Under the territory of Yellowstone National Park there is a center of a large volcano, which has now become more active.
According to experts, the volcano woke up after a recent earthquake, which triggered an increase in the number of magma eruptions. Today, Yellowstone Volcano is considered one of the most dangerous active volcanoes on Earth.
What kind of volcano?
Yellowstone volcano is a supervolcano. Recall that a supervolcano is not a strictly scientific term, usually volcanoes that formed in a depression in the earth, the so-called caldera.
It is not only a volcano that is large in area and size. It is extremely dangerous, as its eruption can provoke climate change on the planet. Now there are about 20 known supervolcanoes on Earth, including Yellowstone.
Another difference between a supervolcano and an ordinary one is that when an ordinary volcano erupts, lava gradually accumulates in the mountain, and only then begins to come out.
At a supervolcano, magma, approaching the surface, is collected in a huge underground reservoir. It melts the nearby rocks and becomes even thicker, while the pressure continues to build.
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The Yellowstone supervolcano is just above the hot spot, where molten rock is closest to the surface.
The last day of Pompeii
The Yellowstone supervolcano has long worried scientists and ordinary people. They began to talk about its danger back in April 2016, when experts first suspected a possible catastrophe.
Then a series of earthquakes swept across America, many were horrified by the news in the media. “The most dangerous volcano has woken up,” “America will fly into the air,” the journalists were scared.
Or maybe they were not in vain afraid?
In April of the same year, the Ridus correspondent spoke with Andrey Lukashev, professor of the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University, who was not going to frighten anyone once again, but did not feel positive.
The consequences of the upcoming eruption will lead to the so-called nuclear winter effect: people will not see the Sun for several years, - Lukashev said.
Already at that time, scientists began to sound the alarm, pointing to a catastrophe that could occur at any moment.
Zone of destruction
As you know, the dangerous volcano is located in Yellowstone National Park, in the state of Wyoming (USA), the size of its basin is 55 by 72 kilometers, which is about a third of the entire territory of the park and is almost twice the size of New York and Moscow.
This size and power of the volcano seriously worries not only geologists, but also ordinary people, because if an eruption begins, it will not only destroy the United States, but also cause great environmental damage to the entire planet. According to a number of researchers, the consequences of the eruption will not only lower the temperature on Earth by 21 degrees, but will also destroy huge populations of animals and plants, which will become a catastrophe of a universal scale.
The eruption will kill at least 87,000 people, experts say.
The Yellowstone volcano shows its activity once every 600 years, and just these 600 years have passed. This is a normal action of standard volcanoes, so I don't see anything strange in this, and neither do all geologists - this was predicted a long time ago. Moreover, it is not a fact that there will be an eruption, - Pyotr Shebalin, a researcher at the Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Ridus.
Old campaigner
And yet, lately, the dormant volcano has begun to show more and more obvious signs of activity, which only further aggravates the situation around it. So, more recently, on the night of October 3-4, 2017, black smoke poured out of the volcano, which seriously scared the residents of the state. It turned out that the smoke came from the Old Faithful geyser - the most famous geyser of the volcano.
Usually the volcano throws out streams of hot water from the geyser as high as a 9-storey building at intervals of 45 to 125 minutes, but here instead of water or at least steam, black smoke poured down.
Why black smoke comes from the volcano is not clear. Perhaps this is burning organic matter that has approached the surface. But it’s too early to worry, since the burning of one geyser still doesn’t mean anything,”Shebalin explained.
Can't you fool the animals?
It is generally accepted that animals are well aware of impending disasters, as they have the ability of seismic indicators.
For example, before the earthquake, many pet owners noticed that the animals behaved extremely strange: dogs barked incessantly, cats rushed about the house, etc.
In September 1927, in the Crimea, 12 hours before the start of the tremors, the cows refused to feed and began to bellow anxiously, the horses were torn from the leash, the cats and dogs huddled to the owners, howled and meowed.
In Ashgabat in 1948 at a stud farm, the behavior of animals before the earthquake was even more violent. The horses knocked down the stable gate and burst out. Two hours later, the building collapsed from an earthquake.
As for Yellowstone, animals behave strangely there too. As news of the possibility of an eruption of a supervolcano began to worry more and more, a video of bison fleeing from Yellowstone National Park appeared on the Web. This has caused concern already among people who decided that such behavior could be a sign of an imminent eruption of a supervolcano.
And although experts say that these are just seasonal migrations of animals in search of food, the public still does not believe in such coincidences.
From all that has been said above, it is obvious that if the eruption does begin, then the fate of at least the United States looks clearly unenviable. The world's leading state is unlikely to survive a potential catastrophe. However, the danger is amplified by the fact that the apocalypse will not be limited to the States alone. After the eruption, the temperature on Earth will drop by 21 degrees, and due to emissions, visibility will not exceed one meter. The very same territory of the United States will be completely filled with lava.
Analysis of the molten rock of the Yellowstone supervolcano showed that an eruption is possible without any external influences, so a catastrophe can occur at any time.
The Yellowstone Volcano in the United States is considered a hot spot on Earth, just like Hawaii with its Kilauea or Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. They are, of course, very dangerous during their eruption both because of their size and because of the power, since they will eject millions of cubic meters of magma, and there will be a lot of ash. But we do not yet have sufficient data to talk about the exact or at least an approximate date of its eruption, - said Vasily Lavrushin, an employee of the Geological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Scientists are engaged in setting the date of a possible eruption. This is necessary in order to be prepared for the coming disaster. The volcano problem is being dealt with by NASA, volcanologists from the University of Victoria, and New Zealand geologists.
However, not all experts believe in the fatal nature of the alleged disaster.
The residents of the United States, and you and I, should definitely not worry about a volcanic eruption. At least for the next five years, for sure. The volume of the expanded mass is not enough for an eruption of a volcano, which everyone is afraid of, - says Pyotr Shebalin.
Author: Erica Efremova