There is probably no person who has not heard about the volcano. Its giant caldera, which occupies a third of Yellowstone National Park, is the largest supervolcano in North America, and has recently become the object of close attention of scientists and fans of volcanology. Yellowstone is a dormant supervolcano, but its activity has been rapidly increasing in recent years. Many researchers argue that this could happen as early as 2015–2016, and its consequences will be catastrophic for the population of our entire planet.

Location: Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, USA
Height: 3142 m
Type: supervolcano
Number of eruptions: 3

Structure and eruptions of Yellowstone

Yellowstone is located above a so-called hot spot characterized by prolonged volcanism. For a long time it was believed that under the “lid” of the caldera there was one huge bubble of magma with a depth of over 8000 m, but more recently scientists discovered a much larger reservoir under the upper bubble, 4.4 times larger than the first. The volcano is fed by a large plume (a hot mantle flow with a temperature of 1600 °C), part of which closer to the surface melts into magma and contributes to the appearance of geysers and gas emissions.

Over the past 2.1 million years, Yellowstone Volcano has erupted 3 times:

1. The Huckleberry Ridge eruption 2.1 million years ago was a catastrophe of continental proportions, during which over 160 km³ of rock was thrown out. The stones rose to a height of about 50 km, and volcanic ash covered a quarter of the continent.
2. The eruption of Mesa Falls volcano 1.3 million years ago, which ejected 280 km³ of rock.
3. The Lava Creek eruption 640 thousand years ago, which formed a huge caldera with a circumference of about 150 km.

Tourism in Yellowstone

Yellowstone Park is the first national park in the world, founded in March 1872. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and welcomes over 2 million tourists annually, attracted not only by the volcano's caldera, but also by its many canyons, caves and ponds. The park features more than 1,280 geysers, including Old Faithful, which erupts every 63 minutes, and Grand Prismatic Spring, which sparkles in a rainbow of colors thanks to colorful algae and bacteria. Although the probability of a volcanic eruption is quite high, tourists continue to come to the park and enjoy its beauty.

Morning in Yellowstone 06/15/2015

Old Faithful Geyser

HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF YELLOWSTONE

In 1870, a search expedition was sent to the central-northern parts of the United States to explore the territory of the state. At the end of August, researchers approached Mount Washburn, and on August 29, several people climbed to its summit, but the first among them was Gustav Doan, a lieutenant in the American army. Looking from the mountain to the southern part, the military man saw a huge depression among the Rocky Mountains, which was covered with forests.

Dawn was interested in this territory and in his diary he wrote the following: “I discovered a large depression, most likely it is the crater of a long-extinct volcano that has been dormant for a long time.” And in fact, the lieutenant turned out to be right - Yellowstone is really a volcano, and of gigantic size, and at the same time it does not sleep, it is sensitively awake and from time to time demonstrates its tough temper. Nowadays, in the territory of Yellowstone, hot water literally rises from the ground, as well as clouds of various gases.

The territory was explored for several years, and in 1872, on March 1, Yellowstone National Park was created here. Today it is a large biosphere reserve; it is also included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Moreover, in those years for the United States it was one of the very first national parks created by the state.

In total, the park covers a total area of ​​898 thousand hectares and is located on the lands of three American states: Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK AND TOURISM IN THE PARK

Yellowstone National Park is an amazingly beautiful place, local coniferous forests, caves, canyons, beautiful waterfalls, rivers, lakes, geysers, all this is literally mesmerizing.

According to many tourists, the real pearl of the park is the lake of the same name, the peculiarity of which is its location. This is one of the highest lakes in the whole world, as it is located at an altitude of 2135 meters above sea level.

Yellowstone Park has a special structure, as it is located on a plateau, and due to the presence of mountain ranges along the perimeter, a special microclimate is created here. Since through fairly high mountains, on average 2500 meters above sea level, cold winds, and indeed winds in general, cannot spread much on the surface of the park.

The park itself is also located quite high - 2400 meters above sea level. The highest point in the park is Mount Eagle Peak, which is 3,462 meters high. The plateau itself was formed by numerous and constant volcanic eruptions. Each eruption was accompanied by the release of lava, which over time was destroyed, eroded, and a forest grew on its surface.

In addition to the beautiful lake and beautiful landscapes, there are a large number of hot geysers and springs in Yellowstone Park. Also here is the largest geyser, named Excelsior. Steam and a column of boiling water from time to time bursts upward from underground with great noise, and rises to approximately a height of hundreds of meters. The steam rises even higher, about 300 meters.

Moreover, the appearance of a column of water and a column of boiling water occurs completely unexpectedly, and a sudden cessation of emission also occurs. Another geyser, the Old Faithful, is also very popular. It has its own peculiarity - the geyser is very punctual, it throws a stream of hot water into the air every 65 minutes, which rises to a height of 50 meters. The Old Faithful's eruption of water is quite long and takes five minutes, after which everything stops and resumes again after 65 minutes.

Yellowstone Park has a wide variety of flora and fauna. Here you can meet many representatives of the animal world: several species of bears, deer, elk, bison, lynxes, wolves and many other four-legged animals roam the park.

In the numerous rivers and lakes of the park there are about 20 species of fish, even some that are rare. There are a very large number of representatives of the feathered world - about 300 species of birds in the park, most of them breed their chicks here during the warm season.

Therefore, it is not surprising that Yellowstone National Park attracts a huge number of tourists to its territory every year. Despite the fact that hunting is prohibited here, and in some periods there is a restriction on fishing, there is no end to those who want to visit this place.

This is understandable, since the local infrastructure is literally “tailored” for tourist flows. Tourists are offered various tours, varying in complexity, length of stay, mode of transportation, etc.

