Many have heard about the constant danger that it poses. Here you can find out what the supervolcano itself is, where the Yellowstone volcano is located and what consequences its eruption could have. Also here you will learn about yellowstone volcano last news Today.
Yellowstone volcano- where it is located, photo, description
Actually yellowstone volcano- this is not the cone we are used to, in the form of which a volcano usually appears, but a huge crater in the ground, called a caldera. Therefore, they learned about its existence only with the launch of satellites.
If you don't know where it is yet yellowstone volcano, then I’ll clarify – in the western USA. The caldera is located in the state of Wyoming. Its dimensions are amazing - 55 by 72 kilometers, which is a third of the entire territory of the park. The area of the caldera is 4000 square meters. km. – 4 times larger than New York and 1.5 times larger than Moscow.
Yellowstone Park itself is considered one of the seismically active points on the planet - earthquakes constantly occur here. In the meantime, let's watch a video about national park with an overview of fauna and attractions.
Yellowstone Volcano (America) - previous eruptions
In total, science knows of 3 powerful volcanic eruptions that occurred approximately every 600 thousand years: 2.1 million years ago, 1.27 million, and 640 thousand years ago. As a result, the Island Park and Henry's Fork calderas were formed.
The most powerful was the first eruption, which was 15 times greater than the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 and more powerful than the eruption.
Scientists expect that in the coming years the volcano will awaken and cause serious climate changes and the destruction of most people and species of plants and animals.
IN lately There are many earthquakes in his area that could be the final push.
Therefore, I suggest watching a short video that tells what awaits the planet during an eruption and what the disappointing consequences will be. In fact, America will be destroyed, and most people will die from hunger and epidemics.
In the meantime, I suggest you find out about yellowstone volcano latest news.
Yellowstone Volcano in America today latest news: September 2018
At the end of August 2016, an increase in the number of earthquakes was noted near the Long Valley caldera in California. All this could be the impetus for a supervolcano.
Also during that period, there was a massive fish kill in the Yellowstone River, which originates near the caldera. On August 19, 4,000 were found dead fish(trout and whitefish). The authorities therefore closed quite a large area to the public.
According to one version, on October 12, 2016, many UFOs were seen over Yellowstone, filmed on a webcam.
Since then, the situation around the volcano is still not calming down and keeps everyone in suspense (according to the situation as of March 2018).
By the way, it works in the park itself webcam "Yellowstone", which online shows the situation with the volcano:
In view of the events that have occurred over the past 2 years, scientists think that the explosion may take place much earlier. There are enough reasons for this:
1 The water temperature in rivers and lakes increased (in some places to the boiling point), geysers became more active.
2 The soil in the caldera area rose by 178 cm in mid-2014; later data are not published.
3 In the park, cases of the appearance of helium-4 gas, formed before the eruption, began to be noted.
4 The number of earthquakes has increased, which can intensify Yellowstone supervolcano.
5 Overall seismic activity has also increased in recent years.
6 In May 2015, aggressive movement of magma was noted.
7 In April 2014, many animals began to escape from the park, for example, bison, deer and bison.
It is possible that there is some grain of truth here, but humanity is unlikely to be able to prevent a catastrophe.
Yellowstone Volcano is a volcanic caldera in Yellowstone National Park, located in the US state of Wyoming.
Yellowstone is among the 20 most famous supervolcanoes on the planet, the eruption of which could lead to climate change throughout the Earth.
As a result, the annual number of tourists who want to see the healing springs with their own eyes has increased to 3 million people.
At first, no one gave serious importance to the formation of natural geysers. However, after 2 years the situation began to change dramatically.
Yellowstone Caldera The US leadership has tightened restrictions on visiting Yellowstone Park, and entry into some areas has been banned altogether.
In addition, the number of guards, as well as scientists researching the supervolcano, has noticeably increased.
The area of the reserve is 3825 km², with the caldera measuring approximately 55 km by 72 km.
Initially, volcanologists did not imagine that the caldera could be such a huge size, but after careful study this fact was confirmed.
In this regard, it became clear that the water emanating from the geysers was heated by the influence of hot lava.
In 2007, during the presidency of George W. Bush, a special scientific council was formed. The best American geophysicists and seismologists began to seriously study the Yellowstone volcano.
Even intelligence officials and the US Secretary of Defense got involved in the work. Meetings were held every month, chaired personally by the president.
As it turns out later, such measures were not taken in vain. It turned out that the gushing hot geysers were harbingers of the awakening of the Yellowstone supervolcano.
In addition, seismologists recorded a sharp rise in the soil under the reserve. During the period 2007-2011. it rose by 1.8 m. It should be noted that over the previous 20 years, the rise of the soil did not exceed 10 cm.
