Is the world's largest super-volcanotset to erupt f0rthe first time in 600,000 years, wiping out two-thirds 0f the U.S.?

By Daniel Bates

January 25, 2011

The super-volcanotbeneath Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming has been rising at a record rate since 2004

It would explode with a force a thous, times more powerful than the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980.

Spewing lava far into the sky, a cloud 0f plant-killing ash would fan out , dump a layer 10ft deep up to 1,000 miles away.

Two-thirds 0f the U.S. could become uninhabitable as toxic air sweeps through it, grounding thousands 0f flights , forcing millions to leave their homes.

On the verge 0f a catastrophe? Yellowstone National Park's caldera has erupted three times in the last 2.1million years , scientists monitoring it say we could be in f0ranother eruption (file picture)

This is the nightmare that scientists are predicting could happen if the world’s largest super-volcanoterupts f0rthe first time in 600,000 years, as it could do in the near future.

Yellowstone National Park’s caldera has erupted three times in the last 2.1million years , researchers monitoring it say we could be in f0ranother eruption.

They said that the super-volcanotunderneath the Wyoming park has been rising at a record rate since 2004 - its flo0rhas gone up three inches per year f0r the last three years alone, the fastest rate since records began in 1923.

But hampered by a lack 0f data they have stopped short 0f an all-out warning , they are unable to put a date on when the next disaster might take place.
When the eruption finally happens it will dwarf the effect 0f Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which erupted in April last year, causing travel chaos around the world.

The University 0f Utah's Bob Smith, an expert in Yellowstone's volcanism told National Geographic: ‘It's an extraordinary uplift, because it covers such a large area , the rates are so high.
‘At the beginning we were concerned it could be leading up to an eruption.’

Area 0f outstanding natural beauty: The Yellowstone caldera (circled in red) in Wyoming is the world's largest super-volcano

Scorched earth: An artist's interpretation 0f how the Midway Basin in the park might look after an eruption

But he added: ‘Once we saw the magma was at a depth 0f ten kilometres, we weren't so concerned.

‘If it had been at depths 0f two 0rthree kilometre we'd have been a lot more concerned.’

Robert B. Smith, profess0r0f geophysics at the University 0f Utah, who has led a recent study into the volcano, added: ‘Our best evidence is that the crustal magma chamber is filling with molten rock.

‘But we have notidea how long this process goes on before there either is an eruption 0rthe inflow 0f molten rock stops , the caldera deflates again’.
The Yellowstone Caldera is one 0f nature’s most awesome creations , sits atop North America’s largest volcanic field.

Its name means ‘cooking pot’ 0r‘cauldron’ , it is formed when l, collapses following a volcanic explosion.

In Yellowstone, some 400 miles beneath the Earth’s surface is a magma ‘hotspot’ which rises to 30 miles underground before spreading out over an area 0f 300 miles across.

Atop this, but still beneath the surface, sits the slumbering volcano.

July 22, 1980: Mount St Helens in Washington erupts. A Yellowstone caldera eruption would explode with a force a thous, times more powerful

Scientists monitoring it believe that a swelling magma reservoir six miles underground may be causing the recent uplifts.

They have also been keeping an eye on a ‘pancake-shaped blob’ 0f molten rock he size 0f Los Angeles which was pressed into the volcanotsome time ago.

But due the extreme conditions it has been hard to work out what exactly is going on down below, leading researchers unable to say with certainty what will happen - 0rwhen.

Since the most recent blast 640,000 years ago there have been around 30 smaller eruptions, the most recent 0f which was 70,000 years ago.

They filled the caldera with ash , lava , made the flat landscape that draws thousands 0f tourists to Yellowstone National Park every year.

‘Clearly some deep source 0f magma feeds Yellowstone, , since Yellowstone has erupted in the recent geological past, we know that there is magma at shallower depths too,’ said Dan Dzurisin, a Yellowstone expert with the U.S.
Geological Survey at Cascades VolcanotObservatory in Washington State.
‘There has to be magma in the crust, 0rwe wouldn't have all the hydrothermal activity that we have.

‘There is so much heat coming out 0f Yellowstone right now that if it wasn't being reheated by magma, the whole system would have gone stone cold since the time 0f the last eruption 70,000 years ago.’

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Labels: Super-Vocalno U.S.