Yellowstone is a national park covering 3,468 square miles in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana and it is elevated 8,000 feet from the ground on a plateau. But is there still present volcanic hazard in Yellowstone? The park is covered with over 10,000 geysers, hot springs, mud pots, and travertine terraces, perhaps caused by a ?hot spot? that it overlies. A violent history suggests equally as devastating future volcanic activity, underground forces are causing the landscape to change and geysers to become more active. The real question is, if a super volcanic explosion took place, would human life exist as we know it ever again?
The history of volcanic activity at Yellowstone starts with its first eruption at Huckleberry Ridge 2.1 million years ago, the leftovers reached as far as Iowa and central Texas. Then 800,000 years later, another eruption took place in Mesa Falls creating Henry Fork Caldera near Park, Montana. The last eruption took place 630,000 years ago, called the Lava Creek eruption, spewing 240 cubic miles of debris, and spreading as far as Louisiana and California.
Hidden underneath the park, powerful volcanic, magnetic, and hydrothermal forces are reforming the land. Several earthquakes, uplifting, and subsidence of the landscape proves that these powers exist. Recent studies have caused scientists to think that Yellowstone could be growing larger as flowing molten rock builds up below the ground. In a period of 10 years, the volcano has risen 5 inches, not a significantly detectable difference, but it may have split the ground in the Norris Geyser Bassin that could reawaken some of the geysers, like the Steamboat. In spite of this newly found information, scientists do not speculate the volcano erupting any time soon, but with time, it will end with a super natural disaster, destroying everything in its path
When Yellowstone does erupt, the United states could be covered in 3 feet of ash from the eruption. First, the pyroclastic flow would swallow most of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. Then, like Yellowstone eruptions have done before, the world would fall into a freezing, winter lasting around 10 years. Mass famine would take place all around the world as the eruption would have devastated the agriculture, effecting the food.
MILLER, C. D. POTENTIAL HAZARDS FROM FUTURE ERUPTIONS IN THE VICINITY OF MOUNT SHASTAVOLCANO, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA. N.p.: US Government Printing Office, 1980. Print.
Robbins, Jim. Last Refuge: The Environmental Showdown in Yellowstone and the American West. New York: Morrow, 1993. Print.
On May 22, 1915, an explosive eruption at Lassen Peak devastated nearby areas and rained volcanic ash farther 200 miles to the east! This explosion was the most powerful in a series of eruptions from 1914 through 1917. ...
In March 18, 1880 Mount St. Helens there was a catastrophic eruption that caused a huge volume of ash; the ash plume would be over central Colorado within 16 hours. After years of dedicated monitoring (knowing where to volcano is, unlike an earthquake not knowing exactly where this geological even is exactly) there was been increasing accuracy in forecasting eruptions.
Yellowstone is bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined. There are 50 mammal species, 311 bird species, and five endangered species. Rivers and lakes make up only 5% of Yellowstone (By 1870, Gold Fever Was Gone and the Great Yellowstone Expeditions Began. "Yellowstone National Park History."). The largest lake is called the Yellowstone Lake and is 136 miles long. The lake is known for having the highest altitude in North America ("56 Interesting Facts About . . . Var Addthis_config = ). In addition to lakes and rivers, there are about 290 waterfalls in the park. The highest waterfall is called Lower Falls and is 308 ft tall. Forests make up 80% of the park and an additional 15% is made up of grassland ("10 Surprising Facts About Yellowstone." National Geographic.). Yellowstone has one of the largest petrified forests from the big 1978 fire. The burned trees reformed into wood and minerals due to heat from the fire. The park sits on the Continental Divide, this means that half of the lakes run to the Pacific and the other half run into the Atlantic Ocean (United States. National Park Service. "Park Facts.). The average temperature during the summer is 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit and in the winter the average temperature is 0-20 degrees Fahrenheit. The average elevation is about 8,000 feet above sea level covered by mountains and lakes ( "Yellowstone National Park - Fast Facts."). The highest peak in the park is called Eagle Peak and is 11,358 feet high. The lowest peak in the park is Reese Creek which is 5,282 feet high. ( United States. National Park Service. "Park
volcanoes that are located in our region. In our Big Bend and Fort Davis areas, when
37,600 years ago with dacite and andesite eruptions of pumice and ash. Mudflows were very significant forces in all of St. Helens' eruptive cycles. Starting around 2500 BC, eruptions of large amounts of ash and yellowish-brown pumice covered thousands of square miles. This eruptive cycle lasted until about 1600 BC. After 400 years of inactivity, St. Helens came alive again around 1200 BC.
