Thanks to Brilliant for supporting this whole
week of SciShow! Go to Brilliant.org/SciShow to learn more. [ ♪INTRO ] You’ve probably heard of supervolcanoes. They’re like normal volcanoes, except … you
know … more volcano. You’ve probably also heard that some of
them — like Yellowstone — are ticking time bombs ready to go off at any moment and
wreak havoc on civilization as we know it. This idea pops up in lots of scary news headlines
and thrilling action movies, and let’s be honest, with the word “super” in the name,
it’s just a matter of time before the Avengers have to fight one somehow. And yet, despite all the hype, the one group
of people who aren’t particularly worried about these volcanoes are the scientists who
study them. The truth is that supervolcanoes are real
and they can cause unbelievable devastation, but they’re not really something we have
to worry about. One of the tools geologists use for measuring
volcanic eruptions is the awesomely-named Volcanic Explosivity Index. This is a scale that categorizes volcanoes
by how much tephra they spew out — tephra being the solid rock in the eruption, from
big volcanic bombs to very fine ash. Like the earthquake Richter scale, the magnitudes
are logarithmic, so every step up in number represents a ten-fold increase in volume of
erupted rock. The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens — which
was the most destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States — was a
5 on the VEI scale because it released around 1.3 cubic kilometers of tephra. On the other hand, the eruptions of Kilauea
in Hawai'i tend to have a VEI magnitude of 0. This is because while the volcano produces
a lot of semifluid rock, or lava, it doesn’t spit up a lot of solid stuff. That’s not to say that Kilauea isn’t dangerous,
it’s just isn’t very explosive. The highest an eruption can score on the explosivity
index is magnitude 8. It’s reserved for volcanoes that release
at least 1000 cubic kilometers of tephra in a single eruption. That’s 1 trillion cubic meters of rock and
ash — enough to fill 4 million olympic-sized swimming pools. These have sometimes been called super-eruptions,
so the volcanoes that can produce them have come to be called supervolcanoes, though the
term initially came from pop culture, not the scientific literature. Supervolcanoes aren’t common, but there
are several around today. If you go visit one, though, don’t expect
to see a tall ominous mountain. Instead, look for an enormous pit. You see, after a volcano erupts, the ground
will sometimes collapse into the now-empty magma chamber. This creates a bowl-shaped depression called
a caldera. And supervolcano calderas are so big they’re
almost hard to spot. A visitor to beautiful Lake Toba on the island
of Sumatra might not even realize that the 100-kilometer-long lake is actually a flooded
caldera. It was created in the aftermath of a super-eruption
that occurred around 74,000 years ago. Of course, perhaps the most famous supervolcano
in the world sits beneath Yellowstone National Park in northwest Wyoming. A large section of the park is taken up by
the Yellowstone caldera, which is roughly 72 kilometers long and 48 kilometers wide. Deep below the park, the magma chambers of
the supervolcano are still very much active, and it shows on the surface. Yellowstone is famous for its hot springs,
geysers, and other hydrothermal features which are created when water is superheated underground
by the volcano’s magma. But while the volcano may still be hot, the
last time it actually super-erupted was around 640,000 years ago. Humans as a species didn’t even exist then,
and we wouldn’t for another 300,000 years or so. Geologists can track ancient volcanic eruptions
by studying the petrified layers of ash or lava they leave behind. The rock record of the United States holds
evidence of 3 major Yellowstone eruptions, 2 of which were super-eruptions. The first one occurred 2.1 million years ago,
and was one of the largest known volcanic eruptions in history, covering more than half
of the United States in an estimated 2,450 cubic kilometers of tephra. The more recent Yellowstone super-eruption
of 640,000 years ago was quite a bit smaller, producing about 1,000 cubic kilometers of
material. It’s the one that created the caldera you
can go visit today. And worldwide, the most recent known super-eruption
was that of Taupō in New Zealand which exploded a mere 27,000 years ago. Super-eruptions may be devastating, but they’re
not frequent. Based on past eruptions, geologists have estimated
they occur every 17,000 to 45,000 years, or so. But those numbers are just an average, not
a prediction. Volcanoes don’t operate on precise cycles. That’s just not how they work. The forces that lead to an eruption don’t
build at a constant rate. So there isn’t a volcano on Earth that’s
“overdue” for an eruption of any kind, let alone a super-eruption. And while that lack of clock-like activity
means we can’t predict exactly when a supervolcano will erupt, if Yellowstone was about to, volcanologists
would know because it’s the best-studied supervolcano around. It’s what’s called a hotspot volcano. These happen when a particularly hot region
of the Earth’s mantle melts a lot of nearby rock into magma, which then rises toward the
surface. Over the last several million years, the North
American continental plate has been sliding slowly to the west, while the mantle hotspot
has stayed relatively still. This has created a line of volcanoes stretching
from the west coast of North America to Yellowstone’s current home in Wyoming. In the future, as the crust continues to move,
Yellowstone will be pulled away from the hotspot, and perhaps a new volcanic center will form
farther to the east. But for the time being, Yellowstone is still
very much an active volcano. It’s fueled by a pair of enormous underground
magma chambers, the size of which we only came to appreciate in 2015 when a study explored
Yellowstone’s nether regions using a technique called seismic tomography. It’s like a CT-scan, except using earthquake
tremors instead of X-rays. Earthquakes create seismic waves, and because
these waves travel differently through different materials — such as molten rock versus cooler
solid rock — scientists can examine earthquake data to image what’s going on underground. The study was the first to visualize both
partially-molten magma chambers beneath Yellowstone, together comprising more than 50,000 cubic
kilometers in volume. Now, a magma chamber isn’t just a big tub
of glowing goo. It’s a region of hot crust where some of
the pore space between the rock is taken up by molten magma. In these particular magma chambers, the researchers
estimated that between 5 and 15% of the rock is liquidy. And these magma chambers are the main sources