Over the many thousands of years of its existence, Yellowstone has erupted 3 times. According to scientists, the last eruption occurred about 600 thousand years ago.
Previously, experts thought that this supervolcano no longer poses any threat to the Earth, but after careful research, everything turned out to be completely different.
Over the past ten years, experts have noted constant growth soil temperatures and active rise of lava.
Also, more and more new cracks were discovered through which hydrogen sulfide was released and carbon dioxide contained in magma. Naturally, this could not but worry American scientists.
Feature of supervolcanoes
It should be said that the eruption of an ordinary volcano occurs at one specific point.
But supervolcanoes cover large areas, and may have several ordinary volcanoes on their territory.
Their danger lies in the fact that they do not erupt, but literally explode over a gigantic area.
Supervolcano explosion
Scientists were able to simulate a potential explosion of a supervolcano. The picture turned out to be downright apocalyptic.
It all starts with the magma underneath high pressure rises up. Next, a “hump” is formed, which can reach a height of several hundred meters and be up to 20 km in diameter.
Then cracks and countless vents begin to appear around the perimeter. At one point, the central part of the hump cannot withstand the load and collapses down. As a result, the collapsed rock pushes millions of tons of magma and ash out of the depths of the earth.
Scientists suggest that the explosion power of the Yellowstone volcano will be a thousand times stronger than an atomic bomb dropped on the city.
An interesting fact is that not so long ago bison began to rapidly leave the Yellowstone Nature Reserve. And these, as you know, have the ability to anticipate future disasters, which is further evidence of an impending large-scale cataclysm.
Following the bison, moose began to flee from the park, which alerted not only scientists, but also rangers. Recent studies have shown that helium accumulation and the number of mini-earthquakes in the Yellowstone region have increased 1,000-fold.
How will Yellowstone explode?
Volcanologists suggest that before the explosion of the Yellowstone volcano, the earth will rise another few tens of meters. At the same time, the soil temperature will heat up to 70°C.
The explosion will immediately release volcanic ash, which will rise approximately 50 km into the sky.
This will be followed by a release of magma that will cover a gigantic area. All this will be accompanied by powerful .
In the first minutes after the explosion, about 200 thousand people will die from the hot lava alone. Then people will die from subsequent earthquakes and tsunamis.
Ultimately, the number of deaths will reach 10 million. All this will resemble the legendary Armageddon.
It is worth noting that volcanic ash particles are so tiny that respirators cannot prevent them from entering the lungs. Once in the human body, the ash begins to harden and turn into stone.
Thus, people living even thousands of kilometers from the volcano will also be in mortal danger.
In addition, the explosion of the Yellowstone volcano will provoke the formation of, as a result of which the level of radiation will sharply increase.
Territory of North America and South part Canada will turn into a scorched desert.
The explosion of Yellowstone will cause hundreds of other volcanoes across the earth to erupt. Within a few days, all living things will die from earthquakes, magma emissions and suffocation.
In a few weeks, huge masses of ash will be covered, and cosmic darkness will descend.
Nuclear winter
After the explosion of the Yellowstone volcano, for a long time will go acid rain, which will destroy the harvest and the entire animal world. Due to the lack of solar energy, the temperature on the planet will fluctuate between -20°C and -50°C.
Winter will continue for several more years, resulting in the death of all plants and a serious lack of oxygen.
According to scientists, people living in the center of Eurasia and the Eastern European part have the greatest chance of survival.
An inglorious end
If you believe such forecasts, then many questions involuntarily arise. For example, why is there so little talk about this in the press and on television?
Some sources claim that the authorities considered it inappropriate to cover this topic, since humanity is unable to prevent the impending catastrophe.
According to the leadership of the United States of America, the wisest thing to do is simply not to cover this topic, so as not to cause unnecessary panic among the population.
Yellowstone today
American scientist Howard Huxley has been studying the Yellowstone volcano for a long time. He and his like-minded people formed the Foundation for Saving Civilization.
In their opinion, after the disaster, the entire elite will go to live in Liberia, located in. Such conclusions were made based on the fact that cash injections began to flow into this country en masse.
They began to build good roads, airports and special bunkers designed for a comfortable existence for several years.
Perhaps in connection with this, American billionaires built the “Storage Doomsday", which stores the seeds of most plant varieties. This structure is a huge armored safe built in Spitsbergen.
From all that has been said, the conclusion suggests itself that even if some people manage to survive the explosion of the Yellowstone volcano, their continued existence on Earth is still doomed to death.
But this is already the area of exclusively hypotheses and assumptions.
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Scientists warn of an imminent cataclysm, which will be the largest in the history of human development. How will the eruption affect Russia? Is the country in danger of a catastrophe?
