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When all the volcanoes explode. What happens if the volcano explodes? Why is the volcano so dangerous

The most pessimistic scenario for the awakening of a supervolcano is this: it will be an explosion comparable to the explosion of 1000 atomic bombs. The ground part of the supervolcano will collapse into a funnel with a diameter of fifty kilometers. An ecological catastrophe will occur on Earth. For the US, the eruption of Yellowstone will mean the end of existence.

The saddest thing is that not only alarmists, but also experts are talking about such consequences. Yakov Levenshtern from the Yellowstone Volcanic Observatory (USA) said that more than 1 thousand km³ of magma fell out into all previous supervolcano eruptions (there were three of them). This is enough to cover most of North America with a layer of ash up to 30 cm (at the epicenter of the disaster). Loewenstern also noted that the air temperature throughout the The earth will fall by 21 degrees, visibility for several years will be no more than half a meter. An era similar to nuclear winter will come.

Hurricane Katrina showed that the US civil defense system is not ready for such large-scale cataclysms - and the civil defense of no country will be able to prepare for them.

Domestic scientists do not get tired of predicting the eruption of a supervolcano. The head of the Department of Dynamic Geology of the Geological Faculty of Moscow State University, Nikolai Koronovsky, in an interview with Vesti, told what would happen after the eruption:

“The winds are predominantly westerly, so everything will go to the east of the USA. Will cover them. will decrease solar radiation, so the temperature will have to drop. The well-known eruption of the Krakatau volcano in the Sunda Strait in 1873 lowered the temperature by about 2 degrees in the equatorial part for a year and a half, until the ash dissipated.

Scientists warn of an imminent cataclysm, which will be the largest in the history of human development. How will the eruption affect Russia, will the country face a catastrophe?

According to research by specialists from the University of Arizona, in less than a hundred years, a supervolcano will erupt in Yellowstone. Yellowstone volcano is a huge depression with a diameter of 80 by 40 km, formed as a result of several super-eruptions over millions of years. Last time the volcano erupted lava 640 thousand years ago, and it is possible that we will soon witness this event.

What will happen to humanity?

According to experts from the US Geological Survey, the consequences of a volcanic eruption will be comparable to a nuclear explosion. As a result of the release of hot magma to a height of 50 kilometers, the entire western American coast will be a dead zone covered with a one and a half meter layer of ash. Nothing alive will remain within a radius of 500 km, and 90% of people and nature will die 1200 kilometers from the eruption point.

According to estimates, about one hundred thousand people will become victims of asphyxiation and hydrogen sulfide poisoning. In a day, acid rain will fall in the United States, from which all vegetation will die. And in a month, the Earth will plunge into darkness, as the Sun will hide behind clouds of ash and cinders.

The climate will change dramatically, there will be a sharp cooling of 10-20 degrees. Because of this, oil and gas pipelines, railways will fail. The ozone hole will grow, killing the remaining living organisms. Because of the awakened volcano in Yellowstone, lava and other volcanoes will begin to erupt. Because of this, many tsunamis will arise, washing away the cities in their path.


Which countries will be affected the most?

Not only the United States will suffer, but most countries. Most of all will go to China, India, Scandinavian countries and northern Russia. Life will stop there. The number of victims in the first year of the global catastrophe will reach two billion people. Southern Siberia will suffer the least. The period, which scientists have already called "volcanic winter", will last four years. And humanity will have to cope with the consequences for a very long time. Over the next century, the Earth will return to the Middle Ages again, plunged into savagery and chaos.

Can the Earth be saved?

The only consolation is that many serious scientists reject such a scenario and doubt that such an apocalypse is possible not only in the near future, but ever. According to Aleksey Sobisevich, head of the laboratory at the Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, a volcanic eruption in Yellowstone is possible not earlier than in hundreds of thousands of years. And, in the end, it is not so scary, because our distant ancestors managed to survive three such super-eruptions. At the same time, scientists do not exclude that the supervolcano can wake up with the help of earthlings themselves.


