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Yellow Stone Super Volcano

Contents YellowStone National Park Key Information When did it last erupt? What If it Happens again? Conclusion References
 * Social Impacts
 * Econmic Impacts
 * Enviromental Impacts

Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park (est. 1872) and is situated in Wyoming(96%), Montana(3%) and Idaho(1%), USA. It 3468 square mile area is home to many lakes, canyons, rivers and mountain ranges. Yellowstone National park includes the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest super volcano on the continent. Within the volcano mouth there is one of the largest high altitude lakes, Yellowstone Lake, around 400 feet deep with 110 miles of shoreline, with an elevation of 7,733 feet above sea level. The park has over 10,000 thermal features and more than 300 geysers. (National Park Service 2008) & (Yellowstonenationalpark.com 1999)



Key Information - How was it formed?

The reason for all this thermal activity is because Yellowstone National Park lies atop a large hotspot under the earths crust. This particular hotspot acts in a much similar way to the hotspot beneath the Hawaiian Island chain, except that the Hawaiian hotspot has a constructive effect, due to it being under the Pacific Ocean, the Yellowstone hotspot on the other hand has a potentially destructive effect. Being trapped under crust that forms land, the gigantic magma chamber of the volcano is put under constant pressure from the hotspot beneath it, if this pressure becomes to great then the supervolcano could erupt.



There is no evidence to suggest that a supervolcano erupted during human existence but there is plenty of evidence that indicates supervolcano eruptions in the history of the planet, especially from the Yellowstone supervolcano. There is evidence scarred across the surface of the US states of Oregon, Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming of past eruptions from the magma plume that is now residing beneath Yellowstone National Park.

The plume was first caused by the edge of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate grinding against the edge of the North American tectonic plate, which allowed the plume to break through and transfered from a undersea volcano to a surface volcano. Since then there has been at least 12 eruptions and the supervolcano is currently overdue for its next one.

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When did it last erupt? (history) It is thought that the last full scale eruption at the Yellowstone volcano was approximately 650.000 years ago, it is estimated that there was 3000 square miles of pyroclastic material flow and 240 cubic miles of hot ash and pumice. Most of the ash was thrown into the atmosphere and most of this covered much of North America, traces of the volcanic eruption could be found as far away as the Gulf of Mexico. (Krystek, L. 2004)

Another smaller eruption happened about 70,000 years ago; this just produced lava flows which consisted of rhyolitic lava. This eruption occurred at the pitchstone plateau it produced lave which would cover the size of Washington DC 100ft thick. ( Lawenstern, J.)

There have been smaller eruptions since, as Yellowstone is still geologically active, hydrothermal activity cause smaller explosions. These happen more often-most recent being 13,000 years ago. This eruption created the three mile wide crater which is now a portion of the Yellowstone lake Mary Bay. (Krystek, L. 2004)

What if it happens again? media type="youtube" key="1Vn6kxfD3Ek?fs=1" height="296" width="368" align="right" Social Impacts

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Should the Yellowstone supervolcano happen to erupt anytime within our lifetimes, we could see various social impacts occur, mostly including largescale death tolls and damage to a large area of North America (plus surrounding areas).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Many scientists believe that if the volcano were to erupt (in such a way like it did 2.1 million, 1.3 million and 650,000 years ago) an extensive area of western and central USA would be destroyed in ways unimaginable to human memory so far.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The above image shows the sheer extensity of the magma chamber laying beneath yellowstone (with it almost stretching the width of the national park). This gives some idea of how large a catastrophe such an eruption should cause. (Krystek, L. 2004)

<span style="color: #0011ff; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">Economic Impacts

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">In terms of large towns and cities affected by the Supervolcano of Yellowstone if it were to erupt (as this would have detrimental effecs on economies of the local areas and possibly financial hubs), states like Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Utah would be first hit in terms of proximity to the volcano itself. Large financially important cities affected within these towns include Salt lake city, Billings and Idaho falls.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">On a more general overview of economic impacts, there would be a wider negative effect on the US as a whole, with the economic damage they would have to incurr as so much damage and destruction would take place, that it would take millions and most likely billions to rebuild.

