concerned that people hostile to the United States could very well use the volcanoes to attack the country, killing thousands or possibly millions in what would easily be the largest terrorist attack in history.
“The understanding of the timing of eruptions and the timing of the building up to eruptions is changing. These two papers are very nice examples of good scientific work,” said Margaret Mangan of the U.S. Geological Survey. “Of course we don’t want this information getting into the wrong hands. That would be a disaster on a scale the likes of which we can hardly imagine. It’s remote, the notion that a terrorist group or hostile country could set off our exiting volcanoes, but it is very much not worth the risk.”
Both papers were published in an easily accessible format suggesting that not everyone is as concerned, or that they are working in concert with forces hostile to the United States.
It’s not clear if any foreign power, hostile or not, has yet found a way to harness the power of volcanoes to cause serious destruction.
“Most major volcanoes in the United States are, frankly, long overdue for an eruption and when they happen they will happen quickly. We aren’t likely looking at the kind of dramatic explosion that most people expect, but that is entirely possible and if that happened it would be very, very destructive,” said Scrape TV Science analyst Dr. Howard Poe. “Yellowstone in particular is real problem, housing a super volcano which if detonated could cause global destruction, and you can just imagine what that would mean for people in the immediate area. Luckily no one yet has developed volcano technology, at least as far as we know.”
It is believed unlikely that any terrorist group would have the ability to develop such a weapon, but they would be well equipped to employ such a device if they were given one.
“No one really wants a super volcano to explode. That would cause a nuclear winter across the globe and kill millions of all ethnicities and religious beliefs. It would cause chaos and ultimately totalitarian despots across the globe which would actually make global domination more difficult because all the handcuffs will be off,” continued Poe. Unfortunately crazy people tend to not think too far down the road and it is possible they will use such a device simply because they have it, if they have it, which again is pretty unlikely thankfully.”
Iran is reportedly working on a volcano device, amongst other things.
Anna Phillips, Science Correspondent
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