of Yellowstone’s volcanic activity — activity which, by the way, includes a lot more than
just the occasional super-eruption. Over the last several hundred thousand years,
Yellowstone has produced around 80 non-explosive eruptions of lava, the last one occurring
around 70,000 years ago. And even more common than that are steam explosions. At least 26 have happened during the 126 years
that scientists have been monitoring the region. Super-eruptions, by comparison, are extremely
rare, in part because it takes exceptional circumstances to set them off. Standard volcanoes tend to blow because magma
flows into the volcano’s interior, increasing the pressure like air flowing into a balloon
until it pops. But this mechanism isn’t likely to cause
a super-eruption, since the magma chamb ers of supervolcanoes tend to be larger and have
hotter, more flexible walls. As new magma flows in, the chambers can simply
expand. So two 2014 studies concluded that super-eruptions
are instead caused by a high level of magma buoyancy. See, magma is hotter and less dense than solid
rock, so buried magma naturally tends to rise if it can. Imagine you’ve forced an inflated beach
ball underwater in a pool. The air is much less dense than the water,
so if you let the ball go, it launches quickly up and through the surface. Using computer models and laboratory simulations,
the two studies concluded that super-eruptions happen much the same way. Once enough magma builds up, the crust can’t
hold it in any more, and it erupts. And geologists don’t think this is likely
to happen anytime soon. For one thing, magma chambers typically need
to be at least 50% molten before they can erupt, and as I mentioned, Yellowstone’s
are 15% molten at best. Besides, if a super-eruption were about to
happen, the changing underground conditions would create noticable changes on the surface
as well. Sure, it’s tempting to read about a big
earthquake or the changing geyser patterns at Yellowstone and wonder if the end is nigh,
but it’s important to remember that that kind of thing is part of the volcano’s normal
activity. Yellowstone experiences between 1,000 and
3,000 earthquakes each year, most of which are too small for people to notice. Also, those geysers have always been dynamic
features. And the ground continually rises and falls
as things underneath shift about. So all of that seemingly dramatic activity
isn’t a sign of impending doom … it’s a Tuesday. If a super-eruption were building, earthquakes
would be far more frequent, more intense, and more concentrated in particular areas. And we would see similar striking changes
to patterns of geyser activity and ground movement. There may even be chemical clues of an impending
major eruption in Yellowstone or other supervolcanoes. A 2018 study examined the history of major
volcanic eruptions in the Phlegraean Fields of Italy, and characterized how the composition
of magma changed as eruptions approached. Based on that, they concluded that the region
is beginning to build to its next major eruption... but that it will probably be tens of thousands
of years before it actually blows. And across the board, volcanologists say we’ll
get years or decades if not centuries of warning before a supervolcano erupts. Still, they’re keeping an eye on them just
in case. For example, the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory
monitors geologic activity all across the park. So you can rest assured that if anything changes,
we’ll know about it. Right now, the United States Geological Survey
says that the chances of a Yellowstone super-eruption happening in the next few thousand years are
quote “exceedingly small.” In fact, it’s not even a sure thing that
Yellowstone will ever have another super-eruption. Thanks to the movement of the crust, the Yellowstone
caldera is already slightly to the northeast of the major magma chamber beneath it. Yellowstone might simply be dragged away from
its heat source before it gets the chance to blow its top again. So there’s really no reason to lose sleep
worrying about a super-eruption. But, just for imagination’s sake … what
would happen if one of them did go off, say, tomorrow? Well, the eruption could have impacts all
over the globe. The region nearest to the supervolcano would
experience the absolute worst versions of the standard volcano arsenal, including lava
flows, pyroclastic clouds, earthquakes, toxic gases, and more. If Yellowstone went off, for instance, it’s
unlikely anyone in the park would survive. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the United
States would have to worry about ash. Here in Missoula, almost a third of a meter
of volcanic ash could rain down, and even places like Orlando and DC could receive a
few millimeters of the stuff. Those tiny particles of rock and volcanic
glass can clog up engines, damage lungs, and even collapse the roofs of buildings if enough
falls. So a Yellowstone super-eruption would cause
medical, economic, and structural chaos across the country. And, wherever in the world it happened, a
super-eruption would almost certainly mess with global climate. The eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 pumped
so much volcanic ash and gas into the atmosphere that global temperatures dropped about 3 °C
the following year. And it only ranked a 7 on the VEI scale. A super-eruption might do the same thing on
a larger scale, impacting just about every corner of the globe. But, though there’d be some havoc, it wouldn’t
be the end of the world. None of Yellowstone’s previous eruptions
are linked to major extinction events. Neither are the eruptions of any other supervolcanoes,
for that matter. We might fear for our own safety because for
a long time, scientists have thought the Toba super-eruption 74,000 years ago caused a decline
in human populations. But even that has been called into question
by more recent archeological data. Regardless, all of this really isn’t something
we need to worry about today. I can’t stress this enough: volcanologists
say there’s no reason to think any supervolcano is going off anytime soon. Still, researchers will continue to monitor
and collect data on supervolcanoes Because, someday in the future — in several
thousand years, maybe — Yellowstone or another supervolcano will start stirring, and future
humans will be really glad we spent all this time studying supervolcanoes when it does. Until then, we can leave the doomsday stories
to Hollywood. In order to understand and predict volcanic
eruptions, volcanologists need serious math chops to understand their data. If you want to brush up on your own math skills,
Brilliant.org has a bunch of math-related courses to cultivate your abilities. Not to mention science, engineering, and computer
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