The attack on the volcano is one of the methods of terror, which can become the most dangerous. The volcano can be detonated artificially by blowing up the lid of the magma chamber using megaton-class warheads.

Yellowstone Volcano 2019 - the first major magma ejection that occurred a few days ago, indicates that the eruption is beginning. Last news Today, the opinions of NOD experts eloquently indicate that over 70% of cities on the US map can be destroyed.

In this article:

  • Scale of the catastrophe
  • Latest news 2019
  • Chronicle of events and signs of the 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. Virgin, but sometimes dead forest.

When you walk along the stage to the water-filled caldera, from time to time the earth emits a rumble, tremors occur. wooden flooring trembling, trembling runs through the body.

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

There, at the bottom of the caldera, under a thin partition of rocks - DEATH. And few imagine HOW DANGEROUS IS THIS for the whole earth.

Scale of the catastrophe

The eruption power of the Yellowstone volcano is about 1,375,000 megatons of TNT, or about 23,000 copies of the famous nuclear "Tsar bomb".

The amount of ash that will rise into the air will be about 300 billion cubic meters. The area of ​​scattering of large fragments will be about 3000 kilometers. Scientists predict a shift lithospheric plate 12 kilometers to the west, total flooding due to short-term 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 in the first days will increase by 10-15 degrees, and then fall by 20-30 degrees. The northern part of the Pacific Ocean will be ice-bound 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 eruption of Yellowstone, the population of the Earth will return to the level of the 18th century, most of countries will disappear from the map of the earth. Mexico, USA and Canada will become completely dead regions. America can go under water for 1-2 years.

Latest news 2019

February, 15. Desman corpses began 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 4th. Scientists have recorded a partial release of magma from the bottom of the volcano. The rise of the soil and the increase in the temperature of the magma chamber also worries experts.

Jan. 7. VNASA acknowledged powerlessness in preventing the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano. The project to drill wells to pump water and redirect magma has been declared useless. Scientists are frantically looking for new solutions.

December 24th. Yellowstone geyser "Steamboat" broke the record of 1964. Not so long ago, a dormant geyser in 2018 became more active and erupted several times more than 54 years ago. This is the most powerful geyser in the park, it ejects boiling water to a height of more than 120 meters.

Chronicle of events and signs of the eruption

A number of signs indicate that the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano begins, its activity is increasing, so a global catastrophe is just around the corner. 2019 may be the last year of the prosperous existence of mankind.

Chronicle of Yellowstone Caldera activity:

Events

Fragments of magma from the Sheridan fumarole were found in the Wapiti River.

The increase in the activity of geysers, "Steamboat" breaks a record in 1964. The concentration of sulfur in the atmosphere for the first time exceeded the norm. For the first time, a powerful earthquake with a magnitude exceeding calculations - 7.8 points, stronger than in 1959, was recorded.

On dead trees near thermal springs found new cracks - a consequence of increased temperature. The area of ​​the endangered forest has increased by 34 hectares. In March, the grand geyser "Old Servant" threw out a sheaf of sparks with pieces of magma instead of boiling water.

Landslides on the Signal and Gorbataya mountains, the death of two men in a tent. Increasing the concentration of hydrogen sulfide close to normal. The intensity of soil uplift reached 10 cm per year.

Mass migration of small animals from the vicinity of the volcano. American lake rats, desmans and muskrats began to leave the places inhabited for centuries. In January, recorded the strongest gas release on the northern shore of the lake.

Soil growth of 5-6 cm per year has been observed. Mass death of bison from gas release. The complete extinction of the lynx, the reduction in the number of foxes and coyotes. The geyser "Steamboat" woke up, almost 200 new thermal springs were discovered in a year. The beginning of the growth of panic about the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano.

The increase in seismic activity forced the authorities to build a volcanic observatory. NASA is tasked with creating a project to neutralize the volcano.