According to research from the University of Arizona, a supervolcano will erupt in less than a hundred years in Yellowstone. The Yellowstone volcano is a huge depression with a diameter of 80 by 40 km, formed as a result of several super-eruptions over millions of years. The last time the volcano erupted lava was 640 thousand years ago and it is possible that we will soon witness this event.
What will happen to humanity?
According to experts from the US Geological Survey, the consequences of a volcanic eruption will be comparable to a nuclear explosion. As a result of the ejection of hot magma to a height of 50 kilometers, the entire western American coast will be a dead zone, covered with a one and a half meter layer of ash. Within a radius of 500 km, nothing alive will remain, and 1200 kilometers from the eruption point, 90% of people and nature will die.
It is estimated that about one hundred thousand people will become victims of suffocation and hydrogen sulfide poisoning. In a day, acid rain will begin to fall in the United States, killing all vegetation. And in a month the Earth will be plunged into darkness, as the Sun will disappear behind clouds of ash and ash.
The climate will change dramatically, with a sharp cooling of 10-20 degrees. Because of this, oil and gas pipelines will fail, railways. The ozone hole will grow, killing remaining living organisms. Due to the awakening of the volcano in Yellowstone, other volcanoes will begin to erupt lava. Because of this, many tsunamis will arise, washing away cities along the way.
Which countries will be hit the hardest?
Not only the United States, but most countries will be affected. China, India, the Scandinavian countries and northern Russia will suffer the most. Life there will stop. The number of victims in the first year of the global catastrophe will reach two billion people. Southern Siberia will suffer the least. The period, which scientists have already called “volcanic winter,” will last four years. And humanity will have to cope with the consequences for a very long time. Over the next century, the Earth will once again return to the Middle Ages, plunging into savagery and chaos.
Is it possible to save the Earth?
The only consolation is that many serious scientists reject such a scenario and doubt that such an apocalypse is possible not only in the near future, but ever. According to the head of the laboratory of the Institute of Earth Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexei Sobisevich, a volcanic eruption in Yellowstone is possible no earlier than in hundreds of thousands of years. And, in the end, it is not so scary, because our distant ancestors managed to survive three such super-eruptions. At the same time, scientists do not rule out that the supervolcano could wake up with the help of earthlings themselves.
An attack on a volcano is one of the methods of terror that can become the most dangerous. A volcano can be artificially detonated by detonating the lid of the magma chamber using megaton-class warheads.
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According to American volcanologists, the eruption of the largest volcano in the world, the Yellowstone Caldera, which is located in Yellowstone National Park, could begin at any minute.
The volcano has not erupted for about 600 thousand years and its eruption could destroy two-thirds of the US territory, which could even begin a world catastrophe - the Apocalypse, as American scientists believe.
Super-volcano under Yellowstone National Park in American state Wyoming has grown at a record rate since 2004 and will explode with a force a thousand times more powerful than the catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state on May 18, 1980, which killed 57 people.
Layout of the giant volcano.
According to volcanologists, lava will rise high into the sky, and ash will cover nearby areas with a layer of 3 meters and a distance of 1,600 kilometers.
Two-thirds of the US could become uninhabitable due to toxic air - thousands of flights would have to be canceled and millions of people would have to flee their homes.
Experts predict that the eruption volcano will happen in the near future - in 2011-2012 and will be no less powerful than all three times the volcano has erupted over the past 2.1 million years.
Robert B. Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah, noted that the magma came so close to the earth's crust in Yellowstone Park that it literally radiated heat that could not be explained by anything other than the impending eruption of a huge volcano.
July 22, 1980: Mount St. Helens in Washington definitely catches fire. The Yellowstone caldera volcano during an eruption can explode with a force a thousand times more powerful and cause many more casualties.
Yellowstone national park is a bomb that may explode in the coming years.
Sometimes it seems that only God's punishment can stop the United States. Those who believe in the evil doom hanging over America have a very serious argument. In the very center of this country, in its most fertile corner, a natural disaster. Yellowstone National Park, known for its forests, grizzly bears and hot springs, is actually a bomb that will explode in the coming years. If this happens, the entire North American continent may perish. And the rest of the world will not find it enough. But the world won't end, don't worry.
All power to the council
And it all started with joy. In 2002, several new geysers with healing hot water appeared simultaneously in the Yellowstone Nature Reserve. Local tourism companies immediately began to promote this phenomenon, and the number of visitors to the park, which usually amounts to about three million people a year, increased even more.
However, strange things soon began to happen. In 2004, the US government tightened the regime for visiting the reserve. The number of security guards on its territory has sharply increased, and some areas have been declared closed to visitors. But seismologists and volcanologists frequented them.
