It is believed that one of the many causes of the apocalypse will be the famous Yellowstone supervolcano. The RT correspondent figured out whether to pay attention to the annual warnings of an impending disaster.
Yellowstone is one of the largest supervolcanoes in the world. It is located in the US National Park of the same name, famous for its geysers. Over the past 2 million years, there have been several powerful eruptions, so Yellowstone is considered dormant. In the 1960s and 1970s, research by the US Geological Survey scientist Robert Christiansen showed that the caldera - the circus-shaped basin of the supervolcano - is approximately 55 and 72 km in size, and thus occupies a third of the park's territory.
The activity of supervolcanoes can lead to consequences on a planetary scale. After a super-eruption, sharp temperature fluctuations can occur. Cooling even by half a degree on a planetary scale leads to a very sharp redistribution of air masses, hurricanes and catastrophic precipitation are possible. For example, due to global warming in Australia, severe droughts occur, followed by tornadoes and hurricanes. And these are the consequences of minimal climate change.
“Of course, there is a danger of super-eruptions on this volcano, because they have already happened many times. There is a certain periodicity of these eruptions. Well, journalists, of course, begin to calculate and say that the volcano should have exploded 30 thousand years ago and the like. - says Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Oleg Melnik. - In fact, firstly, this volcano does not have any clear specified periodicity with an accuracy of a year, so that an eruption can occur in the relatively near future, say, over a thousand years or tens of thousands of years. But it is obvious that now there are no signs of Yellowstone activation. This is a large geothermal system that has its own life."
In turn, professor of the Geological Faculty of Moscow State University, volcanologist Pavel Plechov is sure that "the models that exist now say that the intensification of the volcanic activity of Yellowstone, even if it does occur, will not begin immediately with a catastrophic eruption." “Most likely, at first, one or two, maybe three small volcanoes will begin to grow, and then maybe it will mature to a super-eruption, or maybe it will calm down or continue in this mode,” he says.
Yellowstone sits above an area where hot molten mantle rock is moving towards the surface - a so-called hot spot. It is currently located under the Yellowstone Plateau. The observed direction of movement of the hotspot is east-north-east. At the same time, the North American Plate moves in the west-south-west direction above the stationary "bottom" of the hot spot. For 17 Ma, the Yellowstone hotspot has produced continuous intense eruptions and less intense basaltic lava eruptions. Thus, the eastern part of the Snake River Lowland was created from the mountainous region.
According to Pavel Plechov, there were only three very large eruptions, the last about 640 thousand years ago. But between these catastrophic super-eruptions there were many small ones. The last eruptions of Yellowstone took place about 80-100 thousand years ago - but these were ordinary eruptions similar to those that quite often occur in Kamchatka.
Ilya Bindeman, PhD, a volcanologist at the University of Oregon in Eugene (USA), presented the results of his research on Yellowstone in 2013. He studied the magma-generating ability of this part of the continent and concluded that there were three giant eruptions in one place in this part of the continent. As a result, there is already magma that could have been generated in such a volume, but there are no resources for the next giant eruption. That is, ordinary eruptions can occur, or slightly larger ones.
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But in order for a supercaldera, a super-eruption, to form, it is necessary for the North American plate to shift and shift the hot spot that is under Yellowstone and feeds it, giving energy to all these processes. Even if it has already shifted, if these processes occur instantly, it still takes some time for a giant hearth to form again in a new place. And then an eruption is already possible. Bindeman estimates this time at about 2.5 million years. He is sure that there will not be a super-eruption in this place, while in another place it may occur at least in 1.5 million years.
Despite such forecasts, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has created a powerful observation network not only for Yellowstone, but also for all the volcanoes of the country: in Alaska, Hawaii and the Mariana Islands, California, Nevada, Washington and Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming, as well as in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. The official USGS website has an interactive map showing the online status of the volcanoes. In addition, anyone can sign up for free notifications about volcanic activity. Of course, the USGS has a Facebook page, and the Volcanic Observatory in Alaska also has Twitter. And here you can get official data on the state of volcanoes for every day.
So everything is in order with Yellowstone, it is under constant monitoring in real time, which is confirmed by the information on the USGS website. Everyone learns about the danger not from the yellow press, but in advance from official sources.
Typically, an internal forecast comes in months before an event, while a super-eruption is likely to be predicted years in advance. There should be clear indications that the volcano is preparing to erupt and is already approaching the stage of its onset.
The population is notified two weeks in advance. Then it will be roughly known on what day the eruption will take place. If you announce this six months in advance, panic will begin and there may be bad consequences. Local authorities decide how to conduct the evacuation. For each studied volcano, there is a volcano hazard map showing where to move so that people do not suffer, how the lava flow will go, what is threatened and what is not.
Julia Troitskaya