Yellowstone caldera. Possible eruption of the Yellowstone Volcano (Wyoming)

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:45

Volcanoes have attracted people since ancient times. They considered them gods, worshiped them and made sacrifices, including human ones. And this attitude is quite understandable, since even now the incredible power of these natural objects simply boggles the imagination of even trained researchers.

But among them there are those that stand out even against such a conspicuous background. This, for example, is the Yellowstone Caldera in Wyoming National Park, USA. The power that lies dormant in this supervolcano is such that it may well contribute to the complete destruction of our civilization in the event of its awakening. And this is not an exaggeration. Thus, the Pinatubo volcano, which is several times weaker than its American "colleague", during the eruption in 1991, contributed to the fact that the average temperature on the planet dropped by 0.5 degrees, and this continued for several years in a row.

What characterizes this natural object?

Scientists have long given this object the status of a supervolcano. Known worldwide for its megalithicsizes. During his last large-scale awakening, the entire upper part of the volcano simply collapsed down, forming an impressive sinkhole.

It is located right in the middle of the North American plate, and not on the border, like its "colleagues" in the world, which are concentrated along the edges of the plates (the same "Ring of Fire" in the Pacific Ocean). Since the 1980s, the Geological Survey of America has reported that the number of tremors, so far less than three on the Richter scale, has steadily increased every year.

What does the government think?

All this is far from fantasy. The seriousness of the statements of scientists is confirmed by the fact that in 2007 an emergency meeting was created, which was attended by the US President and the heads of the CIA, NSA, FBI.

Study history

When do you think the caldera itself was discovered? At the beginning of the development of America by the colonists? Yes, no matter how! Found it only in 1960, exploring aerospace photographs…

Of course, the current Yellowstone Park was explored long before the advent of satellites and aircraft. The first naturalist who described these places was John Colter. He was part of the Lewis and Clark expedition. In 1807 he described what is now Wyoming. The state amazed him with incredible geysers and many hot springs, but upon his return, the "progressive public" did not believe him, mockingly calling the scientist's work "Colter's hell."

In 1850, hunter and naturalist Jim Bridger also visited Wyoming. State methim in the same way as his predecessor: clouds of steam and fountains of boiling water that burst right out of the ground. However, no one believed his stories either.

Finally, after the Civil War, the new US Government did fund full-scale exploration of that region. In 1871, the area was explored by a scientific expedition led by Ferdinand Heiden. Just a year later, a huge colorful report was prepared with many illustrations and observations. Only then did everyone finally believe that Colter and Bridger were not lying at all. At the same time, Yellowstone Park was created.

Development and learning

Nathaniel Langford was appointed as the first head of the facility. The situation around the park at first was not too optimistic: the leader and a handful of enthusiasts were not even paid a salary, not to mention any scientific research on this territory. Everything changed after a few years. When the Northern Pacific Railroad was put into operation, a stream of tourists and people who were sincerely interested in this natural phenomenon poured into the valley.

The merit of the leadership of the park and the government of the country is that, having contributed to the influx of curious people, they still did not turn this unique area into a cluttered tourist attraction, and also constantly invited eminent scientists from all over the world to these parts.

The pundits were especially attracted by small volcanic cones, which continue to form in this area from time to time to this day. Of course, it was not the Yellowstone supervolcano that brought the greatest fame to the national park (thenthey were not known), but huge, incredibly beautiful geysers. However, the beauty of nature and the richness of the animal world also did not leave people indifferent.

What is a supervolcano in the modern sense?

If we talk about a typical volcano, then most often it is a rather ordinary mountain in the shape of a truncated cone, at its top there is a vent through which hot gases pass and molten magma flows out. Actually, a young volcano is just a crack in the ground. When molten lava flows out of it and solidifies, it quickly forms a characteristic cone.

But supervolcanoes are such that they don't even look like their "younger brothers". These are a kind of "abscesses" on the surface of the earth, under the thin "skin" of which molten magma seethes. On the territory of such a formation, several ordinary volcanoes can often form, through the vents of which, from time to time, the accumulated products are ejected. However, most often there is not even a visible hole there: there is a volcanic caldera, which many people take for an ordinary sinkhole in the ground.

How many are there?

Today, at least 20-30 such formations are known. Their relatively small eruptions, which most often occur by "using" conventional volcanic offshoots, can be compared to the release of steam from a pressure cooker valve. Problems begin at the very moment when the steam pressure is too high and the “boiler” itself takes off into the air. It should be noted that a volcano in the USA (like Etna, by the way)belongs specifically to the "explosive" category due to the extremely thick magma.

That's why they are so dangerous. The power of such natural formations is such that they may well have enough energy to pulverize an entire continent into powder. Pessimists believe that if a volcano in the United States does explode, 97-99% of humanity may die. In principle, even the most optimistic forecasts do not differ too much from such a gloomy scenario.