They had worked in Yellowstone before, because the entire reserve with its unique nature is nothing more than a huge patch on the crater of an extinct supervolcano. Actually, this is where the hot geysers come from. On their way to the surface of the earth, they are heated by the magma rustling and gurgling under the earth's crust. All local sources were known back in the days when white colonizers recaptured Yellowstone from the Indians, and here you have three new ones! Why did it happen?
Scientists became worried. One after another, commissions to study volcanic activity began to visit the park. What they dug up there was not reported to the general public, but it is known that in 2007, a Scientific Council with emergency powers was created under the Office of the President of the United States. It included several of the country's leading geophysicists and seismologists, as well as members of the National Security Council, including the secretary of defense and intelligence officials.
George W. Bush personally chaired the monthly meetings of this body.
That same year, Yellowstone National Park moved from departmental subordination to the Department of the Interior under the direct control of the Scientific Council. Why would the American authorities pay so much attention to a simple resort?
The end has crept up unnoticed
And the whole point is that the ancient and, as it was believed, safe supervolcano, on which the Paradise Valley is located, suddenly showed signs of activity. The miraculously clogged springs became its first manifestation.
Further more. Seismologists discovered under the reserve sharp rise soil. Over the past four years, she has swollen by 178 centimeters. This is despite the fact that over the previous twenty years the ground rise was no more than 10 centimeters.
Seismologists were joined by mathematicians. Based on information about previous eruptions of the Yellowstone volcano, they developed an algorithm for its life activity. The result was shocking. The fact that the intervals between eruptions are constantly decreasing was known to scientists before.
However, given the astronomical duration of such intervals, this information had no practical significance for humanity. Well, in fact, the volcano erupted 2 million years ago, then 1.3 million years ago and the last time 630 thousand years ago.
The Geological Society of America expected his awakening no earlier than 20 thousand years later. But based on new data, computers produced an unexpected result. The next catastrophe should be expected in 2075. However, after some time it became clear that events were developing much faster. The result had to be adjusted again.
The terrible date has approached. Now it looms between 2012 and 2016, with the first figure looking more likely.
It would seem, just think, an eruption, especially since it is known in advance. Well, the Americans will evacuate the population from a dangerous area, and then they will spend money on restoring the destroyed infrastructure...
Alas, only those who are not familiar with supervolcanoes can argue this way.
Worse than a nuclear war
A typical volcano, as we imagine it, is a cone-shaped hill with a crater from which lava, ash and gases erupt. It is formed like this.
Deep in the bowels of our planet, magma is constantly boiling, which from time to time bursts upward through cracks, faults and other “defects” in the earth’s crust. As the magma rises, it releases gases, turning into volcanic lava, and flows through top part a fault, usually called a vent. Solidifying around the vent, the products of the eruption build up the cone of the volcano.
Supervolcanoes have a feature that, until recently, no one even suspected of their existence. They are not at all similar to the cone-shaped “caps” with a vent inside that are familiar to us. These are vast areas of thinned earth's crust, under which hot magma pulsates. A simple volcano looks like a pimple, a supervolcano looks like a huge inflammation. Several ordinary volcanoes may be located on the territory of a supervolcano. They may erupt from time to time, but these emissions can be compared to the release of steam from an overheated boiler. But imagine that the boiler itself will explode! After all, supervolcanoes do not erupt, but explode.
What do these explosions look like?
From below, the pressure of magma on the thin surface of the earth gradually increases. A hump is formed with a height of several hundred meters and a diameter of 15-20 kilometers. Numerous vents and cracks appear along the perimeter of the hump, and then its entire central part collapses down into the fiery abyss.
The collapsed rocks, like a piston, sharply squeeze out gigantic fountains of lava and ash from the depths.
The force of this explosion exceeds the charge of the most powerful nuclear bomb. According to geophysicists, if the Yellowstone mine explodes, the effect will exceed a hundred Hiroshimas. The calculations, of course, are purely theoretical. During its existence, homo sapiens has never encountered such a phenomenon. The last time it boomed was during the time of the dinosaurs. Perhaps this is why they became extinct.
As it will be
A few days before the explosion Earth's crust above the supervolcano will rise several meters. At the same time, the soil will heat up to 60-70 degrees. The concentration of hydrogen sulfide and helium in the atmosphere will increase sharply.
The first thing we will see is a cloud of volcanic ash, which will rise into the atmosphere to a height of 40-50 kilometers.
the pieces will be thrown to great heights. As they fall, they will cover a gigantic area. In the first hours of a new eruption in Yellowstone, an area within a radius of 1000 kilometers around the epicenter will be destroyed. Here, residents of almost the entire American northwest (Seattle) and parts of Canada (Calgary, Vancouver) are in immediate danger.