<span style="color: #0011ff; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">Enviromental Impacts Human history is yet to see a volcanic eruption on such a scale as the Yellowstone caldera would produce. Environmentally, such a large scale eruption could; have massive consequences and put the Earth’s general population in danger. The eruption of the Indonesian super-volcano, Tuba, approximately 75,000 years a go produced around 2800 cubic kilometres of ash, drastically reducing temperature and thus decreasing the world’s population. The eruption of Yellowstone is predicted to exceed the effects of Tuba.(Shabna, 2006)

An eruption the size of Yellowstone is estimated to cover 1,000km3(approx) in ash. Covering a area the size of North America 100mm thick. Volcanic ash of around 10mm thick can kill flora on a ground level, and acid rain as a result of the eruption can kill trees, which in turn detroys habits for animals. This means Yellowstone’s eruption would destroy a large the majority of the wildlife in North America.(Morgan et al, 2007

Volcanic eruptions produce large amounts of sulphur dioxide (So2), which mixes with oxygen in the atmosphere to create sulphuric acid (H2SO4) particles. At the right atmospheric conditions this H2SO4 absorbs the sun’s radiation causing the atmosphere to cool (self, 2006). The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo(1991) caused a drop in temperature in 1.3 degrees and was only a 6(VEI) (Shabna, 2006). With Yellowstone being an 8 the effects would be much larger.

<span style="color: #0011ff; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">Conclusion

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">Monitoring of the super volcano is very important, there is still various activities happening around the super volcano. Despite Yellowstone’s long period of volcanic dormancy over 70000 years, there are still thousands of earthquakes. There are a range of signals which can be monitored; The monitoring system of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory is designed to listen to these signals, to see how they relate to each other, and to provide adequate characterization of background activity. It is not thought that the super volcano will erupt in our time but it is predicted that sometime within the next hundred thousand years, the Earth will almost certainly experience another super-eruption but the eruption will be greater than seen in man-kind and no one will know the scale until it happens. ( Lowerstern<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">,B,J. 2006)

References

Achenbach, J. (2009) When Yellowstone Explodes//?// National Geographic Magazine [] [accessed 08/11/2010]

Krystek, L. (2004) Is the Supervolcano Beneath Yellowstone ready to blow? [|www.unmusem.org/supervol] [accessed 1/11/2010]

Lawenstern, J. (April 2009) The Volcano Beneath yellowstone [] [accessed 1/11/2010]

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Lowerstren,B,J. Smith, B, R. Hill,P,D. (2006) //Monitoring super-volcanoes: geophysical and geochemical signals at Yellowstone and other large caldera systems// [] [ accessed 8/11/2010]

Morgan, T. Jones, R. Steven, J. S and P, J, Valdes. (2007) //The climatic impact of supervolcanic ash blankets.// Climate Dynamics 29, 6, p553-564.

National Park service (2008) //Yellowstone Geology// [|www.nps.gov./yell/naturesciencce] [accessed 30/10/2010]

Roberts, J. Yellowstone supervolcano- No way to survive? if the volcano under yellowstone national Park to erupt, it could devastate much of the US. [|www.secretsofsurvival.com/survival/yellowstone_supervolcano.html]

Self, S. (2006) // The effects and consequences of very large // // explosive volcanic eruptions //. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 364, p2073-2097.

Shabna, E, J. (2006) // Yellowstone eruption threatens nine-tenths of Earth's inhabitants. // 4ecotips [online] [] [accessed 31/10/10]

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Lowenstern, B, J. Smith, B, R. Hill, P, D (2006) //Monitoring super-volcanoes: geophysical and geochemical signals at Yellowstone and other large caldera systems.// [] [ accessed 8/11/2010]