Helium 4 at Yellowstone indicates ERUPTION possibilities high

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I honestly believe it might erupt soon.

Soon = 300 years or so.

So how good is this helium 4 stuff? Is there a 5. Let me just say that the whole place spews different kinds of fucking gas. They say it blows every 600,00 years and its now 640 since it went off and really how the fuck do these dumb shit science freaks know anyway. When it blows that's the gas we should measure. Helium is for fucking balloons.

Public education ?

Yes

Will Old Faithful sound really high pitched now?

[link to news.discovery.com]

Looking at the proportions of helium-3 and helium-4 in a gas sample, the researchers could determine how much helium had come straight from the mantle, and how much came from fresh breaks and fractures in the crust below El Hierro island. Fracturing crust is another clue that a volcanic eruption could be imminent.

The team's analyses show that, as the volcano began to stir, the crust fractured and helium, mostly from the mantle, flowed to the surface. As the actual eruption began, gas flow at the surface increased dramatically, and gas pressure beneath the island dropped. Then as seismic activity at El Hierro picked up again, the crust fractured and deformed extensively, and helium-4 became a larger component of the total helium released on the island.

The team also measured two helium isotopes — atoms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons. Helium-3, for example, has one neutron, whereas helium-4 has two. Helium-4 is produced when radioactive elements decay in the Earth's crust (its outermost layer), but helium-3, which accounts for the bulk of Earth's helium, is primarily found in the mantle (the hot layer between the crust and core)

Helium4 is a non-radioactive isotope of the element helium. It is by far the most abundant of the two naturally occurring isotopes of helium, making up about 99.99986% of the helium on Earth. Its nucleus is identical to an alpha particle, and consists of two protons and two neutrons. Hence, the denotation.

Helium3 is a light, non-radioactive isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron. It is rare on Earth, and it is sought for use in nuclear fusion research.


public education indeed

I don't know about that 99.99986% number. There is helium in the atmosphere, and that number may be correct for the atmosphere which is a thin sliver covering the planet. We cannot go into the Earth itself to measure the helium. Since the Earth is a sphere most of the helium should be beneath our feet. The moon has a higher concentration of helium-3 than that found on the Earth. The Moon was created from a glancing blow impact between the early Earth and another planet. Radioactive decay in the interior of the Earth should be producing alpha particles, and hence helium-4 atoms, at a constant rate. So maybe this 99.99986 number is correct, but then why would the scientists measure the isotope concentration to figure out whether the helium came from the mantle or not? Perhaps the radioactive elements are concentrated at the core because of their mass during the formation of the molten Earth, and the helium-4 produced is trapped in the center of the Earth, whereas the mantle has less radioactive material and a higher concentration of helium-3 produced by the star whose nova created the nebula that formed into our sun and solar system.