Streams of hot mud will rage over an area of 10 thousand square kilometers, the so-called pyroclastic wave - the deadliest product of the eruption. They will arise when the pressure of lava shooting high into the atmosphere weakens and part of the column collapses on the surrounding area in a huge avalanche, burning everything in its path. It will be impossible to survive in pyroclastic flows of such magnitude. At temperatures above 400 degrees human bodies They will simply cook, the flesh will separate from the bones.
The hot slurry will kill about 200 thousand people in the first minutes after the eruption begins.
But these are very minor losses compared to those that America will suffer as a result of a series of earthquakes and tsunamis that the explosion will provoke. They will already claim tens of millions of lives. This is provided that the North American continent does not go under water at all, like Atlantis.
Then the ash cloud from the volcano will begin to spread wider. Within 24 hours, the entire territory of the United States up to the Mississippi will be in the disaster zone. Volcanic ash - it just sounds harmless, but in fact it’s the most dangerous phenomenon during an eruption. Ash particles are so small that neither gauze bandages nor respirators protect against them. Once in the lungs, the ash mixes with mucus, hardens and turns into cement....
Territories located thousands of kilometers from the volcano may be most at risk. When the layer of volcanic ash reaches a thickness of 15 centimeters, the load on the roofs will become too great and buildings will begin to collapse. It is estimated that between one and fifty people in each home will be killed or seriously injured. This will be the main cause of death in the areas around Yellowstone bypassed by the pyroclastic wave, where the ash layer will be no less than 60 centimeters.
Other deaths will follow from poisoning. After all, the precipitation will be extremely toxic. It will take two to three weeks for clouds of ash and ash to cross the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and after a month they will cover the Sun across the entire Earth.
Frost the Voivode
Once upon a time, Soviet scientists predicted that the most a terrible consequence global nuclear conflict will become the so-called “nuclear winter”. The same thing will happen as a result of the explosion of a supervolcano.
Two weeks after the sun disappears into dust clouds, the air temperature will be earth's surface will fall in different areas of the globe from -15 degrees to -50 degrees or more. The average temperature on the Earth's surface will be about -25 degrees.
Winter will last for at least a year and a half. This is enough to forever change the natural balance on the planet. Due to long frosts and lack of light, vegetation will die. Since plants are involved in the production of oxygen, very soon it will become difficult for everyone living on the planet to breathe. The fauna of the Earth will die painfully from cold, hunger and epidemics. The human race will have to move from the surface of the earth underground for at least three years, and then who knows...
But, in general, this sad forecast mainly concerns residents of the Western Hemisphere. Residents of other parts of the world, including Russians, have a much higher chance of survival. And the consequences will apparently not be so catastrophic. But for the population of North America, the chances of survival are minimal.
Save yourself who can!
But if the American authorities are aware of the problem, why are they not doing anything to prevent it? Why hasn’t information about the upcoming catastrophe reached the general public yet?
The first question is not difficult to answer: neither the States themselves nor humanity as a whole can prevent the impending explosion. Therefore, the White House is preparing for the worst-case scenario. According to analysts from the CIA, “as a result of the disaster, two-thirds of the population will die, the economy will be destroyed, transport and communications will be disorganized. In the context of an almost complete cessation of supplies, the military potential remaining at our disposal will decrease to a level sufficient only to maintain order in the country.”
As for notifying the population, the authorities recognized such actions as inappropriate. Well, in fact, it is possible to escape from a sinking ship, and even then not always. Where to run from the broken and burning continent?
The US population is now approaching the three hundred million mark. In principle, there is nowhere to put this biomass, especially since after the disaster there will be no safe places left on the planet. Each state will have big problems, and no one wants to aggravate them by accepting millions of refugees.
In any case, this is the conclusion reached by the Scientific Council under the President of the United States. According to its members, there is only one way out - to quit most population to the will of fate and concern themselves with the preservation of capital, military potential and the elite American society. So, a few months before the explosion, the best scientists, military, high-tech specialists, and, of course, the rich will be taken out of the country. There is no doubt that every billionaire has a place reserved on the future ark. But you can no longer guarantee the fate of ordinary millionaires. They will save themselves.
God bless Liberia
Actually, the above information became known thanks to the efforts of the American scientist and journalist Howard Huxley, who has been working on the problems of the Yellowstone volcano since the 80s, has established connections in geophysics circles, like many famous journalists was associated with the CIA and is a recognized authority in scientific circles.
Realizing what the country was heading for, Howard and his like-minded people created the Foundation for Saving Civilization. Their goal is to warn humanity about the impending disaster and give everyone a chance to survive, not just members of the elite.
