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by ethbr0 1658 days ago
My favorite National Park Service quip of all time. At the bottom of the page on Yellowstone's volcano [0] are a few questions and answers, and among them this gem:

>> What is Yellowstone National Park doing to stop or prevent an erruption?

> Nothing can be done to prevent an eruption. The temperatures, pressures, physical characteristics of partially molten rock, and immensity of the magma chamber are beyond human ability to impact—much less control.

In my head, some staff geologist, tired of answering dumb questions, was asked and finally snapped a little.

[0] https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/volcano.htm

2 comments

This is a very clear distillation of the absolute lack of imagination that is endemic across the National Parks Service. It is this mindset that stagnating progress in the National Parks. 105 years and there have been no major developments in Parks technologies. No waterfalls running in reverse, no water-skiing bison, no Grander Canyon. /s
When I visited Yellowstone, the only thing I wanted, literally the only thing, was for an enormous eagle to fly down and attack a bear, and then for both to fall into a hot/acid pool with a cry and dissolve. Is that too much to ask? What are my tax dollars being used for anyway?!
Well you'll have to settle for hanging around and watching foolish tourists trip, slip and dissolve.
You really had me until the very end, I even had a “parks don’t need disrupting” speech planned
Bison move surprisingly quickly and are very good at breaking things.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6511a5.htm

Water skiing bisons, now thats a good idea
Kind of a water buffalo rip off
Everybody's got a water buffalo. Yours is fast but mine is slow!
Some old-army jokes aren't potable to civilian life
I Get It!
Sounds like a challenge! (Seriously, I think Yellowstone is protected from geothermal power development precisely BECAUSE it could impact it.)