The most popular is the tourist route, the duration of which is from three to 5 days. During this entire time, tourists are offered to see various parts of the national park, introducing them to representatives of flora, fauna, and natural attractions. Without fail, each tour includes a visit to all the main attractions of Yellowstone National Park, from the Mammoth Terraces to the supervolcano.

YELLOWSTONE VOLCANO

The Yellowstone Supervolcano, or as it is also called the Yellowstone Caldera, refers to the entire name of the volcano located within Yellowstone National Park. The peculiarity of this volcano is that it is located in the very center of the tectonic plate, more precisely the North American one, which is not entirely typical for volcanoes, since they like to be in the place where these same tectonic plates connect. Today, the volcano is very poorly studied and scientists have more questions about it than answers.

It is worth noting that the Yellowstone volcano does not have a very typical, traditional shape for volcanoes. Firstly, it is very huge in size, and secondly, it completely lacks a cone, in fact, it is a kind of volcano in reverse. And this is due to the fact that its upper part sank into the local territory below ground level. After the failure, a large depression was formed, which among scientists is also called a caldera. This word has Spanish roots and when translated into Russian, the Spanish word Caldera means cauldron.

The Yellowstone volcano has a thinned crust throughout its entire territory. Under a small thickness of this very crust there is a huge amount of hot magma. The dimensions of this supervolcano are amazing - the diameter of the caldera is within 60 kilometers.
Recent research by scientists has shown that representatives of science were previously slightly mistaken about the real size of the volcano and its potential danger. In fact, both the area and volumes of hot magma inside the Yellowstone volcano need to be multiplied by at least two and a half times.

SCENARIO OF THE YELLOWSTONE ERUPTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

In fact, Yellowstone is a practically dormant volcano; it has not shown serious signs of life for hundreds of thousands of years. Despite this, under the thin earth's crust there is a large volume of magma, which boils, moves and wants to break out. As a result of regular research and observation of the park, it became known that its entire territory is rising by several centimeters from year to year. This is indisputable evidence that the volcano lives a life of its own and is gradually growing.

Since the Yellowstone volcano does not have a well-known crater, like mountains, hot lava is pumped over almost the entire surface area of ​​the volcano. It is for this reason that there is increased geothermal activity here; it is on the territory of Yellowstone Park that half of all geysers and geothermal springs on Earth are located.

Recent research by scientists has led them to the conclusion that the supervolcano undergoes eruptions almost every 600 thousand years. Moreover, the last time an eruption occurred was quite a long time ago - 640 thousand years ago. That is, the Yellowstone volcano has been in a rather long hibernation and every year the likelihood that it will wake up increases, but unfortunately no one knows when this will all happen.

Moreover, this could be triggered by a major earthquake, which would cause the earth’s crust to fracture and... 38 thousand cubic meters of hot steam would burst out, followed by huge reserves of lava. According to scientists, if this happens, there will be nothing alive left around Yellowstone within a radius of one thousand kilometers.

So what will be the scenario for the development of the eruption of one of the largest supervolcanoes on Earth?

One scenario has already been played out in the past. Then, 640 thousand years ago, the Yellowstone volcano exploded, and in an instant a huge volume of earth and everything that was on it rose several kilometers into the sky. In just a few minutes, the entire territory of the supervolcano was completely destroyed, leaving only a huge caldera at the site of the explosion - 48 by 72 kilometers.

At the moment of the explosion, the volcano managed to raise about a thousand cubic kilometers of dust, sang and stones into the sky; for comparison, the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 was a thousand times smaller. But then, in the early 80s, there were 57 victims from the eruption.

As a result of the explosion of Yellowstone 640 thousand years ago, a lot of dust and ash was formed, which covered everything around for thousands of kilometers. It is worth noting that this was not the most powerful eruption, the most powerful eruption occurred 2 million years ago and it was twice as powerful.

The scenario for the development of the Yellowstone eruption in our time may look like this. First, gases and water vapor will be released from a crack in the earth's crust, after which it will be the turn of hot magma, which will spread throughout the entire park.

Within a few minutes after the explosion, according to analysts, 90 thousand people will die immediately. Further, within a radius of one and a half thousand kilometers from Yellowstone, up to three meters of hot ash will fall in just one day. It is these ashes that will cause the death of a large number of people and all living things; they will literally bury milestones.

Then a huge volume of volcanic ash will begin to spread across the Earth, blocking any movement of air transport, since aircraft simply will not be able to fly in such a density of microparticles.

Also, during a supervolcano eruption, a lot of sulfur volcanic gases will rise into the Earth's atmosphere and they will react with water vapor from the lower layers of the atmosphere. As a result, the entire planet will be enveloped in a kind of gas haze, which will entail changes in climate. Firstly, because of this haze, less sunlight will begin to reach the surface of the earth, and secondly, as a result of the arrival of less heat on the Earth, the average temperature will drop, and significantly - by 15-20 degrees.

Due to the lowering of the temperature regime on the planet, in many regions, part or all of the harvest of cultivated plants will die, crops will turn into huge fields of rotten plants that simply did not have time to ripen. It is for this reason that there may be a large food shortage throughout the world.

Also, according to most scientists, states on almost the entire continent of North America will be destroyed - the USA and Canada will suffer the most.

True, there are more optimistic options for the development of the scenario after the explosion of a supervolcano. According to them, only a few hundred kilometers around Yellowstone will be significantly affected.

According to American volcanologists, the eruption of the largest volcano in the world, the Yellowstone Caldera, which is located in Yellowstone National Park, could begin at any minute.

The volcano has not erupted for about 600 thousand years and its eruption could destroy two-thirds of the US territory, which could even begin a world catastrophe - the Apocalypse, as American scientists believe.

The super-volcano beneath Yellowstone National Park in the US state of Wyoming has begun to grow at a record rate since 2004 and will explode with a force a thousand times more powerful than the catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state on May 18, 1980, which killed 57 people.

Layout of the giant volcano.