Over the course of several years, Foundation employees have accumulated a wealth of information. In particular, they calculated exactly where the cream of American society would go after the disaster.
Liberia, a small state in West Africa, traditionally following in the wake of American politics, will become an island of salvation for them. There have been massive injections of money into this country for several years now. There is a network of excellent roads, airports and, as they say, an extensive system of deep, very well-maintained bunkers. The American elite will be able to sit in this hole for several years, and then, when the situation stabilizes, begin to restore the destroyed state and its influence in the world.
In the meantime, there are still a few years left, the White House and the Science Council are trying to solve urgent military problems. There is no doubt that the impending catastrophe will be perceived by the majority religious people like God's punishment for America. Surely many Islamic states will want to finish off “shaitan” while he licks his wounds. You can't think of a better reason for jihad.
Therefore, since 2003, preemptive strikes have been carried out on a number of Muslim countries with the aim of destroying their military potential. Whether the American military machine will have time to neutralize these threats before 2012, God knows.
Formed vicious circle. Due to the aggressive policy, the United States has more and more ill-wishers, and less and less time remains to neutralize them
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The Yellowstone supervolcano, the explosion of which will destroy all of North America and doom half the world to slow death, is beginning to awaken.
There is still a danger of the destruction of our entire civilization, many scientists admit. The fact is that the inevitable processes within our planet, taking place before our eyes, are recognized by experts as global threat, which is capable of wiping entire continents off the face of the Earth. Seismologists say that the Yellowstone Caldera is the most destructive force on our planet.
One of the last eruptions of this magnitude occurred in Sumatra 73 thousand years ago, when the explosion of the Toba supervolcano reduced the Earth's population by about 15 times. Then only 5-10 thousand people survived. The number of animals decreased by the same amount, three quarters died flora Northern Hemisphere. At the site of that explosion, a pit with an area of 1775 square meters was formed. km, which could fit two New Yorks or Londons.
Against this background, it is difficult to imagine what could happen if the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, which is twice the size of Toba! “Against the background of the eruption of a supervolcano, all the others seem dwarfed, and its power is real threat everyone living on this planet,” said Bill McGuire, professor of geophysics and climate change expert at University College London.
THE STATES LIVE ON A POWDER KEG
What is this ticking time bomb in the northwestern United States? A supervolcano is not a cone-shaped formation with a vent, like ordinary volcanoes. In appearance it is a lowland, called a caldera by volcanologists, which resembles a huge depression. This unremarkable hollow is a gigantic volcano with an eruption area of several thousand square kilometers. By the way, because gigantic size At first, scientists did not even recognize the caldera in Yellowstone Park in the United States. Satellite photos showed that the entire park covers an area of 3,825 square kilometers and is a caldera measuring about 55 km by 72 km.
The outside of Yellowstone Nature Reserve is covered in picturesque landscapes, but inside this huge valley is filled with hot magma. Over thousands of years, magma filled huge underground reservoirs, melting rock, becoming so dense that volcanic gases, which cause eruptions in ordinary volcanoes, cannot pass through it. Therefore, a huge amount of molten magma presses from below onto the surface of the Earth. This continues for hundreds of thousands of years until the abscess breaks and a terrible explosion occurs.
With such crushing power at their fingertips, US authorities have set scientists the task of calculating the date of the next supervolcano eruption. According to scientists, the period between supervolcano explosions is approximately 600 thousand years. Given this periodicity, the next cataclysm will fall in our century. At first, researchers talked about 2075, but in the summer of 2003, strange things began to happen in Yellowstone Park. The temperature of the soil rose to the boiling point, cracks opened, through which hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide - volcanic gases contained in the magma - began to ooze. These signs gave scientists reason to believe that magma had escaped from the chamber and was approaching the surface at a speed that had increased several times. In this regard, the date of the expected volcanic eruption was shifted by almost 50 years. “Over the past two million years, Yellowstone has had three massive eruptions, each of which turned half the continent into desert,” says Robert Smith, a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah. “As long as the magma of the supervolcano (although it has been rising by 8 cm per year since 2004) is located at a depth of 10 kilometers from its vent, it is too early to worry, but if it rises to a level of 2-3 km, we will have serious reasons for concern.” .
But there are reasons for concern. Back in 2002, three new geysers appeared near the old caldera in Yellowstone, which are one of the manifestations of the later stages of volcanism. For four last year the soil rose almost 180 cm, which is 45 times higher than the previous four years.
