The Chris Moeller Archives

The end of life as we know it

The supervolcano that lies beneath Yellowstone National Park contains enough magma that the volume of the caldera could fill three Lake Michigans. It has erupted three times in the last 2.1 million years, the last time approximately 640,000 years ago at the size of a thousand times that of the Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980. The pillar of ash into the atmosphere would create a "volcanic winter" to threaten the entire human population of the planet.

It's referred to as a "supervolcano" because its ejection of pumice and ash in one event could exceed a space of 1,000 cubic kilometers, more than 50 times the size of the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia that may have killed more than 120,000 people, darkening the sky for years and causing red sunsets across the globe, and providing the possible inspiration for Edvard Munch's famous painting "The Scream" half the world away in Norway.

The Yellowstone supervolcano was in the news this week, and in the most general of terms, you don't want your supervolcanoes to be in the news. The swelling of the reservoir, thought to be generating from about 10 kilometers beneath the surface, has caused the ground in the park to rise as much as 10 inches in places.

Experts at the U.S. Geological Survey are calling this phenomenon alternately a "burp" by the supervolcano, or "a deep breath," and you can pick your metaphor, but they're optimistic that the recent swelling does not foretell an immediate threat to all of humanity because it's coming from that 10 kilometers below the surface, rather than just two or three. In any case, no evidence suggests that the supervolcano should be a reason for the Cardinals to hold off on offering Albert Pujols the 10 year contract the player's agent is reportedly seeking for his client this off-season.

posted by CM @ 3:28 PM