Yellowstone’s
supervolcano could erupt much faster than anyone thought
There’s
a dangerous giant sitting dormant in the United States, and when it finally
wakes up it has the potential to cause utter devastation. I’m talking of course
about the supervolcano hiding beneath Yellowstone National Park, and while it’s
long been thought that any hint of a possible eruption would be seen thousands
and thousands of years in advance, new research throws that safety buffer right
out the window, suggesting that the Yellowstone Supervolcano could go from calm
to critical in as little as decades.
The
research, which was presented at the IAVCEI 2017 volcanology conference in
Portland, focuses on the most recent eruption of the volcano, which is thought
to have occurred some 631,000 years ago. But rather than taking several
thousands of years to build up, as previously thought, the newest data suggests
that the most recent eruption was prompted by new magma pushing into the
Yellowstone system just decades ahead of the big event.
This
much more rapid timeframe between dormancy and eruption is obviously very
troubling, especially when you consider the global impact that the event could
have. The most recent eruption of the Yellowstone system spewed an estimated
240 cubic miles of material into the air. 2.1 million years ago an even larger
eruption occurred, sending 585 cubic miles of rock and dust skyward. For
comparison, that’s approximately 6,000 times the amount of material launched
from Mount St. Helens during its 1980 eruption.
“It’s
shocking how little time is required to take a volcanic system from being quiet
and sitting there to the edge of an eruption,” Hannah Shamloo, graduate student
at Arizona State University and lead author of the study, said of the
discovery.
Still,
at the moment there’s little reason to be concerned, as the Yellowstone
Supervolcano seems to be perfectly content to continue its unusually long quiet
spell. When the mighty beast decides to wake back up is anyone’s guess, but now
at least we know that we might not have nearly as much warning as we once
thought.
Yellowstone
Supervolcano Could Erupt Sooner Than We Thought. Here’s What You Need to Know.
Did
you know there's a supervolcano in Yellowstone National Park? Maybe you've
heard that it could erupt with
much less advance warning than expected?
Researchers
from Arizona State University spent weeks studying fossilized ash deposits from
the Yellowstone volcano and recently shared their findings. The minerals in
these deposits revealed that the critical changes in temperature and
composition preceding an eruption build up over a
matter of decades, rather than thousands of years as scientists
originally thought.
"It's
shocking how little time is required to take a volcanic system from being quiet
and sitting there to the edge of an eruption," Hannah Shamloo, a graduate
student at Arizona State University who worked on the research, told The
New York Times.
This
is an alarming thing for a volcanologist to say. The good news is that
scientists are likely just decades away from being able to more accurately
predict when an eruption would occur.
Sometimes
knowing more about the world around us makes us feel more in control of our
lives and survival. And sometimes knowing more only underscores how small and
helpless we are compared to the forces of nature on the angry rock where we
reside.
Here
are some more facts about supervolcanoes that may or may not make you feel any
better.
Is
Yellowstone the only supervolcano to worry about?
No,
of course not. There are about 20 others around the world and three others,
besides the Yellowstone supervolcano, in the U.S. Scientists suspect that one
of them erupts every 100,000 years
or so.
While
Yellowstone hasn't had a super-eruption in 631,000 years, others have been active
more recently. Campi Flegri,
a supervolcano in Italy whose name translates to "burning fields,"
had a super-eruption 15,000 years ago.
Campi Flegri is in
a "critical state," according to researchers in
Italy. It's due for an eruption soon, but it would be a minor event compared to
the 72 cubic miles of molten rock it spewed in its most notorious eruption
39,000 years ago, called Campanian Ignimbrite, that likely contributed to the
extinction of the Neanderthals.
What
areas would a Yellowstone eruption affect?
If
the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, it could shoot out more than 1,000
cubic kilometers of rock and ash into the air.
That's
250 cubic miles. That's more than three times as large as the Campanian
Ignimbrite eruption in Italy, which created a sulfurous cloud that floated
more than 1,200 miles away to hang over Russia.
That's 2,500 times more material than
Mount St. Helensexpelled in 1980, killing 57 people.
An
eruption at Yellowstone would result in a cloud of ash more than 500 miles
wide, stretching across nearly the entire western United States.
The
explosion could be so incredibly large that it could plunge the entire
planet into a volcanic
winter. That means it would be impossible to grow crops and
current food stores would only last about 74 days, according to a 2012
estimate by the United Nations(though innovations in
farming may mean that food could be grown underground).
Will
a supervolcano eruption end life on Earth?
None
of this sounds ideal, but how does it rank in terms of apocalyptic near-future
possibilities? According to NASA, supervolcano eruptions are a bigger
danger to life on Earth than any asteroid.
Luckily
NASA has a plan to neutralize
supervolcano threats. It would cost approximately $3.4 billion and
involves drilling down just over 6 miles into the volcano in order to release
heat and hopefully avoid a violent eruption.
This
plan could cool the supervolcano over the course of hundreds or even thousands
of years. There’s another bonus: It would become a source of geothermal energy,
too. But there are considerable risks, too. It could trigger the
eruption it's meant to save us from.
How
likely is it that the Yellowstone supervolcano will erupt?
Despite
the fact that this new research shows conditions leading up to supervolcano
eruption could occur in several decades, the chances that you will personally
experience an explosion of this scale are still low.
The
odds of the Yellowstone supervolcano erupting within a given year are one in
730,000, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Here’s a little perspective:
Those odds are significantly better than your chances of
winning the lottery and only slightly worse than the chance you'll be
struck by lightning.