According to volcanologists, lava will rise high into the sky, and ash will cover nearby areas with a layer of 3 meters and a distance of 1,600 kilometers.

Two-thirds of the US could become uninhabitable due to toxic air - thousands of flights would have to be canceled and millions of people would have to flee their homes.

Experts predict that the eruption volcano will happen in the near future - in 2011-2012 and will be no less powerful than all three times the volcano has erupted over the past 2.1 million years.

Robert B. Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah, noted that the magma came so close to the earth's crust in Yellowstone Park that it literally radiated heat that could not be explained by anything other than the impending eruption of a huge volcano.

July 22, 1980: Mount St. Helens in Washington definitely catches fire. The Yellowstone caldera volcano during an eruption can explode with a force a thousand times more powerful and cause many more casualties.

Yellowstone National Park is a bomb that may explode in the coming years.

Sometimes it seems that only God's punishment can stop the United States. Those who believe in the evil doom hanging over America have a very serious argument. In the very center of this country, in its most fertile corner, a natural disaster is brewing. Yellowstone National Park, known for its forests, grizzly bears and hot springs, is actually a bomb that will explode in the coming years. If this happens, the entire North American continent may perish. And the rest of the world will not find it enough. But the world won't end, don't worry.

All power to the council

And it all started with joy. In 2002, several new geysers with healing hot water appeared simultaneously in the Yellowstone Nature Reserve. Local tourism companies immediately began to promote this phenomenon, and the number of visitors to the park, which usually amounts to about three million people a year, increased even more.

However, strange things soon began to happen. In 2004, the US government tightened the regime for visiting the reserve. The number of security guards on its territory has sharply increased, and some areas have been declared closed to visitors. But seismologists and volcanologists frequented them.

They had worked in Yellowstone before, because the entire reserve with its unique nature is nothing more than a huge patch on the crater of an extinct supervolcano. Actually, this is where the hot geysers come from. On their way to the surface of the earth, they are heated by the magma rustling and gurgling under the earth's crust. All local sources were known back in the days when white colonizers recaptured Yellowstone from the Indians, and here you have three new ones! Why did it happen?

Scientists became worried. One after another, commissions to study volcanic activity began to visit the park. What they dug there was not reported to the general public, but it is known that in 2007, a Scientific Council with emergency powers was created under the Office of the President of the United States. It included several of the country's leading geophysicists and seismologists, as well as members of the National Security Council, including the secretary of defense and intelligence officials.

George W. Bush personally chaired the monthly meetings of this body.

That same year, Yellowstone National Park moved from departmental subordination to the Department of the Interior under the direct control of the Scientific Council. Why would the American authorities pay so much attention to a simple resort?

The end has crept up unnoticed

And the whole point is that the ancient and, as it was believed, safe supervolcano, on which the Paradise Valley is located, suddenly showed signs of activity. The miraculously clogged springs became its first manifestation.

Further more. Seismologists discovered a sharp rise in soil under the reserve. Over the past four years, she has swollen by 178 centimeters. This is despite the fact that over the previous twenty years the ground rise was no more than 10 centimeters.

Seismologists were joined by mathematicians. Based on information about previous eruptions of the Yellowstone volcano, they developed an algorithm for its life activity. The result was shocking. The fact that the intervals between eruptions are constantly decreasing was known to scientists before.

However, given the astronomical duration of such intervals, this information had no practical significance for humanity. Well, in fact, the volcano erupted 2 million years ago, then 1.3 million years ago and the last time 630 thousand years ago.

The Geological Society of America expected his awakening no earlier than 20 thousand years later. But based on new data, computers produced an unexpected result. The next catastrophe should be expected in 2075. However, after some time it became clear that events were developing much faster. The result had to be corrected again.

The terrible date has approached. Now it looms between 2012 and 2016, with the first figure looking more likely.

It would seem, just think, an eruption, especially since it is known in advance. Well, the Americans will evacuate the population from a dangerous area, and then they will spend money on restoring the destroyed infrastructure...

Alas, only those who are not familiar with supervolcanoes can argue this way.

Worse than a nuclear war

A typical volcano, as we imagine it, is a cone-shaped hill with a crater from which lava, ash and gases erupt. It is formed like this.

Deep in the bowels of our planet, magma is constantly boiling, which from time to time bursts upward through cracks, faults and other “defects” in the earth’s crust. As the magma rises, it releases gases, becoming volcanic lava, and flows out through the top of a fissure, commonly called a vent. Solidifying around the vent, the products of the eruption build up the cone of the volcano.

Supervolcanoes have a feature that, until recently, no one even suspected of their existence. They are not at all similar to the cone-shaped “caps” with a vent inside that are familiar to us. These are vast areas of thinned earth's crust, under which hot magma pulsates. A simple volcano looks like a pimple, a supervolcano looks like a huge inflammation. Several ordinary volcanoes may be located on the territory of a supervolcano. They may erupt from time to time, but these emissions can be compared to the release of steam from an overheated boiler. But imagine that the boiler itself will explode! After all, supervolcanoes do not erupt, but explode.

What do these explosions look like?

From below, the pressure of magma on the thin surface of the earth gradually increases. A hump is formed with a height of several hundred meters and a diameter of 15-20 kilometers. Numerous vents and cracks appear along the perimeter of the hump, and then its entire central part collapses down into the fiery abyss.

The collapsed rocks, like a piston, sharply squeeze out gigantic fountains of lava and ash from the depths.

The force of this explosion exceeds the charge of the most powerful nuclear bomb. According to geophysicists, if the Yellowstone mine explodes, the effect will exceed a hundred Hiroshimas. The calculations, of course, are purely theoretical. During its existence, homo sapiens has never encountered such a phenomenon. The last time it boomed was during the time of the dinosaurs. Perhaps this is why they became extinct.