AS IT WILL BE
If an explosion occurs, then, according to scientists, the picture will be worse than the description of the Apocalypse. It all starts with a sharp rise and overheating of the earth in Yellowstone Park. And when enormous pressure breaks through the caldera, thousands of cubic kilometers of lava will pour out of the resulting vent, which will resemble a huge pillar of fire. The explosion will be accompanied by a powerful earthquake and lava flows reaching speeds of several hundred kilometers per hour.
The eruption will continue for several days, but people and animals will mostly die not from ash or lava, but due to suffocation and hydrogen sulfide poisoning. During this time, the air in the entire western United States will be poisoned so that a person will be able to survive for no more than 5-7 minutes. A thick layer of ash will cover almost the entire US territory - from Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, which will be wiped off the face of the Earth, to Iowa and Gulf of Mexico. The ozone hole over the continent will grow to such a size that the level of radiation will approach Chernobyl. All of North America will turn into scorched earth. Southern Canada will also be seriously affected. Scientists do not deny that the Yellowstone giant will provoke the eruption of several hundred ordinary volcanoes around the world. At the same time, eruptions of ocean volcanoes will generate many tsunamis that will flood the coasts and all island states. Long-term consequences will be no less terrible than the eruption itself. And if the United States bears the brunt, the effect will be felt by the whole world.
Thousands of cubic kilometers of ash released into the atmosphere will cover sunlight- the world will plunge into darkness. This will cause a sharp drop in temperature, for example, in Canada and Norway the thermometer will drop by 15-20oC in a couple of days. If the temperature drops by 21 degrees, as during the last eruption of the Toba supervolcano, all territories up to the 50th parallel - Norway, Finland or Sweden - will turn into Antarctica. A “nuclear winter” will come, which will last about four years. Continuous acid rain will destroy all crops and crops, kill livestock, dooming the surviving people to starvation. The “billionaire” countries - India and China - will suffer the most from hunger. Here, up to 1.5 billion people will die from starvation in the coming months after the explosion. In total, in the first months of the cataclysm, every third inhabitant of the Earth will die. The only region that can survive is the central part of Eurasia. Most people, according to scientists, will survive in Siberia and the Eastern European part of Russia, located on earthquake-resistant platforms, remote from the epicenter of the explosion and protected from the tsunami.
ONLY NUMBERS
According to the British broadcasting corporation BBC, while ordinary volcanoes kill thousands of people and destroy entire cities, supervolcanoes claim billions of lives and devastate continents.
IN 2500 times More powerful than Etna's last eruption, Yellowstone is expected to explode.
IN 15 times The Yellowstone caldera will emit more ash than the Krakatoa volcano, which killed 36 thousand people.
Before 20-30 cm Visibility will decrease due to the resulting ash curtain.
Tokyo is the most Big city in the world - will fit into the caldera formed after the explosion of the Yellowstone volcano.
1200 km- the radius of total destruction of all living things in the first minutes after the start of the eruption.
1000 atomic bombs, exploded simultaneously - such is the force of the Yellowstone volcano eruption.
1 in 1000 earthlings will survive the Yellowstone disaster.
Ekaterina Lyulchak
EXPERT OPINION
Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, leading employee of IGEM RAS Anatoly KHRENOV:
Any volcano is unpredictable, and not a single scientist or seismograph can accurately predict when to expect an eruption and with what force. So the consequences of an explosion can be many times greater than the expected effect. The Yellowstone giant is going to cause trouble. First of all, the volcanic eruption will cover the States, on whose territory Yellowstone Park is located - Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. Power plants and other life support systems may fail - the northwestern United States will be isolated due to a disruption in transport communications. And this is in best case scenario. At worst, the scale of the disaster is even difficult to imagine... The super eruption in Yellowstone will affect almost the entire US territory. The first zone adjacent to the volcano will suffer from pyroclastic flows. This avalanche, consisting of hot gas and ash, spreading at the speed of sound, will destroy all life within a radius of 100 km. 10 thousand sq. km will turn into scorched earth. No one will survive in a pyroclastic zone. The next zone is the entire United States, whose territory will be covered in ash. People won't be able to breathe. With an ash layer of 15 cm, the load on the roofs will be so strong that buildings will begin to fold like houses of cards. Hundreds of thousands of people will die either from suffocation or from the collapse of buildings. In a few days, the ash will spread throughout the United States and even cover Europe.
http://www.mirnov.ru/arhiv/mn896/mn/22-1.php
American supervolcano could destroy half the world
Seismic activity on Earth is increasing, even in tectonically stable areas. And the main danger, according to scientists, is the so-called supervolcanoes. There are few such volcanoes and they erupt rarely. One of them is in American Yellowstone. If he comes to life, he will destroy not only America, but also half the world. More about supervolcanoes presenters "Mornings of Russia" We talked with Pavel Plechov, professor of the Department of Petrology, Faculty of Geography, Moscow State University.
