Toba volcanic super-eruption

[T. A. Gardner]

A supermassive volcanic eruption might be worse, but we don't let the party who spent the 21st century screaming about Sharia Law, wars on Christmas, and Woke to decide what constitutes important problems.

My bet is the Left--you included--will simply change what 'shiny object' you are looking at. Climate change will disappear as a topic and super volcano eruptions and the end of the world from them will become the new one.

[Cypress]

Thank you so much!

It's still an open question whether Homo sapiens are descendants of Homo erectus, but I thought the author gave a good summary of possible transitional species.

The Daka skull, which is about 1 million years old and hails from the
Awash, was found in Ethiopia in the late 1990s and consists of only
the calvaria. It has a reconstructed cranial capacity of about 995 cubic
centimeters—well within the range expected of Homo erectus. However,
based on its shape and other measurements, this transitional fossil has been
used to argue for a direct evolutionary relationship between Homo erectus
and Homo sapiens. Fast-forwarding another 500,000 years in the same
region, the discovery of a much later example—the Gawis cranium—has
been presented as yet another transitional form, demonstrating the link
between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens.

Paleoanthropologists have named multiple other species that could serve
as transitional types.

For example, the Ndutu cranium—discovered on the
shores of Lake Ndutu at Olduvai in Tanzania—dates to between 400,000 and
600,000 years old. Like Homo erectus, it has a sloping forehead and a thick
skull. However, it lacks the sagittal torus and is slightly bulbous, more like the
skull of Homo sapiens. As a result, this specimen has been proposed to belong
to yet another taxon: Homo rhodesiensis. This species was named in 1921,
when Zambia was called Northern Rhodesia.Homo rhodesiensis is also used to describe the famous fossil of Kabwe 1,
or Broken Hill. The remains consist of a complete cranium, a sacrum, a
tibia, and two femoral fragments. Today, it’s thought to be about 300,000
years old. Rather than looking like something between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, this sample has some Neanderthal-like characteristics as well, begging the question as to whether Homo rhodesiensis might be ancestral
to the Neanderthals rather than to our own species.

Another relative, the Bodo cranium—discovered in the Awash of Ethiopia and dating to 600,000
years before present—might be a more likely candidate for an erectus-sapiens
link. However, it’s also considered a member of the Homo rhodesiensis group.
This species is potentially synonymous with a European form called Homo
heidelbergensis, after a specimen discovered in Germany.

The oldest currently accepted specimens of Homo sapiens, Omo 1 and Omo
2, were discovered in 1967. They are close to 195,000 years old. What makes
them so distinctive is their rounded, dome-like skulls; thin brow ridges;
chins; and, most importantly, an even larger brain than before, at 1,400 cubic
centimeters. The other earliest Homo sapiens specimens, sometimes referred to as Homo sapiens idaltu, or “first born,” discovered in the late 1990s from Herto in the Middle Awash, share similar anatomical features and large
braincases. They’ve been argued to be directly ancestral to us.


Source credit, Suzanne Pilaar Birch, Univ of Georgia

[Cypress]

My bet is the Left--you included--will simply change what 'shiny object' you are looking at. Climate change will disappear as a topic and super volcano eruptions and the end of the world from them will become the new one.

Discussing a super eruption of the Yellowstone complex is about as pointless as discussing the Kraken conspiracy theory. It has no relationship to real events in normal everyday life.

[T. A. Gardner]

Discussing a super eruption of the Yellowstone complex is about as pointless as discussing the Kraken conspiracy theory. It has no relationship to real events in normal everyday life.

Neither does Gorebal Warming (aka Climate Change)...

[Doc Dutch]

Neither does Gorebal Warming (aka Climate Change)...

Why do you disbelieve NASA on global warming? Do you believe they faked the Moon Landing too, Terry?

[Saint Guinefort]

My bet is the Left--you included--will simply change what 'shiny object' you are looking at. Climate change will disappear as a topic and super volcano eruptions and the end of the world from them will become the new one.

The US Geological Survey doesn't seem to think Yellowstone is primed for any new eruptions in the immediate future (https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/yellowston...lowstone-erupt)

Just from a time perspective (and volcanoes don't really go on schedule) it may be another 100,000 years before the next one. And they think only 5-15% of the magma chamber is molten.