As it will be

A few days before the explosion, the earth's crust above the supervolcano will rise several meters. At the same time, the soil will heat up to 60-70 degrees. The concentration of hydrogen sulfide and helium in the atmosphere will increase sharply.

The first thing we will see is a cloud of volcanic ash, which will rise into the atmosphere to a height of 40-50 kilometers.

the pieces will be thrown to great heights. As they fall, they will cover a gigantic area. In the first hours of a new eruption in Yellowstone, an area within a radius of 1000 kilometers around the epicenter will be destroyed. Here, residents of almost the entire American northwest (Seattle) and parts of Canada (Calgary, Vancouver) are in immediate danger.

Streams of hot mud will rage over an area of ​​10 thousand square kilometers, the so-called pyroclastic wave - the deadliest product of the eruption. They will arise when the pressure of lava shooting high into the atmosphere weakens and part of the column collapses on the surrounding area in a huge avalanche, burning everything in its path. It will be impossible to survive in pyroclastic flows of such magnitude. At temperatures above 400 degrees, human bodies will simply cook, the flesh will separate from the bones.

The hot slurry will kill about 200 thousand people in the first minutes after the eruption begins.

But these are very minor losses compared to those that America will suffer as a result of a series of earthquakes and tsunamis that the explosion will provoke. They will already claim tens of millions of lives. This is provided that the North American continent does not go under water at all, like Atlantis.

Then the ash cloud from the volcano will begin to spread wider. Within 24 hours, the entire territory of the United States up to the Mississippi will be in the disaster zone. Volcanic ash only sounds harmless, but in fact it is the most dangerous phenomenon during an eruption. Ash particles are so small that neither gauze bandages nor respirators protect against them. Once in the lungs, the ash mixes with mucus, hardens and turns into cement....

Territories located thousands of kilometers from the volcano may be most at risk. When the layer of volcanic ash reaches a thickness of 15 centimeters, the load on the roofs will become too great and buildings will begin to collapse. It is estimated that between one and fifty people in each home will be killed or seriously injured. This will be the main cause of death in the areas around Yellowstone bypassed by the pyroclastic wave, where the ash layer will be no less than 60 centimeters.

Other deaths will follow from poisoning. After all, the precipitation will be extremely toxic. It will take two to three weeks for clouds of ash and ash to cross the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and after a month they will cover the Sun across the entire Earth.

Frost the Voivode

Soviet scientists once predicted that the most terrible consequence of a global nuclear conflict would be the so-called “nuclear winter.” The same thing will happen as a result of the explosion of a supervolcano.

Two weeks after the sun disappears into dust clouds, the air temperature on the earth's surface will drop in various parts of the globe from -15 degrees to -50 degrees or more. The average temperature on the Earth's surface will be about -25 degrees.

Winter will last for at least a year and a half. This is enough to forever change the natural balance on the planet. Due to long frosts and lack of light, vegetation will die. Since plants are involved in the production of oxygen, very soon it will become difficult for everyone living on the planet to breathe. The fauna of the Earth will die painfully from cold, hunger and epidemics. The human race will have to move from the surface of the earth underground for at least three years, and then who knows...

But, in general, this sad forecast mainly concerns residents of the Western Hemisphere. Residents of other parts of the world, including Russians, have a much higher chance of survival. And the consequences will apparently not be so catastrophic. But for the population of North America, the chances of survival are minimal.

Save yourself who can!

But if the American authorities are aware of the problem, why are they not doing anything to prevent it? Why hasn’t information about the upcoming catastrophe reached the general public yet?

The first question is not difficult to answer: neither the States themselves nor humanity as a whole can prevent the impending explosion. Therefore, the White House is preparing for the worst-case scenario. According to analysts from the CIA, “as a result of the disaster, two-thirds of the population will die, the economy will be destroyed, transport and communications will be disorganized. In the context of an almost complete cessation of supplies, the military potential remaining at our disposal will decrease to a level sufficient only to maintain order in the country.”

As for notifying the population, the authorities recognized such actions as inappropriate. Well, in fact, it is possible to escape from a sinking ship, and even then not always. Where to run from the broken and burning continent?

The US population is now approaching the three hundred million mark. In principle, there is nowhere to put this biomass, especially since after the disaster there will be no safe places left on the planet. Every state will have big problems, and no one will want to aggravate them by accepting millions of refugees.

In any case, this is the conclusion reached by the Scientific Council under the President of the United States. According to its members, there is only one way out - to abandon the majority of the population to the will of fate and take care of preserving capital, military potential and the elite of American society. So, a few months before the explosion, the best scientists, military, high-tech specialists, and, of course, the rich will be taken out of the country. There is no doubt that every billionaire has a place reserved on the future ark. But you can no longer guarantee the fate of ordinary millionaires. They will save themselves.

God bless Liberia

Actually, the above information became known thanks to the efforts of the American scientist and journalist Howard Huxley, who has been working on the problems of the Yellowstone volcano since the 80s, has established connections in geophysics circles, like many famous journalists was associated with the CIA and is a recognized authority in scientific circles.

Realizing what the country was heading for, Howard and his like-minded people created the Foundation for Saving Civilization. Their goal is to warn humanity about the impending disaster and give everyone a chance to survive, not just members of the elite.

Over the course of several years, Foundation employees have accumulated a wealth of information. In particular, they calculated exactly where the cream of American society would go after the disaster.

Liberia, a small state in West Africa, traditionally following in the wake of American politics, will become an island of salvation for them. There have been massive injections of money into this country for several years now. There is a network of excellent roads, airports and, as they say, an extensive system of deep, very well-maintained bunkers. The American elite will be able to sit in this hole for several years, and then, when the situation stabilizes, begin to restore the destroyed state and its influence in the world.

In the meantime, there are still a few years left, the White House and the Science Council are trying to solve urgent military problems. There is no doubt that the coming catastrophe will be perceived by most religious people as God's punishment for America. Surely many Islamic states will want to finish off “shaitan” while he licks his wounds. You can't think of a better reason for jihad.

