What do you think happened to super volcanoes? We'll focus on Yellowstone National Park since fallout is heavily US based. How would an eruption change the world?

Nothing would have happened to them. If they went off it would finish what the Great War started.

You don't think that maybe Yellowstone would have been a target of the Chinese? And it would have been hit directly by a bomb, which probably would have caused a lot of damage with the massive amount f magma under the volcano.

Why would nukes set off Yellowstone? Also even though many people believe that a nuclear war would kill us all which was why we haven't had one (yet) the Chinese at least under Mao Zedong believed China could. Even still most nations would (and have) prepare for at least a chance to survive, including China. So why add to the horrors and total devistation that a nuclear war world war would cause all on it's own by setting off the world's super valcanos?

I never said a nuke would set off a volcano. I said that the volcano would be a good thing to target as an opposing nation. Hitting a volcano with a nuke, I could only assume, would cause a lot of the magma to be released. By it getting blasted out and then flowing out because of the hole left.

This whole thing is about "hey what if China launched nukes at Yellowstone." Which is saying "a nuke would set it off." Target it to set it off.

I am asking why would nukes even cause that? Setting aside the science behind that.. Why would China or anyone else do it if it was even possible. Yellowstone blowing would screw over more then just the United States but the world. China and everyone else would have/were already trying to figure out how to survive a nuclear world war which would be very slim at best.. so why compound that already slim to zero chance of survival with setting off a super valcanon(s)?

No. Again, I *never* said hitting a volcano with a bomb sets it off. I said hitting the volcano would be a good idea for China. It wouldn't set the volcano off, so that means only the US would be affected. Instead, it would make the magma inside the volcano flow and blast out of the volcano due to the impact of the bomb. This is purely beneficial for China and detrimental to the US. The mass amount of magma would turn a large part of the US inhabitable.

Again, this is NOT setting off the volcano.

I agree with Styles,

Yellowstone Super Eruption would be felt world wide but of course North America would feel it the most. The thing is would it be worse than the outcome of the Great War who knows. Both events are enough to cause massive extinctions and a great loss to life.

I do not even know if a nuclear blast would cause an eruption of a volcano.

Magma/lava isn't the threat of a Super Valcano. Targetting it in the hopes lava will ooze out and cause damage is pointless. What makes Yellowstone and other Super Valcanoes a major threat is the insainly large pyroclastic eruption. It's the same thing with even normal valcanos. Lava flows are very slow and very harmless since you can simply out walk them. It's when a Valcano blows up like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_eruption_of_Mount_St._Helens that make valcano and super valcanoes a threat.

So if we are talking "hey target Yellowstones to crack it open to get lava to come out" as a tactic. Then it is a very pointless one and a waste of nukes.

Which is why I thought you were talking about "hey target Yellowstone to cause the next Krakatoa."

I highly doubt that a volcano with the amount of magma underneath it like Yellowstone would simply cause a little poke hole and cause a slight lava flow when hit with a nuclear bomb.

But whatever.

If it doesn't blow up in a pyroclastic eruption then there is no threat. If a hole was made so lava can escape it will just cool and become solid rock again. Sooner or later it will just scab back over. No threat. Plus Yellowstone is in a giant wilderness area in a state that is the least populated state in America (Wyoming). So whatever lava does escape and spread before it cools wouldn't cause much damage.

So again not a very practical tactic and a waste of nukes. If you have this idea that lava will ooze out and cover the 48 lower states or most of them. That is to put it nicely, silly.

Yellowstone is a national park... There is nothing within hundreds of miles the Chinese would have any point in covering in lava.