r/science • u/Sort_of_Frightening • Sep 10 '23

Chemistry Lithium discovery in U.S. volcano could be biggest deposit ever found

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/lithium-discovery-in-us-volcano-could-be-biggest-deposit-ever-found/4018032.article
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423

u/astrath Sep 10 '23

It's definitely extinct as opposed to dormant, no realistic chance it will ever erupt again. The magma source is no longer there, the hotspot has tracked east and currently feeds Yellowstone.

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/xantec15 Sep 10 '23

You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.

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u/Captain_Spicard Sep 10 '23

Rock and Stone!

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u/WanderingDwarfMiner Sep 10 '23

Rockity Rock and Stone!

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u/bendingrover Sep 10 '23

Rock. And. STONE!

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u/notquite20characters Sep 11 '23

Did I hear a Rock and Stone?

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u/SlitScan Sep 11 '23

having been to McDermitt, a fire breathing nightmare erupting from the ground wouldnt matter at all.

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u/Kladice Sep 11 '23

Watched that horrendous movie on Netflix when the Norwegians dug into a mountain… I’m sure Oregon has trolls.

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u/FrankBattaglia Sep 10 '23

Even as lithium was the foundation of their wealth, so also it was their destruction: they delved too greedily and too deep, and disturbed that from which they fled, Elon's Bane

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u/cech_ Sep 10 '23

Go back to the Shadow Elon!

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u/dev_null_jesus Sep 11 '23

You... SHALL... NOT .... PASS!Q!!!Q!

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u/TopHatTony11 Sep 10 '23

Somewhere The Rock has been handed a mediocre screenplay.

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u/BurmecianSoldierDan Sep 10 '23

Didn't he already do Journey to the Center of the Earth or did I dream that?

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u/ShenAnCalhar92 Sep 10 '23

“There is no magma underneath this volcano.”

“That’s not … entirely accurate, sir.”

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u/OK6502 Sep 10 '23

Balrog noises intensifies

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u/MrWeirdoFace Sep 11 '23

Fly you fools!

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u/mortymotron Sep 11 '23

Movie voice guy: This summer… get ready to dig deeper. Because this time, there’s no return trip after going back… to The Core!

Keyes is whisked off to a secret location where he joins up with fellow scientist Serge Leveque (Tcheky Karyo) and is met by General Thomas Purcell (Richard Jenkins). It seems that 32 Bostonians have simultaneously dropped dead in a ten-block radius for no apparent reason, and General Purcell wants to know if it was caused by a covert weapon. Of course, the military has been put in charge of the investigation and everything is hush-hush.

Without examining anything, Keyes takes about five seconds to surmise that the victims all died from malfunctioning pacemakers and the malfunction was definitely not due to a secret weapon. We're supposed to be impressed, but our experience with real scientists and engineers indicates that when they're on-the-record, top-notch scientists and engineers won't even speculate about the color of their socks without looking at their ankles1. They have top-notch reputations because they're almost always right. They're almost always right because they keep their mouths shut until they've fully analyzed the data.

Naturally, General Purcell is totally satisfied with Keyes speculation and immediately dismisses him. Amazed at General Purcell's lack of curiosity, Keyes sets out to find answers. After a detailed analysis he concludes that the Earth's core has stopped spinning and is causing the Earth's magnetic field to collapse.

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u/Gary_FucKing Sep 10 '23

"Somehow, magma has returned."

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u/bkasp7 Sep 10 '23

"Thats not how that works! Thats not how any of this works!"

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u/MaxTHC Sep 10 '23

Yep, there's a line you can trace from Nevada to Yellowstone that's dotted with extinct volcanic sites where the caldera used to be located. On the drive back from Yellowstone to WA I visited one of these, Craters of the Moon in Idaho.

It's in the middle of absolutely nowhere (even for Idaho) but it's a stunning place, definitely worth a visit if you ever drive through the state.

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u/Razgriz01 Sep 10 '23

Craters of the moon is a vastly more recent eruption than even the last big yellowstone eruption. It's only a few thousand years old, vs a few hundred thousand for yellowstone and tens of millions for the hotspot eruptions that created the snake river plain where craters of the moon is.

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u/MaxTHC Sep 11 '23 edited Sep 11 '23

That's weird, cause I was paraphrasing what I remember reading at the Craters of the Moon visitor's center, I don't remember all the details but it definitely said there that it had been formed by what is currently the Yellowstone hotspot.

Edit: Wikipedia tells me that neither of us are really wrong. Apparently, Craters of the Moon was formed by more recent lava flows, which in turn are ultimately a result of the Yellowstone hotspot having passed through the area long before:

The Snake River Plain is a volcanic province that was created by a series of cataclysmic caldera-forming eruptions which started about 15 million years ago. A migrating hotspot thought to now exist under Yellowstone Caldera in Yellowstone National Park [...] was under the Craters of the Moon area some 10 to 11 million years ago but 'moved' as the North American Plate migrated northwestward.

Leftover heat from this hot spot was later liberated by Basin and Range-associated rifting and created the many overlapping lava flows that make up the Lava Beds of Idaho. The largest rift zone is the Great Rift; it is from this 'Great Rift fissure system' that Craters of the Moon, Kings Bowl, and Wapi lava fields were created.

In spite of their fresh appearance, the oldest flows in the Craters of the Moon Lava Field are 15,000 years old and the youngest erupted about 2000 years ago [...] the volcanic fissures at Craters of the Moon are considered to be dormant, not extinct, and are expected to erupt again in less than a thousand years.

So not extinct but it does seem to be a leftover from the movement of what is now the Yellowstone hotspot.

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u/Razgriz01 Sep 11 '23

I believe it would be more accurate to say that the passage of the hotspot underneath the crust (and the eruptions that resulted) left weaknesses that made it easier for magma to penetrate to the surface even after the hotspot moved on. Craters of the moon itself isn't from a Yellowstone eruption, even though the hotspot is ultimately responsible.

The entire Snake River plain cutting through southern Idaho marks the passage of the hotspot, the mountains to the north and south used to be continuous with each other, but the hotspot eruptions completely flattened a path through them.

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u/5H17SH0W Sep 10 '23

I’m not a geologist but my understanding is that based on your comment it is actually the tectonic plate that shifted west. The “magma source” wouldn’t move. That’s why we see active plates that have lakes or islands in a tracking pattern.

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u/astrath Sep 10 '23

Yes, it's relative movement rather than absolute movement. I believe there have been some theories around hotspot movement but I'm not fully up to speed and it isn't the primarey mechanism in any case.

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u/blaiddunigol Sep 11 '23

Well the magma source didn’t move, the land above it did.