What If the Yellowstone Volcano Erupted Tomorrow?

right now in the United States one of the world's largest volcanoes is gearing up to explode it's known as the Yellowstone volcano and it's not just any regular volcano nope it's a super volcano if Yellowstone decided to erupt the results would be devastating but how bad would they be is there anything we can do to stop it would it affect the entire world and how would this change our weather this is what if and here's what would happen if the Yellowstone volcano erupted tomorrow located in Wyoming in the United States Yellowstone has erupted three times in the past two million years this has led some people to wonder whether we should be worried about another Yellowstone eruption in the near future and by near future we mean probably in another couple hundred thousand years but instead of waiting so long why don't we find out what would happen if the eruption took place tomorrow if you live in North America there would be virtually nothing you could do to prepare now that this super volcano has exploded well first what makes Yellowstone a super volcano anyway well apart from it being larger in size a super volcano also produces a much more massive explosion most of the time when we think of a volcanic eruption we the surrounding area well while that would happen at Yellowstone and it is something you'd need to worry about it wouldn't be the only thing in fact the lava pouring out of the volcano might be the least of your worries surprisingly there wouldn't be much of it at least not as much as you'd expect from a super volcano that's because before lava leaves a volcano it's first known as magma but in this case a lot of Yellowstone's magma won't be able to become lava that's because it will be shot up into the sky becoming Airborne Ash particles and it won't just be any type of Ash these will be tiny scorching little particles of jagged Rock now this would affect nearly the entire United States and Canada tens of millions of people within one thousand kilometers of the eruption would die if you breathed the ash which would be inevitable in a scenario like this it would form a cement-like mixture in your lungs causing you to suffocate buildings would collapse as just 30 centimeters of Ash is enough to Cave roofs in and you'd still be in trouble even if you were outside that 1000 kilometer range experts say that even the east coast of the United States would be covered with one centimeter of Ash which would still be incredibly dangerous to our human lungs even parts of Europe would see some ash maybe a light dusting and that wouldn't be the only effect they'd experienced apart from the deadly Ash everywhere the entire world would experience a temperature drop the ash lingering in the air would block out the sun resulting in significant weather changes the global temperature would drop by 10 degrees an effect which could last as long as a decade the ash would also affect crops water supply and virtually everything else in the western part of the world so although you'd probably survive the initial explosion you'd eventually suffer the consequences of the ash whether that means dying relatively quickly or living long enough to experience a colder harsher world luckily you can take a deep breath of ashless oxygen knowing that something like this will probably never happen at least not in our lifetime an eruption like this at Yellowstone would be known as a super volcanic eruption a more likely explosion at Yellowstone would be a hydrothermal eruption this mainly involves a lot of steam and some rocks hurtling through the air although something like this would be bad it wouldn't be nearly as scary as what we're getting in here a more likely eruption at Yellowstone would be a relatively simple lava flow in fact since the last major explosion six hundred thousand years ago we've had nearly 50 of these eruptions and zero casualties we know one way to almost certainly get killed by lava and it involves dropping your trash into it but that's a story for another what if foreign

Channel: What If

Views: 4,784,198

Keywords: what if, what happens if, scifi, science documentary, what if scenario, mysteries, what if humanity, what if earth, yellowstone, what if yellowstone explodes, yellowstone volcano eruption, yellowstone eruption simulation, supervolcano, yellowstone supervolcano, supervolcano eruption, how dangerous is yellowstone, volcanoes, earth, geology, volcanologist, yellowstone national park, super-eruptions, biggest volcano eruptions, iceland volcano latest, iceland volcano eruption live stream

Id: 2iRJb15W-14

Length: 4min 59sec (299 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 19 2020