Apparently the volume of the ESB is about 1e6 m³. So that's about 37e12 m³ of magma. But yeah, using a weird unit of measurement no one even knows and using 37 million as a factor pretty much guarantees that no one can relate this to anything.

> using a weird unit of measurement no one even knows and using 37 million as a factor pretty much guarantees that no one can relate this to anything

Manhattan has a land area of 59.1 square kilometers [1]. 37e12 m³ of magma would fill the land area of Manhattan to over 600 kilometers, i.e. well past the boundary of space.

Alternatively, it would fill California's 424,000 thousand square kilometers to 100 meters, or about halfway to the top of the Transamerica Pyramid [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transamerica_Pyramid

> Alternatively, it would fill California's 424,000 thousand square kilometers to 100 meters

That sounds like a hell of a lot more than 37 million times the volume of the Empire State Building.

The Empire State buildings base is almost 2 acres x 443.2 m tall and a square km is 247 acres. 2 * 443m * 37 million / 424 million (424,000 thousand) / 247 ~= 0.3m so covered to the depth of 1 foot. Which seems more reasonable.

ED: Ahh, they had wrong area for California. It's 424,000 square kilometers not "424,000 thousand square kilometers"

That 424million should be 424,000, so we are back at 300m deep. Except the ESB doesn't fill anywhere near all of the (2 acres x 443m) cuboid, so 100m is closer.

Yea, I was thinking they where off by 1000 somewhere. Checking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California gives (423,970 km2).

And yea, 1/3 of the volume is a better approximation but the numbers where so far off that seemed less useful.

Is this really correct? You'd think with modern imaging it would be fairly easy to spot a 100m high magma formation the size of california. How does magma even flow with such volume, it sounds like it would create an island that everyone would know the name of.

In an explosive eruption, the magma doesn't just flow downhill and solidify in place like it does in Hawaii. It gets blown to smithereens by expanding gases and the resulting fine particles are scattered all over the world. All that's left is a hole in the ground, which will be quickly filled in if it's below sea level.

Enough to completely fill the Grand Canyon(4.17T m³[1])almost 9 times over.

[1] https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/management/statistics.htm

I think you (or the journalist) are off by a few zeros. According to wikipedia it's 32-39km^3 and I think km^3 = 1e9m^3

I agree, I thought the Olympic swimming pool was the only unit of measure for journalism.

In the UK, they used to use the volume of Wembley Stadium (a well-known sports ground), but then it was demolished and rebuilt.

so if you're reading an old article using Wembley Stadiums as the unit of measurement you should have some sort of B.D (Before Demolishment) and A.R (After Rebuild) dating scheme to keep it straight.

I hear they had to do it because it was way "too decimal" as a unit which was unacceptable :).

So New Wembley units vs Old Wimbleys?

the question now is: How many Olympic swimming pools fit into the Empire State Building?

But seriously, I am OK using this kind of unit to illustrate that something is really big but at a minimum they should also add some real units.

The real problem is that 37 million is too big a number. Saying something would fill 10 or even 100 Empire State Buildings is relatable. Once you say 37 million ESBs or 10 billion swimming pools, you might as well say it's 10 quadrillion coffee cups full.

I prefer the examples higher up the thread of filling the Grand Canyon 9 times or submerging all of California to a depth of 100m.

How about writing 1000 cubic kilometer and then adding that this is the equivalent of 10 times the Grand canyon? I just would like to see real units. I also don't know how long a football field is.

I don't understand this metric thing. If we're going to go imperial, I need cubic yards.

Everybody knows that the empire state building is a unit of measure for length!