Therefore, since 2003, preemptive strikes have been carried out on a number of Muslim countries with the aim of destroying their military potential. Whether the American military machine will have time to neutralize these threats before 2012, God knows.

A vicious circle has formed. Due to the aggressive policy, the United States has more and more ill-wishers, and less and less time remains to neutralize them

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The Yellowstone supervolcano, the explosion of which will destroy all of North America and doom half the world to slow death, is beginning to awaken.

There is still a danger of the destruction of our entire civilization, many scientists admit. The fact is that the inevitable processes within our planet, occurring before our eyes, are recognized by experts as a global threat that can wipe out entire continents from the face of the Earth. Seismologists say that the Yellowstone Caldera is the most destructive force on our planet.

One of the last eruptions of this magnitude occurred in Sumatra 73 thousand years ago, when the explosion of the Toba supervolcano reduced the Earth's population by about 15 times. Then only 5-10 thousand people survived. The number of animals decreased by the same amount, and three quarters of the flora of the Northern Hemisphere died. At the site of that explosion, a pit with an area of ​​1775 square meters was formed. km, which could fit two New Yorks or Londons.

Against this background, it is difficult to imagine what could happen if the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, which is twice the size of Toba! “A supervolcano eruption dwarfs all others, and its power is a real threat to everyone living on this planet,” said Bill McGuire, professor of geophysics and climate change expert at University College London.

THE STATES LIVE ON A POWDER KEG

What is this ticking time bomb in the northwestern United States? A supervolcano is not a cone-shaped formation with a vent, like ordinary volcanoes. In appearance it is a lowland, called a caldera by volcanologists, which resembles a huge depression. This unremarkable hollow is a gigantic volcano with an eruption area of ​​several thousand square kilometers. By the way, due to its gigantic size, scientists initially did not even recognize the caldera in Yellowstone Park in the USA. Satellite photos showed that the entire park covers an area of ​​3,825 square kilometers and is a caldera measuring about 55 km by 72 km.

The outside of Yellowstone Nature Reserve is covered in picturesque landscapes, but inside this huge valley is filled with hot magma. Over thousands of years, magma filled huge underground reservoirs, melting rock, becoming so dense that volcanic gases, which cause eruptions in ordinary volcanoes, cannot pass through it. Therefore, a huge amount of molten magma presses from below onto the surface of the Earth. This continues for hundreds of thousands of years until the abscess breaks and a terrible explosion occurs.

With such crushing power at their fingertips, US authorities have set scientists the task of calculating the date of the next supervolcano eruption. According to scientists, the period between supervolcano explosions is approximately 600 thousand years. Given this periodicity, the next cataclysm will fall in our century. At first, researchers talked about 2075, but in the summer of 2003, strange things began to happen in Yellowstone Park. The temperature of the soil rose to the boiling point, cracks opened, through which hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide - volcanic gases contained in the magma - began to ooze. These signs gave scientists reason to believe that magma had escaped from the chamber and was approaching the surface at a speed that had increased several times. In this regard, the date of the expected volcanic eruption was shifted by almost 50 years. “Over the past two million years, Yellowstone has had three massive eruptions, each of which turned half the continent into desert,” says Robert Smith, a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah. “As long as the magma of the supervolcano (although it has been rising by 8 cm per year since 2004) is located at a depth of 10 kilometers from its vent, it is too early to worry, but if it rises to a level of 2-3 km, we will have serious reasons for concern.” .

But there are reasons for concern. Back in 2002, three new geysers appeared near the old caldera in Yellowstone, which are one of the manifestations of the later stages of volcanism. Over the past four years, the soil has risen by almost 180 cm, which is 45 times higher than the previous four years.

AS IT WILL BE

If an explosion occurs, then, according to scientists, the picture will be worse than the description of the Apocalypse. It all starts with a sharp rise and overheating of the earth in Yellowstone Park. And when enormous pressure breaks through the caldera, thousands of cubic kilometers of lava will pour out of the resulting vent, which will resemble a huge pillar of fire. The explosion will be accompanied by a powerful earthquake and lava flows reaching speeds of several hundred kilometers per hour.

The eruption will continue for several days, but people and animals will mostly die not from ash or lava, but due to suffocation and hydrogen sulfide poisoning. During this time, the air in the entire western United States will be poisoned so that a person will be able to survive for no more than 5-7 minutes. A thick layer of ash will cover almost the entire US territory - from Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, which will be wiped off the face of the Earth, to Iowa and the Gulf of Mexico. The ozone hole over the continent will grow to such a size that the level of radiation will approach Chernobyl. All of North America will turn into scorched earth. Southern Canada will also be seriously affected. Scientists do not deny that the Yellowstone giant will provoke the eruption of several hundred ordinary volcanoes around the world. At the same time, eruptions of ocean volcanoes will generate many tsunamis that will flood the coasts and all island states. The long-term consequences will be no less terrible than the eruption itself. And if the United States bears the brunt, the effect will be felt by the whole world.

Thousands of cubic kilometers of ash thrown into the atmosphere will block the sunlight - the world will plunge into darkness. This will cause a sharp drop in temperature, for example, in Canada and Norway the thermometer will drop by 15-20oC in a couple of days. If the temperature drops by 21 degrees, as during the last eruption of the Toba supervolcano, all territories up to the 50th parallel - Norway, Finland or Sweden - will turn into Antarctica. A “nuclear winter” will come, which will last about four years. Continuous acid rain will destroy all crops and crops, kill livestock, dooming the surviving people to starvation. The “billionaire” countries - India and China - will suffer the most from hunger. Here, up to 1.5 billion people will die from starvation in the coming months after the explosion. In total, in the first months of the cataclysm, every third inhabitant of the Earth will die. The only region that can survive is the central part of Eurasia. Most people, according to scientists, will survive in Siberia and the Eastern European part of Russia, located on earthquake-resistant platforms, remote from the epicenter of the explosion and protected from the tsunami.

