Sunday, April 5, 2020

Cory Campbell - Yellowstone Caldera

The Yellowstone Caldera is also known as the Yellowstone supervolcano. I find it interesting because it has the potential to cause massive destruction across the United States- though the likelihood of such a "super-eruption is very low. In fact, the odds are so low, that it may never even erupt again. The extent of its potential reach can be seen below:


The volcano actually has erupted before, but it typically only causes lava flow eruptions, which pose little to no threat. A supereruption would last months to travel the country, so it wouldn't be a quick catastrophe. What's unique about this volcano is how much magma is built up beneath it, depicted below:


This large amount of magma built up beneath the surface resulted in the hot springs of yellowstone, where the ground is simply hot. You can see just how morbid the landscape has become (below). In fact, to put it in persepective, the Mt St Helens eruption of 1980 only produced 0.25 km of magma and was very destructive. The yellowstone volcano could reach at least 1,000 cubic kilometers, which is enough to cover Texas 5 times over.


Reference: https://www.vox.com/2014/9/5/6108169/yellowstone-supervolcano-eruption

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