What is a super volcano, what is a volcano? A volcano itself is a hill or mountain with vents to the crusts of the earth that let magma sit under or in the mountain. “A super volcano is any volcano capable of producing a volcanic eruption with an ejecta volume greater than 1,000 km3 (240 cu mi). This is thousands of times larger than normal volcanic eruptions. Super volcanos are on a much bigger scale than other volcanoes. Unlike composite volcanoes, with their steep sides, they are difficult to spot.” (Internet Geography, geography.learnontheinternet.co.uk) An average volcano in the world would just cause local damage, but this super volcano could end life on earth. Not just with the eruption but the ash would cause a volcanic winter blocking the sun to long and then even more the ash would choke everything out and collapse roofs. Yea Rainier would kill thousands of people, but Yellowstone would literally kill billions plus of people. In comparison, Rainier is a little fly and Yellowstone is a Griffin {The big eagle lion bird thing}. Yellowstone has the capability to erupt 1,000 times stronger than Rainier ever could.
The eruption on Mount Saint Helens has a specific cause and comes with many effects. A multifold of people would say that the “mountain looked like the site of an atomic blast” (Bredeson 30). That is a very accurate depiction as it took great power to inflict as much damage as it did. The reason for this impressive amount of force is that when magma is built up with pressure and an earthquake hits, the pressure gets magnified and the volcano explodes (Lewis). This is exactly what happened inside Mount Saint Helens. Furthermore, it has been revealed that “The earthquake that triggered the explosion was a 5.2 on the Richter scale” (Gunn 559). The earthquake to the magma can be compared as a match to gasoline. Even though the earthquake was not huge, the scale of the eruption was much greater than that of the earthquake (Gunn 560). The earthquake was only the trigger that allowed for more devastating things to occur. Thirteen hundred feet of the volcano were lost in the explosion followed by landslides, mudslides, and lava flows...
The first time I saw Mt. Rainier for myself, was last summer when my boyfriend and I drove to Washington. It was the most beautiful, peaceful looking mountain I have ever seen. However, underneath it's great beauty, it hides a deadly secret. Mt. Rainier is one of the most dangerous volcanoes that we have here in the United States. One of the reasons it is so dangerous is because of it's great beauty. People enjoy looking at it, and the area that surrounds it, so they have made their homes here. Mt Rainier is not the only volcano I am interested in, in fact this last summer I also went to Mt. St. Helens and Crater Lake. But it is the volcano I chose to research for this paper because it does have so much beauty and at the same time so much power. I already know the basics about volcanoes, how they form, the different types, etc., but I wanted to find out more about what would happen if this great volcano were to erupt, what type of eruption would it be, and how would it affect the people that live around it.
Stories about volcanoes are captivating. Myths come in different versions, but all of them are capable of capturing yours, and everybody’s imagination.
Maunaloa last erupted in 1938 and Kilauea has been erupting since January 3,1938. The Hawaii Volcanoes National Park was named a World Biosphere site by UNESCO in 1987. Kilauea is also called the world's only drive-in volcano.
Volcanoes can be one of the most destructive forces on Earth. It is estimated that some
The earliest outcropping volcanic deposits date back to about 25,000 years ago. The lavas observed at a -1125 m bore-hole are about 0,3-0,5 million years old. It is known for the first eruption of which an eyewitness account is preserved, in 79 AD. Geologically, Vesuvio is unique for its unusual versatility. Its activity ranging from Hawaiian-style release of liquid lava, fountaining and lava lakes, over Strombolian and Vulcanian activity to violently explosive, plinian events that produce pyroclastic flows and surges.