ONLY NUMBERS

According to the British broadcasting corporation BBC, while ordinary volcanoes kill thousands of people and destroy entire cities, supervolcanoes claim billions of lives and devastate continents.

IN 2500 times More powerful than Etna's last eruption, Yellowstone is expected to explode.

IN 15 times The Yellowstone caldera will emit more ash than the Krakatoa volcano, which killed 36 thousand people.

Before 20-30 cm Visibility will decrease due to the resulting ash curtain.

Tokyo, the largest city in the world, will fit into the caldera formed after the explosion of the Yellowstone volcano.

1200 km- the radius of total destruction of all living things in the first minutes after the start of the eruption.

1000 atomic bombs, exploding simultaneously - such is the force of the Yellowstone volcano eruption.

1 in 1000 earthlings will survive the Yellowstone disaster.

Ekaterina Lyulchak

EXPERT OPINION

Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, leading employee of IGEM RAS Anatoly KHRENOV:

Any volcano is unpredictable, and not a single scientist or seismograph can accurately predict when to expect an eruption and with what force. So the consequences of an explosion can be many times greater than the expected effect. The Yellowstone giant is going to cause trouble. First of all, the volcanic eruption will cover the States, on whose territory Yellowstone Park is located - Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. Power plants and other life support systems may fail - the northwestern United States will be isolated due to a disruption in transport communications. And that's the best case scenario. At worst, the scale of the disaster is even difficult to imagine... The super eruption in Yellowstone will affect almost the entire US territory. The first zone adjacent to the volcano will suffer from pyroclastic flows. This avalanche, consisting of hot gas and ash, spreading at the speed of sound, will destroy all life within a radius of 100 km. 10 thousand sq. km will turn into scorched earth. No one will survive in a pyroclastic zone. The next zone is the entire United States, whose territory will be covered in ash. People won't be able to breathe. With an ash layer of 15 cm, the load on the roofs will be so strong that buildings will begin to fold like houses of cards. Hundreds of thousands of people will die either from suffocation or from the collapse of buildings. In a few days, the ash will spread throughout the United States and even cover Europe.

http://www.mirnov.ru/arhiv/mn896/mn/22-1.php

American supervolcano could destroy half the world

Seismic activity on Earth is increasing, even in tectonically stable areas. And the main danger, according to scientists, is the so-called supervolcanoes. There are few such volcanoes and they erupt rarely. One of them is in American Yellowstone. If he comes to life, he will destroy not only America, but also half the world. More about supervolcanoes presenters "Mornings of Russia" We talked with Pavel Plechov, professor of the Department of Petrology, Faculty of Geography, Moscow State University.

He said that supervolcanoes differ from ordinary ones primarily in the volume of eruptions. “The supervolcano is believed to have an eruption force of 8. This means that the volume exceeds 1,000 cubic kilometers,” the scientist noted. As a rule, these are not mountains, but depressions. Even if the supervolcano was once a mountain, then after a large eruption and removal of material for many hundreds of kilometers around, a depression formed in the place of the mountain. Today, there are 20-30 supervolcanoes known in the world.

Does the eruption of such a volcano threaten to destroy all life on Earth? “Every living thing on our planet is many millions of years old. We see that, indeed, such large eruptions are associated with changes in life, the extinction of some species, the appearance of others, but not the death of all,” the professor noted.

As for Yellowstone, according to the scientist, there are three very large eruptions of this volcano. “The earliest was 2.1 million years ago, the next was about 1.2 million years ago, the last very large one was 640 thousand years ago. We can determine the periodicity - 600 thousand years. And in terms of time, another eruption may now be preparing,” he said Pavel Plechov. Meanwhile, according to him, nothing threatens us yet. “At least it won’t explode tomorrow,” the professor assured.

Speaking about our country, the scientist noted that in 2007 a large depression was discovered near Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. It is somewhat smaller than Yellowstone and there is little data about it yet. Pavel Plechov also did not confirm the information that the supervolcano is located at the bottom of Lake Baikal. “Baikal is a tectonic crack; it has nothing to do with supervolcanoes. Perhaps in the future, when Baikal continues to develop, volcanoes may form at its bottom. So far, all manifestations of volcanism on the territory of Baikal are minimal,” he concluded.

http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=448387

Incredible facts

Yellowstone volcano is one of the largest known volcanoes in the world and a volcanic system in North America.

One of the strongest earthquakes with a magnitude of 4.8 recently shook the Yellowstone volcano.

Could a major earthquake be a sign that the Yellowstone supervolcano is beginning to awaken?

And if it starts to erupt, could this lead to the apocalypse?

Here are some interesting facts about the Yellowstone Volcano.

1. Yellowstone Volcano is a supervolcano sitting on a huge bubble of magma

Yellowstone Volcano is a supervolcano. A supervolcano is not an ordinary cone-shaped mountain. Instead, a supervolcano forms during a depression in the ground called a caldera. This is a huge basin that was formed after previous eruptions.

Some scientists even more often use the term " living breathing caldera" or " hot spot", denoting an area of ​​concentrated and active volcanism.

When a regular volcano erupts, lava gradually accumulates in the mountain until it begins to come out. At a supervolcano, when magma approaches the surface, it collects in a huge underground reservoir. It melts nearby rocks and becomes even thicker as pressure begins to build. This can continue for hundreds of thousands of years until an eruption occurs and it explodes, forming a new caldera.

Yellowstone sits above a hot spot where hot molten rock rises to the surface. About 10 km below the surface lies a reservoir of hard rock and magma.