It's apparently rhyolitic (felsic, silica rich) so it should be reasonably explosive, but apparently not an imminent danger at this time. Even so there was a less explosive eruption about back about 70ka.

But, who really knows?

[Saint Guinefort]

Discussing a super eruption of the Yellowstone complex is about as pointless as discussing the Kraken conspiracy theory. It has no relationship to real events in normal everyday life.

The people of Tonga would beg to disagree. The Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai eruption of 2021 may have been one of the larger in human history. Possibly on a par with Krakatoa.

[Cypress]

Neither does Gorebal Warming (aka Climate Change)...

A Yellowstone super eruption is a complete hypothetical of something that might not happen for hundreds of thousands of years. It's nearly pointless as a topic of discussion on major environmental problems..

Global warming is a reality and anthropogenic signatures are all over the GHG accumulating in the atmosphere

[T. A. Gardner]

Why do you disbelieve NASA on global warming? Do you believe they faked the Moon Landing too, Terry?

Why do you ignore NASA on climate change and focus solely on CO2 as the culprit?

[Doc Dutch]

Why do you ignore NASA on climate change and focus solely on CO2 as the culprit?

I'm not, Terry. Are you confusing me with someone else?

[Damocles]

you're right!
The Deccan volcanic traps may have caused/contributed to the Permo-Triassic mass extinction event
It's from a PDF coursebook I have, not from the internet. I can email you the PDF?

Hey... If you are sending out copies I would not hate you for sending me one.

[Saint Guinefort]

Why do you ignore NASA on climate change and focus solely on CO2 as the culprit?

Interestingly enough we know a lot about climate forcings (including CO2) from eruptions like Mt. Pinatubo. The amount of CO2 coming out of volcanoes is usually less than the amount that humans pump into the atmosphere every year but when they do it provides helpful information on the "climate sensitivity" of things like CO2 which lets us know that CO2 is, indeed, a very important greenhouse gas that we are responsible for.

No one thinks CO2 is the only factor (in fact if you read the IPCC you'll see a whole host of them) but CO2 is a large one related to our actions. We can even find a "fingerprint" pointing directly to human activity in the increased CO2 in the atmosphere. It's the carbon isotopes that show us we are responsible for a huge chunk of the increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

But, again, no one thinks it is ONLY CO2.

[Cypress]

Hey... If you are sending out copies I would not hate you for sending me one.

Do you want to PM me an email? Then I will shoot you a copy of the PDF.

[NiftyNiblick]

The Toba volcanic super-eruption, which occurred on what is now Sumatra, Indonesia, about 75,000 years ago, possibly changed the course of our species’ trajectory. It likely caused a genetic bottleneck and perhaps the extinction of the last remnants of Homo erectus living in Asia. It’s postulated that the eruption might have caused a 10-year global volcanic winter, spurring an additional 1,000-year cooling period. It likely had a significant influence on our species in some way or another. Some researchers suggest that genetic data show that all living humans today are descended from no more than 10,000 individuals who lived approximately 70,000 years ago and survived the volcanic eruption.

Paleoenvironmental records across Southeast Asia support a distinctive shift in vegetation. Adapting to this dramatic shift in environment might have spurred sociocultural developments in Homo sapiens that gave them the leading edge when it came to succeeding over other species. Some tempting evidence comes from the rock shelter of Jwalapuram, India, where stone tools are found from layers dating both to before and after the Toba event. The recovery of these tools suggests that the hominins living there persisted in the face of adversity. However, the tool types and forms also changed after the event, shifting to smaller “microblade” technology. Would this adaptation have allowed increased mobility amid arid conditions after the eruption?


--> source credit: Suzanne Pilaar Birch, paleoanthropologist, University of Georgia

Interesting, Cypress, but what the hell are we supposed to do about it now?

[Doc Dutch]

Interesting, Cypress, but what the hell are we supposed to do about it now?

Nothing. Like the Civil War and Vietnam, it's history. Some people think it's worth learning from.

You don't give a fuck about Vietnam, right? Nothing to be learned there, right, neef?