He said that supervolcanoes differ from ordinary ones primarily in the volume of eruptions. “The supervolcano is believed to have an eruption force of 8. This means that the volume exceeds 1,000 cubic kilometers,” the scientist noted. As a rule, these are not mountains, but depressions. Even if the supervolcano was once a mountain, then after a large eruption and removal of material for many hundreds of kilometers around, a depression formed in the place of the mountain. Today, there are 20-30 supervolcanoes known in the world.
Does the eruption of such a volcano threaten to destroy all life on Earth? “Every living thing on our planet is many millions of years old. We see that, indeed, such large eruptions are associated with changes in life, the extinction of some species, the appearance of others, but not the death of all,” the professor noted.
As for Yellowstone, according to the scientist, there are three very large eruptions of this volcano. “The earliest was 2.1 million years ago, the next was about 1.2 million years ago, the last very large one was 640 thousand years ago. We can determine the periodicity - 600 thousand years. And in terms of time, another eruption may now be preparing,” he said Pavel Plechov. Meanwhile, according to him, nothing threatens us yet. “At least it won’t explode tomorrow,” the professor assured.
Speaking about our country, the scientist noted that in 2007 a large depression was discovered near Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. It is somewhat smaller than Yellowstone and there is little data about it yet. Pavel Plechov also did not confirm the information that the supervolcano is located at the bottom of Lake Baikal. “Baikal is a tectonic crack; it has nothing to do with supervolcanoes. Perhaps in the future, when Baikal continues to develop, volcanoes may form at its bottom. So far, all manifestations of volcanism on the territory of Baikal are minimal,” he concluded.
http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=448387
There have been many predictions about the end of the world, and one of the reasons global catastrophe often called the most big volcano America - Yellowstone. And yes, if it erupts, it can destroy the continent.
Yellowstone volcano
The caldera of the Yellowstone volcano is so gigantic that it houses a national park (by the way, of the same name). Its dimensions are approximately 55 kilometers by 72 kilometers. Moreover, its dimensions were determined recently: in 1960-1970. And this is not just a volcano, but a supervolcano. You can walk here without even suspecting that there is a volcano under your feet.
In reality, supervolcanoes are still quite difficult today; about 20 such formations are known to the world. It is quite possible that some of them have not yet been recognized, while others are considered ordinary extinct volcanoes that appeared in ring structures as a result of a cosmic body (asteroid, meteorite or comet) falling to Earth many millions of years ago.
Yellowstone is located in a so-called hot spot: under the caldera there is a huge bubble of magma, the depth of which, according to research, is about 8 thousand meters.
The temperature inside this giant bubble, according to scientists, exceeds 800 degrees. That is why there is a huge number of thermal springs, and there is also a valley of geysers. By the way, it is the largest in the world (there are five such valleys on the planet).
Today this volcano poses one of the greatest dangers to the Earth. From time to time, scientists make predictions in the media that an eruption may begin, which will become a real catastrophe for humanity.
The most dangerous magma bubble
Earthquakes are a regular occurrence in Yellowstone National Park. On average, they occur from 1000 to 2000 per year, however, they are very weak, and a person does not feel them. And many tourists come here to admire the amazing landscapes.
In general, supervolcanoes represent the second largest catastrophic phenomenon. Scientists put the fall of an asteroid in the first place. In the history of the planet, eruptions of such volcanoes led to mass extinctions, as well as climate change, since the ash did not allow sunlight to penetrate the Earth and a long “volcanic winter” was established on the planet.
On average, Yellowstone volcano erupts approximately every 600 thousand years: the most recent one occurred 640 thousand years ago, before that - 1.3 million years ago, and even earlier - 2.1 million years ago, so a new catastrophe is looming. The likelihood of a new eruption in the near future is quite low, but there is a risk that constant earthquakes could provoke a new tragedy on the planet.
So, in 2014, an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.8 occurred here (usually a magnitude of no more than 3), some researchers predicted further more powerful tremors and said that America had only a couple of weeks to live. And even then, animals began to run away from the park en masse, which caused additional unrest among the population. Watch the buffaloes run, you would probably get excited too.
True, the authorities then reassured citizens and said that this was normal migration due to the onset of cold weather.
What could be the consequences
Scientists predict that the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano will release approximately a thousand cubic kilometers of magma into environment. This is enough to kill everything within a 160 km radius and cover most of the continent with a layer of ash about 30 centimeters thick. The victims could be 100 thousand people, but it would also be a real disaster for the planet: volcanic ash would change the atmosphere and block sunlight for several years, maybe decades, and then the average annual temperature could drop by about 20 degrees.
By the way, in the disaster film “2012” the Yellowstone eruption occurs.
