I just watched a Geology Hub upload on the Cerberean Caldera super eruption in what is now Australia. It happened over 300 million years ago, but in terms of the total age of the planet, even 300 million years is a relatively tiny blip. So have there been any significant epics to truly say events like x, y, or z will never happen again – in any statistically significant way? Will there be another Deccan or Siberian Traps or Columbia River Flood Basalts – one geologic timescale day in the future and countless more in the eons to follow?
(Ref. mentioned not directly relevant to question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjRaIhec_E8)
It is a question about the evolution of planetary cooling. Obviously, the Earth is not going to spontaneously return to molten Earth on the surface short of an external cataclysmic encounter. Eventually it will cool to near absolute zero if it survives Sol’s demise. There must be phases to that evolutionary path and a timeline specific to vulcanism but also in other areas.
over those timelines I’m not sure we can assume stability of ideas like planets and so on, sure - there might be some way of looking at this as a predictable system with overarching patterns that allow us to reasonably conclude some events are not possible past a certain point, but applying that specifically to a planet over a timeline like the heat death of the universe has problems like being too narrow in what is considered possible - I don’t know whether it’s genuinely impossible for some organism or natural event to intercede and create the conditions that bring about previously impossible geologic events again (you even consider this kind of possibility when suggesting Earth could survive the death of the Sun). The question seems somewhat broad and I’m not sure what you are really asking, to be honest.