re: #140 lawhawk

Hardly the only supervolcano that could ruin your day. Yellowstone constantly rumbles with quakes, but the maps show only minor tremors that can’t be felt without instruments. Nothing to indicate anything pending - like a quake swarm with increased intensities, or changes in any of the geyser activity that is usually associated with quake activity.

And the Vesuvius complex might be far more dangerous in the short term, with a far greater population impacts (several million live on its slopes down through Naples).

Or any of the Indonesian volcanoes.

Or Mt. Rainier, which could cause mayhem in SEA-TAC.

Hell, there’s a volcano in the Canary Islands which could pop its top next week and drop over a trillion tons of debris into the ocean, creating a megatsunami that would wipe out the East Coast. Or so say two scientists whose theory is the subject of rigorous debate in the scientific community. As is the theory that the Earth is due for a cataclysmic encounter with another celestial object. And theories about the potential for coronal ejection that could cause massive damage to electronic devices and power supplies on Earth. And so forth.

There’s no end to the ways that we could be either reduced to a pre-industrial situation or simply wiped out if you delve into scientific theory. But you have a better chance of dying tomorrow from slipping and cracking your skull than you do being killed by a gamma ray burst from a neighboring star.