Mt. St. Helens. Vesuvius. Krakatoa. Mt. Tambora.
Just hearing about these historic eruptions is enough to
wither your courage and make you want to colonize the moon.
But all of these eruptions have one thing in common:
None of them were large enough to qualify as a supervolcano.
A supervolcano is an amazing, terrifying thing
And they're a fact of nature here on Earth
And there are 5 things you need to know about these planetary megaweapons under your feet right now.
So how big is a supervolcano eruption?
One common way of judging the magnitude of an eruption
is to measure the volume of ejecta which is all that stuff that erupts out
of a volcano and then comes back down to rest on the ground.
A supereruption is usually defined as one that spits out more than 1000 cubic kilometers,
or about 240 cubic miles, of ejecta. In case you’re having trouble picturing that, 1000
cubic kilometers is a little more than double the volume of all the water in Lake Erie.
And that’s not the upper limit – that’s just to get in the door of the supervolcano
club. The Fish Canyon tuff event, a supereruption which occurred about 28 million years ago,
created about 5000 cubic kilometers of deposits, or about 1200 cubic miles. If a Borg Cube
So if a Borg cube has a volume of 27 cubic kilometers, this eruption event put out more than 185 Borg cubes
worth of deposits.
Here's another thing: they can change the world. A super volcano eruption isn’t only a problem if you’re
one the unfortunate nearby locals buried under meters of hot ash, lava or mudflows.
Large volcanic eruptions can have regional or even global consequences.
According to one hypothesis, the Toba supereruption about 74,000 years ago on the island of Sumatra
Caused a "genetic bottleneck” and nearly wiped out the entire human race – not because our ancestors were
all huddled around the base of the volcano, but because eruptions of this magnitude can
cause climate change and widespread ecological catastrophe, destroying our ecosystems and
food sources. This genetic bottleneck hypothesis is not confirmed, but it is a fact that
volcanic eruptions can have global consequences.
Supervolcano eruptions are much less common than smaller volcano eruptions.
Small-scale volcanic activity is going on all the time, constantly, as you're watching this.
But the last supervolcano eruption on Earth was tens of thousands of years ago.
Not only has no person alive ever seen one, no super volcano eruption has ever made it into written history.
We can extrapolate what they would be like from our scientific knowledge, but nobody
has ever lived through a supereruption to tell us their story.
There are a few ways we might be able to do something to protect ourselves
If we have enough warning time, we might be able to evacuate some vulnerable
areas before the direct effects of a volcanic eruption occur. But if you want to stop a
volcano from erupting, especially a supervolcano, you are simply out of luck. There is too much
energy involved, and there’s nothing we can do about it. In this case, the threat
of an enormous supervolcano eruption might be even more dangerous than a planet-killing asteroid
hurtling toward Earth – at least we have some wild, Armageddon-style plans that might be able
to stop or redirect an asteroid.
The thing about supervolcanoes is that they're already here.
There’s no reason to think the Yellowstone Supervolcano will erupt anytime soon.
But what you’ve heard is true: One of the world’s most gigantic supervolcanoes is sitting underneath
one of America’s most beautiful national parks. The Yellowstone supervolcano, or the
Yellowstone caldera, can really get people’s attention – especially when you start looking
at the maps showing exactly how much of the mainland United States would be covered in
ash if it were to undergo a supereruption. But according to the U.S. Geological Survey,
each year, the baseline probability of another eruption from the Yellowstone Caldera is only
about 1 in 730,000, or 0.00014%, which they estimate by looking at the average intervals
between historical eruptions. So yes, it’s huge, and yes, it’s real
and yes, the odds of a super volcano going off are higher than your odds of winning the lottery.
But there's no particular reason to think it’s going to blow up any time soon.
Do supervolcanoes freak you out? What's your plan to survive in case of an eruption?
We're talking about end of days sort of stuff!
Skies filled with ash, darkness across the poles
Do you have a plan?
If so, let me know in the comments cause honestly, guys, I got nothin'.
In the meantime, while we're waiting for these things to explode
subscribe, and check out our channel.
if you want to learn more, check out How Supervolcanoes Work at HowStuffWorks.com!