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To: LindyBill who wrote (98857)	2/5/2005 9:39:19 PM
From: neolib	Respond to of 793886

The optimistic answer is that the earth is cooling, and these events are going to happen less than in the past and not be as violent. Hawaii is a good example Yes, but the some of these really big flows were not that long ago geologically speaking. The Columbia basin flows are around 17Mya to 6Mya, not much in terms of the earths core cooling. See this link for some nice pics and maps. volcano.und.nodak.edu From the link: Almost everything about this volcanic province is impressive. The Columbia River Flood Basalt Province forms a plateau of 164,000 square kilometers between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains. In all, more than 300 individual large (average volume 580 cubic km!) lava flows cover parts of the states of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. At some locations, the lava is more than 3,500 m thick. The total volume of the volcanic province is 175,000 cubic km. Eruptions filled the Pasco Basin in the east and then sent flows westward into the Columbia River Gorge. About 85% of the province is made of the Grande Ronde Basalt with a volume of 149,000 cubic km (enough lava to bury all of the continental United States under 12 m of lava!) that erupted over a period of less than one million years. Flows eventually reached the Pacific Ocean, about 300 to 600 km from their fissure vents. The Pomona flow traveled from west-central Idaho to the Pacific (600 km), making it the longest known lava flow on Earth (the major- and trace-element compositions of the flow do not change over its entire length).

To: LindyBill who wrote (98857)	2/6/2005 12:34:57 AM
From: Volsi Mimir	Respond to of 793886

Hawaii-Isn't it a bit of coincidence that the place where they sample for CO2 and used in all the green house reporting is next to one of most frequently erupting volcanoes? Mauna Loa Observatory on the island of Hawaii and Kilauea: (usgs.gov) The caldera was the site of nearly continuous activity during the 19th century and the early part of this century. Since 1952 there have been 34 eruptions, and since January 1983 eruptive activity has been continuous along the east rift zone. All told, Kilauea ranks among the world's most active volcanoes and may even top the list. and Mauna Loa itself was last active in 1984....... and how come they just don't use the samples from Antartica that is previous to that-(that is usually what I see-- pre-Mauna Loa its the Antartica site. Probably both have a reasonable explanation, I just haven't found one casually looking and reading. or maybe just add iron to the water:(my mother use to tell me that once) Phytoplankton may stimulate uptake of CO2 New research has revealed that phytoplankton may be one of the main historic controls on global warming, and that fertilizing the oceans with iron results in increased phytoplankton productivity – a hypothetical way to offset the effects of global warming. Through photosynthesis, these tiny, free-floating aquatic plants can convert carbon dioxide to organic carbon, and there appears to be a prehistoric relationship between iron in the ocean and atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. Burke Hales, an assistant professor in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University, is one of a number of scientists who collaborated on a new study which involved field research in the ocean near Antartica and will be published Friday in the journal Science. He described the research as "tremendously successful" because it very clearly shows an induced biological response in the oceans to fertilization with iron. "During the glacial periods, atmospheric carbon dioxide, or CO2 levels decrease substantially, while during interglacial periods, such as we are now in, those levels increase," said Hales. "There is also a striking inverse relationship between implied, historical iron fluxes to the ocean and atmospheric CO2 concentrations. These relationships suggest some sort of feedback system between iron and CO2 levels during glacial periods that keep the temperature low."....more scienceblog.com