Yellowstone's Supervolcano May Blow Sooner Than Thought
Channel: Aziz Jaa
Date: 2017-10-12

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The supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park may erupt sooner than researchers previously thought, carrying with it potentially devastating consequences.

The New York Times reports researchers from Arizona State University came to the startling conclusion after analyzing crystals found in fossilized ash from the most recent supereruption at the park about 630,000 years ago. Such an eruption reportedly has the power to cover the majority of the United States in a thick layer of ash and cause a volcanic winter.

In fact, a 2014 report suggests a supereruption could cause ash deposits up to meters thick in the northern Rocky Mountains, decimeters thick in the northern Midwest and centimeters thick on the East, West and Gulf coasts.

Even mere centimeters-thick layers of ash "throughout the American Midwest would disrupt livestock and crop production, especially during critical times in the growing season," that study says. "Thick deposits could threaten building integrity and obstruct sewer and water lines. Electronic communications and air transportation would likely be shut down throughout North America. There would also be major climate effects."

Scientists previously thought the geological process necessary to trigger a supereruption took millennia, the Times reports, but researchers have found that such a process may take only decades. Though potentially highly deadly – with the ability to spew 2,500 times more material than erupted from Mount St. Helens in 1980 – the odds of such an eruption anytime soon are slim, the Times notes.

Nevertheless, the findings from Hannah Shamloo, a graduate student at Arizona State, and her colleagues were recently presented at a volcanology conference, and have grabbed public attention.

"It's shocking how little time is required to take a volcanic system from being quiet and sitting there to the edge of an eruption," Shamloo told the Times, with an additional warning that researchers must continue their work before pinpointing a precise time scale.