Because They’re Big – a Poem by Kate Rauner

Because They’re Big

Yellowstone caldera today, Hayden Valley

Where river Drac joins the Isère,

A synchrotron ring is there,

A stadium sized machine

That generates an x-ray beam.

Beams fly off to tests beginning,

Like water flung from wheels spinning.

Hellish pressure and furnace heat

Are conjured in a palm-sized feat.

Knowledge that we now acquire

Of volcano threats most dire.

Super-volcanoes will erupt

As soon as they grow big enough.

Sheer volume of their liquid magma

For eruptions yielding global drama.

Once every hundred thousand years

Mankind must face colossal fears.

The clock is ticking, that we know,

Half-way till Yellowstone will blow.

Can North America calmly bide

When there are twenty more worldwide?

Thanks to Wim Malfait et al and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France for these results.  http://bbc.in/Ks5Q9H