Nuclear Winter....Ring any bells?

[ChampionLife]

If the world was nuked almost everyone would agree that that there would be some form of a nuclear winter that would fallow. So from there we also know that a volcaneo eruption cools the earth with the volcanic ash, and we know that ther're super volcaneos like Yellow Stone National Park scattered around the world. And that thier eruptions can be more than 100 times greater than a normal volcaneo. My question is: What would happen if a nuke or two went and hit directly a couple of super volcaneos around the world? Would there be a longer Nuclear Winter? How would the world of Fallout Look as a winter land?

[proingy747]

It would look something like this.

 

http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/37130

[devinpatterson]

What would happen if a nuke or two went and hit directly a couple of super volcaneos around the world? Would there be a longer Nuclear Winter? How would the world of Fallout Look as a winter land?

 

This may seem counter intuitive, but I don't believe it would create the effect you imagine. Super volcanoes, just like quakes at the tectonic plate boundaries (faults) are all about the build up of pressure/tension. Releasing that tension actually prevents an massive eruption/quake. I don't believe any nuke in the fallout world comes even close in sheer megatonage to a super volcano, but it could cause it to release a small amount of pressure (small compared to what is under the super volcano). This could actually prevent a super eruption.

 

You can actually do the same thing with earthquake fault lines. The more small tremors they have to release pressure the less a chance of a large earthquake. The army pumped 160ish million gallons of liquid toxic waste, into a 12k deep well in teh Rocky Mountains in the early 60's. It triggered earthquakes in the region and the operation had to be discontinued. You could do the same thing by diverting millions of gallons of sea water into the California faults, triggering small tremors that would prevent the build up of pressure and lubricate the plates at key fault lines.

 

In a way nuking a super volcano would be analogous to the above operation.