The Yellowstone supervolcano is quite infamous as not only does it contain the highest concentration
of geysers on the planet but it also produced a cataclysmic eruption which formed a 45 mile
wide depression in the ground known as a caldera 631,300 years ago.
This eruption ejected 1,000 cubic kilometers of volcanic rock in one of the planet's largest
explosive eruptions during the last 1 million years, completely devastating all life in
an area which was approximately the combined sizes of the state of New Jersey and Delaware
combined, leaving up to 1,000 feet thick of ash, pyroclastic rock, and lava as a result
of the eruption.
Yet, this eruption was not the largest explosive eruption to ever occur on the planet, let
alone even the United States.
As, in Indonesia another supervolcano exists known as Toba.
Recent evidence has been gaining some acceptance that increased the previously estimated size
of its last major caldera forming eruption to the point that it figuratively breaks the
existing volcanic explosivity index scale since it was so large.
In a scientific paper which is being referenced on screen, it concluded that the Younger Toba
Tuff eruption, which formed Toba's more than 52 mile wide caldera 75,000 years ago erupted
a grand total of 13,200 cubic kilometers of volcanic rock.
In an attempt to portray just how massive this is, imagine 10,000 Mount Saint Helens
volcanoes right next to each other all producing the same 1980 climatic eruption which destroyed
a large swath of the volcano and the surrounding landscape occurring simultaneously.
And even with this, you would still be slightly smaller than Toba's Younger Toba Tuff eruption.
As for the scale this eruption of Toba breaks, I present the volcanic explosivity index.
With an exception of between 0 and 1, and between 1 and 2, each single increase in number
on this previously 0 to 8 scale indicates an explosive volcanic eruption which is 10
times larger.
Whereas the 2022 eruption of the Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland was a VEI 0, the 1980 eruption
of Mount Saint Helens was a VEI 5.
The 1991 eruption of Pinatubo was a VEI 6, and the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora which
caused the so-called year without a summer due to the volcanic winter it caused was a
VEI 7.
At a VEI 8, you have true supervolcanic caldera forming eruptions like the one produced by
Yellowstone 631,300 years ago.
And then you have Toba's Younger Toba Tuff eruption, which breaks this scale as it registers
in as a VEI 9.
For context, the Toba supervolcano is located on the northwestern half of the island of
Sumatra with its massive caldera lake being visible from satellite.
The Toba complex is not simply one large caldera but rather 4 overlapping ones which formed
in one of each eruption in the VEI 6, 7, 8, and 9 category.
The VEI 9 caldera is the largest of the group, measuring 84 kilometers long and 35 kilometers
wide.
This VEI 9 eruption may have only lasted for 15 hours, having a best fit in terms of the
average wind pattern in modern times as sometime between September 3rd and 11th approximately
75,000 years ago, when a strong wind was blowing to the west.
During this eruption, an average of 244 million cubic meters of volcanic rock was ejected
every second, meaning that in only a 6 second time span it erupted more than the 1980 eruption
of Mount Saint Helens.
Kilometer high, perhaps higher pyroclastic flows destroyed a large section of Sumatra,
likely traveling a minimum of 100 kilometers in all directions, and perhaps reaching up
to 200 kilometers distant.
When these pyroclastic flows reached the ocean, they likely created multiple regional tsunamis.
If modern human homes were to have existed at the time of this eruption, roofs would
have almost universally collapsed on every structure in the following regions: Kuala
Lumpur and southwestern Malaysia, the northwestern three fifths of the island of Sumatra, sections
of Thailand and far southern Myanmar, Sri Lanka, parts of southern India, and the Maldives.
Areas as far away as Ethiopia received more than an inch of ashfall with even sections
of modern Sudan, Madagascar, China, Iran, and Uganda received at least a universal dusting
of a millimeter or more of ash.
At the epicenter of this eruption, layers of ash and volcanic rock likely piled up to
perhaps as much as 700 meters or 2,297 feet thick.
I want to note that in my opinion it is quite unlikely that the largest explosive volcanic
eruption to occur in the 4.5 billion year geologic history of Earth conveniently occurred
during the last 1 million years.
It seems more likely that other similarly sized VEI 9 eruptions have occurred, but their
products were possibly lost to time or have not been discovered yet.
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