The Yellowstone Volcano…a super volcano with two magma chambers.
The last time it erupted, the world was plunged into volcanic winter than spanned decades.
And guess what, honey is due an eruption…but what would this mean for America.
Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions…the channel that, let’s face
it, likes to answer basically whatever you want to know….we’re like a 5 minute long
explanatory version of Ask Jeeves…anyone remember him?!
I am your host, Rebecca Felgate and today I am asking - Could the Yellowstone volcano
eruption destroy America….any Americans watching?
Are you ready for the answer…?
Before we get into this video, why don’t you let me know where you live, and when we
get to the end of the video, you can let me know whether you’d survive a Yellowstone
eruption.
Sound like fun?
Cool!
While you are down there, why don’t you like this video and click on that notification
bell.
OKAY Yellowstone.
What do you have for us.
Urm.
A lot of death and destruction, it seems.
Nice one.
So the Yellowstone volcano is located in Wyoming and she last blew 640,000 years ago.
The eruption before that took place 1.3 million years ago, and the one before that 2.1 million
years ago.
The time between the first and second explosion was 800 thousand years, the next came much
quicker and 660,000 years…and now it has been 640,000 years since the last.
Worrying.
Theoretically she could blow at any minute, but then again, she may need several more
millennia.
IF she did blow though….
Well…get ready.
The prior three eruptions at yellow stone wrecked havoc in the past – and there weren’t
any humans around to suffer the consequences.
The first eruption spread ash over most of North America and generated the 50-mile-wide
Island Park Caldera crater in Yellowstone.
Another eruption would further change the landscape, but that isn’t really the most
concerning thing here…and neither is the hot lava…
Firstly, those within an 80 – 100-kilometre radius of the eruption zone would be killed
instantly by the hot burning ash.
Salt Lake City and Boise are very much in the kill zone, with high death tolls in Rapid
City and Denver.
Pretty much the entire states of Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and Montana would be a mess, with Washington,
Oregon, Nevada and Colorado also suffering heavily.
You want to know how much of the states would be affected…
well…have a look at this map showing the ask spread.
Basically only Miami and the very southern tip of Austin are reasonably unaffected.
Yes, the majority of people in the death zone would be evacuated, but the entirety of the
US can’t be evacuated…because…well…obviously…so suffice to say there would be a great deal
of chaos.
It is hard to say how many people would die because monitoring of the volcano would give
some forewarning.
None the less, some experts say that 90,000 people would die immediately from the burning
hot ash, with tens of millions more effected by the fall out.
It wouldn’t just be the Unites States severely injured, either.
An eruption of Yellowstone would greatly harm Canada, especially Calgary and Winnipeg, which
has a combined population of nearing 2 million.
Toronto, the city I live in, would also be coved in anywhere between 3 – 10 millimetres
of ash, which is enough to harm those with respiratory issues and cause significant damage
to infrastructure.
Not only would people and animals burn and choke, but the ash would damage or buildings,
cause the temporary shut down of power plants and telecommunications, pollute water supplies
and smother crops.
The worst damage of course would be in the neighbouring regions, but as you can see from
the ash fall out map, pretty much every area of the United States would be affected on
some level.
The United States airspace would be a mess, and the ash could would actually affect flights
across the world.
In the United States alone, the eruption of Yellowstone would incur upwards of three trillion
dollars in economic damages, so 20 percent of the Unites States GDP.
As a result of this severe economic downturn, people in the states would starve and other
countries who rely heavily on unites states exports would also be affected.
In the past similar super volcano eruptions have lowered global temperatures for several
years, which could devastate crop production world wide, not just in the states.
It isn’t just people that would suffer….it is pretty hard to evacuate animals…which
would mean a lot would die in the death zone, and scores more would have their habitats
buried by ash.
On top of all of that, the world, yes world, could be plunged into a decade long winter.
OH, and it hardly seems worth mentioning, what with all the death, destruction and possible
Westeros style seasons, but a Yellowstone eruption would also be smelly.
The sulfur sure is hard on the old nose.
We don’t know when Yellowstone will erupt.
It is a literal ticking time bomb waiting to take down North America, however Nasa may
have the answer as to how to save the hundreds of millions of people it will affect.
Yes, Nasa.
Nasa believes that drilling 10 kilometres down into the super volcano and pumping in
water at a high pressure could cool it.
At a cost of nearing three and a half billion dollars, Nasa thinks this is the most viable
solution to save the continent from the disaster the would be an eruption.
It sounds expensive, but the heat could also be used as geothermal plant to generate electric
power, although the process could take hundreds of years and if it was conducted poorly, it
could actually spark the eruption it is trying to prevent.
So…could the Yellowstone Volcano Eruption Destroy America – well, it could severely
wound it, that is for sure…and it could take a good bite out of Canada and other parts
of the world, too.
The United states is a rich country and could deal with this natural disaster as well if
not better than any other country in the world…however the ecomomic damage caused and the time needed
for repair could knock the States off their podium of super power status, paving the way
for Russia and China to be top dogs.
Hopefully, for the lives of the Americans and Canadians it could destroy, the Yellowstone
Volcano wont erupt.
Indeed there is only a very very small chance that it could actually happen in our life
time, or even the next 1000 years…so don’t worry too much.
That is one big question answered for you…what do you think?
Do you agree with this answer?
Let me know in the comments section down below.
Also why don’t you hit that thumbs up button and stay subscribed for more big answers.
I am your host Rebecca Felgate, I’ll catch you in the next video, but until then, stay
curious, stay alert and never ever stop questioning.