2. Yellowstone Caldera Is 2.5 Times Larger Than Thought

Last year, a study of this supervolcano showed that the underground storage of magma is 2.5 times larger than previously thought.

Its size reaches 90 by 30 km and it can accommodate 300 billion cubic kilometers of molten rock.

3. The eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano will turn into a global catastrophe

Supervolcanoes are second largest global catastrophic event after an asteroid hit. In the past, supervolcanic eruptions have led to mass extinctions, long-term climate change and " volcanic winters" when the ashes block out the sunlight.

The supervolcano's last eruption occurred about 71,000 years ago at the site of Lake Toba on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. This resulted in a volcanic winter that blocked sunlight for 6-10 years, and a cooling of 3-5 degrees. Anthropologists have calculated that only several thousand people survived, and three-quarters of all plants in southeast Asia died.

4. The Yellowstone supervolcano erupts approximately every 600,000 years.

The first eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano occurred 2.1 million years ago, then 1.3 million and 640,000 years ago.

Scientists estimate that Yellowstone volcano erupts every 600,000 years, and the next eruption is long overdue.

The supervolcano in Yellowstone Park in the northwestern US state of Wyoming last erupted, sending 1000 cubic kilometers of ash and lava.

Researchers studied the movement of magma in Yellowstone Park and found that some areas of the earth have risen by 74 cm compared to 1923.

Scientists predict that the supervolcano's eruption could cause global temperatures to drop by 10 degrees over a decade, changing life on Earth.

5. Volcanoes and earthquakes: the largest earthquake in Yellowstone in the last 30 years

Due to the volcanic nature of this area, the caldera experiences between 1 and 20 earthquakes per day. However, they are very weak with a magnitude of no more than 3 points.

Earthquake magnitude 4.8 points, what happened March 30, 2014 years near Noris Geyser Basin in northwest Yellowstone, was the largest in Yellowstone in 30 years. But this did not lead to any serious consequences.

Earthquakes are associated with volcanoes in a variety of ways, as they lie along tectonic plate faults, and earthquakes often coincide with volcanic eruptions.

6. Are animals leaving Yellowstone National Park in the USA?

Recent video of bison escaping from Yellowstone National Park, has caused people to be concerned that this could be a sign of an imminent supervolcano eruption.

Usually before an eruption, animals leave the dangerous area, and this video was taken 10 days before the earthquake. However, authorities say this is a normal migration of the animals and they have started leaving the park due to lack of food during the winter months.

There is little research into whether animals can predict catastrophic events, although some scientists have acknowledged that during major events some animals exhibit strange behavior.

7. Consequences of the Yellowstone volcano eruption

Analysis of molten rock from the Yellowstone supervolcano showed that an eruption is possible without any external mechanisms. Previous Yellowstone eruptions have released more than 1,000 cubic kilometers of magma into the environment.

That's enough to cover most of North America a blanket of ash up to 30 cm thick. Everything within a radius of 160 km will die immediately, and death toll could reach 87,000.

The ash will remain in the air for several days, causing breathing difficulties, enveloping plants and polluting water.

The rest of the world is at risk climate change for several years ahead. Volcanic ash in the atmosphere will block sunlight, and global temperatures could drop by 20 degrees. The chemical composition of the atmosphere will change for a decade or more.

Yellowstone Volcano 2019 - The first major release of magma, which occurred a few days ago, indicates that an eruption is beginning. The latest news for today and the opinions of NOD experts eloquently indicate that over 70% of cities on the US map may be destroyed.

In this article:

• The scale of the disaster
• Latest news 2019
• Chronicle of events and signs of an eruption
• When will the eruption begin (forecasts and predictions)
• What will the collapse of the USA and Canada from the volcano mean for Russia?

Yellowstone National Park. Beautiful canyons, waterfalls, geysers. A virgin but sometimes dead forest.

When you walk along the scaffolding to the water-filled caldera, from time to time the ground makes a rumble and tremors occur. The wooden flooring cracks and a shiver runs through your body.

Like a giant rectum affected by polyps, a volcanic nozzle filled with green water goes deep. From time to time, smoky hydrogen sulfide bubbles burst out of the water with an eerie sob.

There, at the bottom of the caldera, under a thin partition of rocks - DEATH. And few people imagine HOW DANGEROUS IS IT? for the whole Earth.

The scale of the disaster

The eruption power of the Yellowstone volcano is about 1,375,000 megatons of TNT, or about 23 thousand copies of the famous nuclear “Tsar Bomba”.

The amount of ash that will rise into the air will be about 300 billion cubic meters. The area of ​​dispersion of large fragments will be about 3000 kilometers. Scientists predict a shift of the lithospheric plate 12 kilometers to the west, total flooding due to short heating of the ocean and melting glaciers.

Light fractions will settle in the air, which will lead to a volcanic winter for 10-12 years.

The temperature on Earth will increase by 10-15 degrees in the first days, and then drop by 20-30 degrees. The North Pacific Ocean will be covered in ice for the first three years. The Bering Strait will freeze completely.

As a result of the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano, 200 million people will die immediately, another 4 billion (!) will die within 5 years as a result of floods, famine and food wars.

10-12 years after the Yellowstone eruption, the Earth's population will return to the level of the 18th century, most countries will disappear from the map of the earth. Mexico, USA and Canada will become completely dead regions. America may go under water for 1-2 years.

Latest news 2019

February, 15. Carcasses of muskrats have begun to be found in the Yellowstone River. Biologists believe that this is a consequence of an increase in the sulfur content of the water and its temperature due to volcanic activity.

February 4. Scientists have recorded a partial release of magma from the bottom of the volcano. The rising soil and increasing temperature of the magma chamber are also worrying experts.

Jan. 7. INNASA admitted its powerlessness in preventing the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano. The project to drill wells to inject water and redirect magma has been deemed futile. Scientists are frantically looking for new solutions.

