Monday, September 22, 2008

Supervolcano!


A supervolcano or super volcanic eruption is defined as a volcano that ejects more than a trillion tons of material when it erupts. It is possible for a supervolcano to cover an entire continent in ash. It is estimated that the last time a supervolcano erupted was 71,000 years ago at Toba in Sumatra.
Another known supervolcano is located right under Yellowstone National Park in the USA. The volcano is so big it is visible from space. This supervolcano erupts approximately every 600,000 years although it has now been 630,000 years since it last erupted! This volcano is known as The Yellowstone Caldera. The volcano is measured 55km by 72km. In the past 17 million years Yellowstone has had successive eruptions which has flooded places like Washington, California and Oregon in lava.

Geologists and volcanologists are monitoring the Yellowstone Caldera very carefully as the Supervolcano could erupt soon(in the next few hundred years) although such eruptions are not regular or predictable. An eruption from this Supervolcano would most certainly kill millions of people.

The picture in the top right corner shows the rim of the Yellowstone Caldera in Yellowstone National Park, USA.

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