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Supervolcanoes Active for Thousands of Years After Erupting
New research has discovered that supervolcanoes, such as the Toba caldera, can remain active for thousands of years following an initial super-eruption.
New research from an international team of scientists has discovered that supervolcanoes here on Earth can remain active and threatening for thousands of years following an initial super-eruption. That’s great.
Seriously, though, I’m sure a lot of our listeners and viewers are familiar with supervolcanoes here on Earth. After all, we can’t go more than a month or two without someone trying to tell us that Yellowstone is in imminent danger of erupting and wiping out the U.S. farming communities in the midwest with the ash fallout. Yes, that’s a real thing that could happen. It has happened before. In fact, the ash from an eruption of the Long Valley Caldera here in California was found as far away as Nebraska. It’s a huge layer called the Bishop Tuff, and it is all over the western United States. And eruptions from Yellowstone are much larger than Long Valley’s.
So worrying about Yellowstone erupting is a completely legitimate worry, just not a “tomorrow it will happen” worry.
