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The explosion had left a crater more than forty miles across—much too huge to be perceived from anywhere at ground level. At some time in the past Yellowstone must have blown up with a violence far beyond the scale of anything known to humans. Yellowstone, it turns out, is a supervolcano. It sits on top of an enormous hot spot, a reservoir of molten rock that rises from at least 125 miles down in the Earth. The heat from the hot spot is what powers all of Yellowstone's vents, geysers, hot springs, and popping mud pots. Beneath the surface is a magma chamber that is about forty-five miles across—roughly the same dimensions as the park—and about eight miles thick at its thickest point. Imagine a pile of TNT about the size of Rhode Island and reaching eight miles into the sky, to about the height of the highest cirrus clouds, and you have some idea of what visitors to Yellowstone are shuffling around on top of. The pressure that such a pool of magma exerts on the crust above has lifted Yellowstone and about three hundred miles of surrounding territory about 1,700 feet higher than they would otherwise be. If it blew, the cataclysm is pretty well beyond imagining.
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Bill Bryson
A typical warship was a very high reflector of radar—a radar profile equal to about fifty barns. Our frigate would show up a hell of a lot smaller than a dinghy. By the time we were ready for full-scale testing in the early summer of 1985, the Navy was eager to subject our prototype to the most rigorous radar testing imaginable. Several of their radar experts claimed that there was no way we could duplicate the low radar cross section achieved by a thirty-foot model in a pool with a full-size prototype on the real ocean. We had heard those same skeptical predictions before from the Air Force over our stealth airplane, but in the wonderful world of stealth, once we had acquired the right shape, the size of an object really didn’t matter. The military had a tough time understanding that basic fact.
Skunk Works
Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos
fifty-pound weight vest. SEAL hands it to me. “Put it on.” I grab it and put one arm in at a time. I throw the vest over my shoulders and strap it on. My immediate reaction is This is heavy. Like really heavy. It’s like having a big suitcase on your back. We do fifteen sets of ten push-ups, with thirty seconds of rest between sets. Total: 150. It takes me twenty-two minutes. It takes SEAL fifteen minutes.
Living With a SEAL
Jesse Itzler
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