[ygra]

Apparently the volume of the ESB is about 1e6 m³. So that's about 37e12 m³ of magma. But yeah, using a weird unit of measurement no one even knows and using 37 million as a factor pretty much guarantees that no one can relate this to anything.

[JumpCrisscross]

> using a weird unit of measurement no one even knows and using 37 million as a factor pretty much guarantees that no one can relate this to anything

Manhattan has a land area of 59.1 square kilometers [1]. 37e12 m³ of magma would fill the land area of Manhattan to over 600 kilometers, i.e. well past the boundary of space.

Alternatively, it would fill California's 424,000 thousand square kilometers to 100 meters, or about halfway to the top of the Transamerica Pyramid [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transamerica_Pyramid

[wfunction]

> Alternatively, it would fill California's 424,000 thousand square kilometers to 100 meters

That sounds like a hell of a lot more than 37 million times the volume of the Empire State Building.

[Retric]

The Empire State buildings base is almost 2 acres x 443.2 m tall and a square km is 247 acres. 2 * 443m * 37 million / 424 million (424,000 thousand) / 247 ~= 0.3m so covered to the depth of 1 foot. Which seems more reasonable.

ED: Ahh, they had wrong area for California. It's 424,000 square kilometers not "424,000 thousand square kilometers"

[dmurray]

That 424million should be 424,000, so we are back at 300m deep. Except the ESB doesn't fill anywhere near all of the (2 acres x 443m) cuboid, so 100m is closer.

[Retric]

Yea, I was thinking they where off by 1000 somewhere. Checking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California gives (423,970 km2).

And yea, 1/3 of the volume is a better approximation but the numbers where so far off that seemed less useful.

[tinco]

Is this really correct? You'd think with modern imaging it would be fairly easy to spot a 100m high magma formation the size of california. How does magma even flow with such volume, it sounds like it would create an island that everyone would know the name of.

[kijin]

In an explosive eruption, the magma doesn't just flow downhill and solidify in place like it does in Hawaii. It gets blown to smithereens by expanding gases and the resulting fine particles are scattered all over the world. All that's left is a hole in the ground, which will be quickly filled in if it's below sea level.

[tbrake]

Enough to completely fill the Grand Canyon(4.17T m³[1])almost 9 times over.

[1] https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/management/statistics.htm

[fijal]

I think you (or the journalist) are off by a few zeros. According to wikipedia it's 32-39km^3 and I think km^3 = 1e9m^3