WHEN WILL YELLOWSTONE ERUPT? SUPERVOLCANO COULD RUMBLE
TO LIFE FAR FASTER THAN WE THOUGH
BY HANNAH OSBORNE ON
10/12/17 AT 9:42 AM
Yellowstone supervolcano last erupted 640,000 years ago.JIM URQUHART/REUTERS
Before the Yellowstone supervolcano next
erupts, we might have only a few decades to prepare—not thousands of years, as
previously thought. By analyzing the last eruption to take place, a team of
researchers has estimated how long it took for the required amount of magma to
build up in the main chambers. The preliminary findings show it
happened startlingly fast.
The last major eruption at Yellowstone—one of
the world’s largest active supervolcanoes—took place around 640,000 years
ago, sending about 240 cubic miles of volcanic ash, dust and rock into the sky.
If an eruption were to
talk place today, experts estimate a blanket of ash would cover most of the
U.S. "Ash-fall thicknesses of centimetres throughout the American Midwest
would disrupt livestock and crop production, especially during critical times
in the growing season,” a 2014 report said. "Thick
deposits could threaten building integrity and obstruct sewer and water lines.
Electronic communications and air transportation would likely be shut down
throughout North America. There would also be major climate effects."
To understand what goes on beneath Yellowstone
before an eruption—in a bid to work out what might happen prior to the next
one—researchers at Arizona State University analyzed the last big eruption,
looking at crystals that show the changes that took place in the run-up to the
event.
Hannah Shamloo, a
graduate student at the university, and colleagues presented the team’s
preliminary findings at a volcanology conference in September. According to The New York Times,
she said changes to the crystals indicate there was a fast increase in
temperature at the site. The magma appears to have accumulated very quickly,
and then an eruption occurred a few decades later. “It’s shocking how little
time is required to take a volcanic system from being quiet and sitting there
to the edge of an eruption,” Shamloo said.
The findings do not help scientists predict
when the next eruption might take place. They could, however, serve as
something of an early warning system. By monitoring what’s going on underneath
Yellowstone, they can track changes to the magma and be on alert if it starts
accumulating.
Mike Poland, the scientist in charge of the
Yellowstone Volcano Observatory at the U.S. Geological Survey, says the
research is interesting, and while the results are preliminary, they
potentially open the door to many more questions—including what processes
actually trigger rapid magma movement and an eruption.
“I think it's
important to note that these results say that the rejuvenation of Yellowstone's
magma system may have occurred over decades prior to eruption,” he tells Newsweek. “The research does not provide any
information about what actually triggered the eruption.
Ground deformation at Yellowstone National Park over the last two
years. USGS
“One thing I would emphasize is that even if
large eruptions are preceded by only decades of unrest, this is still something
we are positioned to detect well in advance. Yellowstone is one of the
best-monitored volcanoes in the world, with a host of seismic, deformation,
thermal and geochemical sensors and satellite datasets always looking for
changes,” Poland says.
An example of this was the earthquake swarm
that has been taking place at the supervolcano since June. Since it began,
almost 2,500 earthquakes have been recorded at the site—making it the longest
and most vigorous swarm since 1985.
“We see interesting things all the time, but
we haven't seen anything that would lead us to believe that the sort of
magmatic ‘rejuvenation’ event described by the ASU researchers is happening
now,” Poland says. “We're in a good position to see that sort of event
thanks to the monitoring systems that are in place—seismicity (not just the
numbers of earthquakes, but also their types) would change drastically, as
would styles of deformation, and there would probably be significant thermal
manifestations.
“The research does a great job of helping us
understand the conditions that set up the last large eruption at
Yellowstone. Hopefully, the researchers will continue their investigations
to see what more the crystals they are studying can tell us, particularly about
the specific conditions that led to the eruption.”
Yellowstone supervolcano may be only decades from a
catastrophic eruption
Researchers are saying the supervolcano sitting beneath Yellowstone
National Park could erupt sooner than thought -- and could possibly plunge
the planet into a "volcanic winter."
It's been roughly 631,000 years since Yellowstone's last super-eruption
and, until now, scientists thought it would take centuries for the supervolcano
to make the transition, according to National Geographic.
Now, after analyzing minerals in fossilized ash from Yellowstone,
researchers from Arizona State University are saying the lava-filled
mountain could erupt in just a few decades.
The discovery arrives several years after a 2011 study found that
the ground above Yellowstone's caldera had risen as much as 10 inches in some
places over the course of seven years.
"It's an extraordinary uplift, because it covers such a large area
and the rates are so high," the Bob Smith, an expert in Yellowstone
volcanism at the University of Utah, told National Geographic at the time.
Researchers are also saying the supervolcano has the
ability to produce an eruption of a thousand times more powerful than
Mount St. Helen's eruption in 1980 and eject more than 1,000 cubic kilometers
of rock and ash -- which could blanket large areas of the US.
Arizona State graduate state Hannah Shamloo, who developed the theory
that there was a much shorter timeline than once anticipated for an eruption,
spent weeks with several colleagues at the site in Yellowstone where they
collected and studied fossilized ash from its last eruption.
"It’s shocking how little time is required to take a volcanic
system from being quiet and sitting there to the edge of an eruption,"
Shamloo told New York Times, while
adding that more research is necessary before drawing
definite conclusions.
Though
the pair presented the study at a recent volcanology
conference before the American Geophysical Union in 2016, it
has yet to be peer-reviewed.