Is he waking up?

Increased activity has been recorded over the past decade. Many residents of America do not even realize that from one to three underground rumors are recorded annually. So far, many of them are fixed only with special equipment. Of course, it is too early to talk about the explosion, but the number and strength of such tremors are gradually growing. The facts are disappointing - the underground reservoir is probably filled with lava.

In general, for the first time scientists paid attention to the national park in 2012, when dozens of new geysers began to appear on its territory. Just two hours after the scientists' visit, the government banned access to most of the national park for tourists. But there are dozens of times more seismologists, geologists, biologists and other researchers.

There are other dangerous volcanoes in the US. In Oregon, there is also the caldera of the giant Crater Lake, which was also formed as a result of volcanic activity, and it can be no less dangerous than its “colleague” from Wyoming. However, just fifteen or twenty years ago, scientists believed that supervolcanoes needed centuries toawakening, and therefore you can always predict a catastrophe ahead of time. Unfortunately, they were clearly wrong.

Research by Margaret Mangan

Margaret Mangan, one of the prominent scientists of the Geological Survey of America, has long been closely monitoring the manifestations of volcanic activity around the world. Not so long ago, she told the world community that seismologists have completely revised their views on the timing of the awakening of the largest volcanoes on the planet.

But this is very bad news. Our knowledge has expanded considerably in recent years, but there is no relief from this. Thus, a large volcano in the USA constantly demonstrates increasing activity: there were moments when the earth near the caldera heated up to 550 degrees Celsius, a lava dome began to form in the form of a hemisphere of rock protruding upward, and the lake gradually began to boil.

Just two years ago, some seismologists vied with each other to assure everyone that volcanic activity did not threaten humanity over the next couple of centuries. Really? Already after the grandiose tsunami, which literally washed away Fukushima, they stopped issuing their forecasts. Now they prefer to get rid of annoying journalists with meaningless terms of a general meaning. So what are they afraid of? The onset of a new Ice Age as a result of a grand eruption?

First disturbing predictions

To be fair, it is worth noting that scientists knew about the gradual reduction of the time between cataclysms andbefore. However, given the astronomical time frame, humanity cared little. Initially, the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano in the United States was expected in about 20 thousand years. But after working through the accumulated information, it turned out that this would happen in 2074. And this is a very optimistic forecast, since volcanoes are extremely unpredictable and very dangerous.

University of Utah researcher Robert Smith said in 2008 that “…as long as magma is located at a depth of 10 kilometers from the vent (with its constant rise of 8 centimeters per year), there is no reason to panic… But if it will rise at least up to three kilometers, we will all be unhappy. That's why Yellowstone is dangerous. The United States (more precisely, the scientific community of the country) is well aware of this.

Meanwhile, back in 2006, Ilya Bindeman and John Valei were published in the journal "Earth and Planetary Science", and in the publication they did not indulge the public with comforting forecasts. The data for the last three years, they say, indicate a sharp acceleration in the rise of lava, constantly opening new crevices through which hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide come to the surface.

This is a sure sign that some big trouble is about to happen. Today, even skeptics agree that this danger is quite real.

New signals

But why did this topic become the “trend” of last year? After all, people already had enough hysteria with the year 2012? And all because in March there was a sharply increased seismic activity. Increasingly, even geysers, which were considered long asleep, began to wake up. From the territory of the nationalThe park began to massively migrate animals and birds. But all these are real harbingers of something very bad.

Following the bison, the deer also fled, quickly leaving the Yellowstone Plateau. In just a year, a third of the livestock migrated, which, even in the memory of Indian natives, never happened. All these movements of animals look especially strange in the light of the fact that no one hunts in the park. However, people have known since ancient times that animals perfectly feel the signals that portend major natural disasters.

The available data further increase the alarm of the scientific world community. In March last year, seismographs recorded tremors up to magnitude four, and this is no longer a joke. At the end of March, the area shook noticeably with a force of 4.8 points. Since 1980, this is the most powerful manifestation of seismic activity. Moreover, unlike the events of thirty years ago, these tremors are strictly localized.

Why is the volcano so dangerous?

For decades, during which at least some study of this area was carried out, scientists have long assumed that the Yellowstone caldera is no longer dangerous: the volcano, supposedly, has long since died out. According to new data from geodetic and geophysical exploration, there is approximately twice as much magma in the reservoir under the caldera as indicated in the most pessimistic reports.

Today it is known for sure that this reservoir extends as much as 80 kilometers in length and 20 in width. Robert Smith, a geophysicist from the city, found outS alt Lake City by collecting and analyzing a huge amount of seismological data. At the end of October 2013, he made a report on this in the city of Denver, at the annual scientific conference. His message was immediately replicated, and practically all the leading seismological laboratories in the world became interested in the results of the research.