December 24. Yellowstone Steamboat Geyser breaks 1964 record. The recently dormant geyser became active in 2018 and erupted several times more than 54 years ago. This is the most powerful geyser in the park, it shoots boiling water to a height of more than 120 meters.

Chronicle of events and signs of an eruption

A number of signs indicate that the Yellowstone volcano is beginning to erupt, its activity is increasing, so a global catastrophe is just around the corner. 2019 may be the last year of prosperous existence for humanity.

Chronicle of Yellowstone Caldera activity:

The greatest concern is precisely the increase in the dynamics of seismic activity, the increase in gas emissions and the emergence of new geysers. Such signs always precede erupting volcanoes.

For the USA and Canada, the eruption threatens complete extinction.

When will the eruption begin (forecasts and predictions)

Predictions about the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano were made not only by famous astrologers and prophets; physicists like Newton and Jose Ramon Espinoza laid out the prerequisites for this in their calculations.

Nostradamus prophesied about signs of the end of the world in the form of earthquakes, floods and great famine, which fully fits into the concept of the Yellowstone supervolcano. Vanga talked a lot about how “America will freeze” and will be “shackled by a cloud” for many years.

From the point of view of probability theory, it was calculated that the Yellowstone disaster could be 0.00014% per year. The last eruption was 640 thousand years ago.

That is, today in 2019 the probability is... 89,6% !

The exact date of the eruption is probably already known to NASA specialists, who have covered the National Park in Wyoming with sensors since the early 2000s and are monitoring the situation around the clock. However, they are naturally silent about this, since the resulting panic could cause much greater damage to humanity, provoke wars and a migration collapse on the eve of the eruption. More detailed scientific justification.

The world government will suffer and the world will plunge into complete chaos and anarchy. Post-apocalysis scenarios realized in films will become a reality. It is important to preserve at least the basic laws formed in the UN, international conventions and so on.

In the next two years, humanity simply must find a way out of the situation, otherwise it faces extinction.

What will the collapse of the USA and Canada from the volcano mean for Russia?

Russia will not be directly affected by the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano. Cold weather and floods will not bypass it, there will be a severe food crisis, but V.V. Putin and D.A. Medvedev overcame more difficult times, and now Russia has almost no public debt, has rich gold and foreign exchange reserves and a strong ruble. There will be enough oil and electricity to run autonomous greenhouses for growing food. The strategic food reserves of the Ministry of Defense will be enough for the first two years, then through surplus appropriation and austerity policies, food will be fairly distributed through a special commission from the United Russia party.

The biggest problem is the flow of refugees from Canada, the USA and Mexico. Given the freezing of the Pacific Ocean, they will flee en masse across the ice to Russia. And no machine guns can stop them; all hope is in the Iskanders, which will make giant holes in the ice.

Americans who defect will bring Russia a lot of trouble. They will drag their national debt, juvenile justice and gay rights. In overcrowded Khrushchev buildings, scandals will begin over tolerance. But in the end, Putin will give them the right to reside in exchange for recognition of Crimea.

The Internet will die out due to the death of Microsoft, Intel, Android and the largest American servers. People will exchange information in lines for palm oil and feed grain, which will be issued to them using ration cards.

Of course, in view of the acute crisis, the retirement age and gasoline prices will have to be raised somewhat more, but Russia will lose its major enemy - America, which was still threatened with slow extinction due to obesity and the collapse of the dollar.

The Yellowstone volcano in 2019 should serve as a motivator to stock up on food, build shelters, buy watercraft, warm clothing and respirators; a smart person can save his family if he starts preparing for an eruption right now.

American scientists are alarmed to report that the Yellowstone volcano, the largest in the world, is active. This supergiant erupts every 600 thousand years, and each time it redraws the map of the continent. Is the volcano about to make itself known again?

One at a time, in pairs and in groups, bison flee Yellowstone National Park. Without being distracted by anything, even cars and people, the animals do not slow down. The video recording made by a bystander seriously alarmed the whole country. Many believed that the bison were not just running, but fleeing for their lives.

Local residents seriously thought about whether to run after the animals. After all, beneath Yellowstone National Park lies the largest volcano on the continent.

The size of the volcano is, of course, amazing. Four thousand square kilometers is 20 times larger than Washington with all its suburbs. The territory of the entire US capital is just a small part of the so-called “caldera” of the volcano, that is, the crater. And under it is a huge bubble filled with hot magma. Depth - like 15 Ostankino TV towers.

Recently, the super-volcano has been making itself known more and more often. The water temperature in the geyser lakes is now above normal, and the soil has risen. But the main thing is that since the beginning of this year, six dozen tremors have already occurred. Each time the vibrations become stronger.

“We had an earthquake of magnitude 4.8. This is the strongest tremors in more than 30 years,” says Al Nash, head of the press service for Yellowstone National Park.

Experts believe that the volcano can destroy life within a radius of one thousand kilometers, and the entire territory of North America will be under a 15-centimeter layer of ash. Global climate change will follow. Volcanologists believe that Yellowstone should erupt approximately once every 600 thousand years. 640 thousand have already passed since the last awakening.

“65 million years ago, the eruption of a similar super-volcano coincided with the fall of a meteorite in the Mexico region, and this, quite likely, was the double blow that caused the dinosaurs to become extinct. In the current situation, the United States will become extinct,” believes a university physics professor New York Michio Kaku.

Yellowstone National Park staff are trying to reassure the Americans, saying that the bison are driven by hunger and nothing more.

"We're seeing an exodus of bison, elk and other animals out of the national park. But we think it's a migration in search of food," says Al Nash.

But looking at the buffalo running en masse, it’s hard not to remember the stories of residents of Southeast Asia about how, in December 2004, for no apparent reason, the animals suddenly rushed inland. And soon a giant wave came, generated by an earthquake. About three hundred thousand people died then.