Supervolcanoes: Are You Going to Die Because of Them?
Short answer — yes. Having said that, not necessarily due to supervolcanoes.
It’s just that nobody’s lived forever yet.
But anyways, what’s the big deal with these? What even are they?
Supervolcanoes: What are they?
Supervolcanoes are the largest and most devastating “style” of volcano, as measured by their explosivity rating on the VEI — the Volcanic Explosivity Index.
Specifically, a supervolcano must have registered an 8 on the VEI, which is the highest rating.
It’s important to note that, like earthquakes, this is a logarithmic scale, meaning that higher ratings mean exponentially more material erupted.
Some of Earth’s most dangerous supervolcanoes include Yellowstone, out in Wyoming, and Toba in Indonesia.
It’s important to note that these eruptions tend to form calderas rather than mountains, because the magma chamber underneath is so large that once it empties out the rock collapses inwards.
In the case of Toba, pictured above, the lake itself is the old caldera. Meaning that’s a pretty big volcano.
So, how bad would it be if one blew up?
Certainly not good. But there are widely varying theories of how bad it would actually be. We’re going to use the test case of what it might look like if Yellowstone blew up tomorrow.
Yellowstone’s magma chamber is about 5 miles deep, 37 miles long and 18 miles wide.
For context, Rhode island is about 48 miles long and 37 wide. So, more or less, a volcano 1/3 the size of Rhode Island.
If it were to erupt, lava would be shot about 14 miles into the air, and anyone within 40 miles or so of the blast would 100% be dead on arrival.
Major cities such as Salt Lake City, Denver, and Boise would also likely be chalked.
And the entire Northwest US and possibly more would be subjected to a deluge of volcanic ash, killing everything underneath in a slower, less dramatic way.
As we’ve seen in the past with other major eruptions, the ash might just also travel around the globe on wind currents, blocking out the sun and putting the homies (us) into a sort of artificial winter until everything settled down.
Far from ideal, fingers crossed this doesn’t happen anytime soon.
However — Toba in Indonesia erupted 74,000 years ago, at a time when there was some kind of human life, and it seems that everywhere sufficiently far from Toba came out more or less okay. That’s positive, because we might not be talking about a full out end of civilization.
What’s the real risk of this happening anytime soon?
At Yellowstone, not too high. And luckily, it appears as though Yellowstone is one of the most volcanically active calderas around on Earth.
The last time it blew was 640,000 years ago, and based on the all-time geologic history we have available, the yearly odds of Yellowstone blowing clock in at about 1 in 730,000, or 0.00014%.
Which is actually way more likely than you winning the lottery.
But significantly less likely than getting struck by lightning — which will happen to about 1 of 15,300 people.
Scientists have also gained a little understanding of this stuff over time, and they’re pretty damn sure they could predict an eruption weeks, months, or hopefully even years in advance.
Any type of volcano typically gives off the signs before it erupts, just like when you’re out at the bar and a hot chick (or dude) gives off the signs that they’re down to clown.
With volcanoes, the signs include increased frequency of earthquakes, deformation of the ground, and increased release of gas, or stuff like that.
As far as what we could do about it if we knew she might blow?
Evacuate the premises.
If a volcano is going to erupt, it’s going to erupt. That much we know.
As an aside — I always thought it’d be a clever idea to just drill into the magma chamber and release the pressure before the eruption.
Science, however, says that because of the hot magma and minerals underneath, the hole would just fill with new rock shortly making the whole thing a moot point.
Would be cool if it worked though.
So, are we all going to die?
In the end? I’d bet money on it.
At the hands of a supervolcano? We should be alright.
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