Capacity assessment

To summarize his findings, the scientist had to collect statistics on more than 4,500 earthquakes of varying degrees of intensity. This is how he determined the boundaries of the Yellowstone caldera. The data showed that the size of the "hot" area in past years was underestimated by more than half. Today it is believed that the volume of magma is within four thousand cubic meters of hot rock.

It is assumed that "only" 6-8% of this amount is molten magma, but this is very, very much. So Yellowstone Park is a real time bomb, on which the whole world will someday explode (and this will happen anyway, alas).

First appearance

In general, the first time the volcano showed itself brightly about 2.1 million years ago. A quarter of all of North America at that time was covered with a thick layer of volcanic ash. In principle, nothing more ambitious has happened since then. Scientists believe that all supervolcanoes manifest themselves once every 600 thousand years. Given that the last time the Yellowstone supervolcano erupted more than 640,000 years ago, there is every reason to prepare for trouble.

And now things can be much worse, because in just the last three hundred years the population density of the planet has increased many times over. An indicator of what happened then is the caldera of the volcano. This is a cyclopean crater, which arose as a result of an earthquake of unimaginable power that occurred 642 thousand years ago. How much ash and gas was then thrown out is unknown, but it was this event that greatly influenced the climate of our planet for the next millennia.

For comparison: one of the relatively recent (by geological standards) eruptions of Etna, which occurred six thousand years ago, and which was hundreds of times weaker than that ejection from the caldera, caused a grandiose tsunami. Archaeologists find traces of it all over the Mediterranean. It is assumed that it was it that served as the basis for the legends about the Biblical flood. Apparently, our ancestors really experienced many tragic events then: hundreds of villages were simply washed away in a few moments. The inhabitants of the Atlit-Yam settlement were more fortunate, but even their descendants continue to talk about the grandiose waves that crushed everything in their path.

If Yellowstone behaves badly, then the eruption will be 2,5 thousand (!) times more powerful, and 15 times more ash will be released into the atmosphere than got there after the last awakening of Krakatoa, when about 40 thousand died man.

Eruption is not the point

Smith himself has repeatedly stressed that the eruption is the tenth thing. He and his fellow seismologists say that the main danger lies in subsequent earthquakes,which will be clearly more powerful than eight on the Richter scale. On the territory of the national park and now almost every year there are small tremors. There are also harbingers of the future: in 1959 there was an earthquake with a power of 7.3 points at once. Only 28 people died, as the rest were evacuated in time.

All in all, the Yellowstone Caldera is sure to bring more trouble. Most likely, lava flows will immediately cover an area of at least one hundred square kilometers, and then gas flows will suffocate all life in North America. Perhaps a grandiose ash cloud will reach the shores of Europe within a couple of days at the most.

This is what Yellowstone Park hides. When a global catastrophe will occur, no one knows. It remains to be hoped that this will not happen very soon.

Approximate model of the disaster

If the volcano explodes, the effect can be compared to the detonation of a dozen powerful intercontinental missiles. The earth's crust over hundreds of kilometers will rise tens of meters into the air and warm up to about a hundred degrees Celsius. Chunks of rock in the form of volcanic bombs will bombard the surface of North America for several days in a row. The content of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and other dangerous compounds will increase thousands of times in the atmosphere. What are the other effects of the Yellowstone volcano eruption?

Today it is believed that an explosion will instantly burn out an area of about 1000 km2. The entire northwestern United States and much ofCanada will become a hot desert. At least 10 thousand square kilometers will immediately be covered with a layer of hot rock that will forever change this world!

For a long time, mankind believed that today civilization is threatened only by mutual destruction in an atomic war. But today there is every reason to believe that we have forgotten about the power of nature in vain. It was she who arranged several Ice Ages on the planet, during which many thousands of species of plants, animals and birds died out. One cannot be so self-confident and consider that a person is the king of this world. Our species may also be wiped off the face of this planet, as has happened many times over the past millennia.

What other dangerous volcanoes are there?

Are there still active active volcanoes on the planet? You can see a list of those below:

Llullaillaco in the Andes.
Popocatepetl in Mexico (last eruption in 2003).
Klyuchevskaya Sopka in Kamchatka. Erupted in 2004.
Mauna Loa. In 1868, Hawaii was literally washed away by a giant tsunami caused by its activity.
Fujiyama. The famous symbol of Japan. The last time he "pleased" the Land of the Rising Sun in 1923, when more than 700 thousand houses were destroyed almost instantly, and the number of missing people (not counting the found victims) exceeded 150 thousand people.
Shiveluch, Kamchatka. Erupted simultaneously with Sopka.
Etna, which we have already spoken about. It is considered "asleep", butthe tranquility of a volcano is relative.
Asso, Japan. Over the entire known history - more than 70 eruptions.
The famous Vesuvius. Like Etna, was considered "dead", but suddenly resurrected in 1944.