The beginning of the decline in the number of animals. The US authorities have begun measures to artificially maintain the fauna, in nat. wolves, grizzly bears and other species were launched in Yellowstone Park.

A catastrophic fire due to a sudden release of magma from the mountain sphincter. Kennedy. Almost 4000 km2 of forest burned out, the city of Dildostown was destroyed.

More than 3000 earthquakes per year. The lowering of the caldera was recorded, which may indicate a reduction in the thickness of the protective layer of hard rocks between the magma and the atmosphere.

The volcano began to wake up. A 7.4 magnitude earthquake breaks a dam on Lake Hebgen. Faults and cracks formed in the ground, 30 people died. A new lake appeared - Quake.

It is the growth of seismic activity dynamics, the increase in gas emissions and the emergence of new geysers that causes the greatest concern. Such signs always precede awakening volcanoes.

For the United States and Canada, the eruption threatens to completely disappear.

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 the signs of the end of the world in the form of earthquakes, a flood and a great famine, which fully fits into the concept of the Yellowstone supervolcano. Vanga talked a lot about the fact that "America will freeze" and will be "bound by a cloud" for many years.

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

That is, as of today in 2019, the probability is… 89,6% !

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

The world government will suffer in this case, the world will plunge into complete chaos and anarchy. The scenarios of the post-apocalysis realized in the 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 is simply obliged to find a way out, otherwise it is threatened with extinction.

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

Russia from the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano will not directly suffer. Cold snap and floods will not bypass it, there will be a severe food crisis, but V.V. Putin and D.A. Medvedev overcame even more difficult times, and now Russia has almost no public debt, rich gold reserves and a strong ruble. There will be enough oil and electricity to run autonomous greenhouses for growing food. For the first two years, the strategic food reserves of the Ministry of Defense will suffice, then, through surplus appropriation and a policy of economy, 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 US and Mexico. Given the freezing of the Pacific Ocean, they will massively run across the ice to Russia. And no machine guns can stop them, all hope is for the Iskanders, which will make giant polynyas in the ice.

The defecting Americans will bring many troubles to Russia. They will drag their national debt, juvenile justice and gay rights. In overcrowded Khrushchevs, scandals will begin because of tolerance. But in the end, Putin will give them the right to reside in exchange for the 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 queues for palm oil and feed grain, which will be issued to them on cards.

Of course, in view of the acute crisis, it will be necessary to slightly increase the retirement age and gasoline prices, 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 for harvesting food, building shelters, buying boats, warm clothes and respirators, smart man can save his family if he starts preparing for the eruption right now.

According to American volcanologists, the eruption of the largest volcano in the world yellowstone caldera, which is located in Yellowstone National Park, can lead to the Apocalypse.

The volcano has not erupted for about 600 thousand years and its eruption can destroy the territory of the United States, which may even begin a world catastrophe - the Apocalypse, according to American scientists.

A super-volcano under 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 several hundred volcanoes all over the earth at the same time.

According to forecasts of volcanologists, lava will rise high into the sky, ash will cover nearby areas with a layer of 15 meters and a distance of 5,000 kilometers.

In the early days, the US territory may become uninhabitable due to toxic air.

Experts predict that the volcanic eruption will be no less powerful than all three times when the volcano has erupted over the past 2.1 million years.

Robert B. Smith, professor of geophysics at the University of Utah, noted that magma came so close to the Earth's crust in yellowstone park that he literally radiates heat that cannot be explained by anything other than the upcoming eruption of a huge volcano.

July 22, 1980: Mount St. Helens in Washington DC flares up. The Yellowstone caldera volcano during an eruption can explode with a force a thousand times more powerful and bring many more victims.

Yellowstone National Park is a bomb that could destroy the Earth.

Sometimes it seems that only God's punishment can stop the United States. Those who believe in evil fate 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. Known for its forests, grizzly bears and hot springs, Yellowstone National Park is actually a bomb that will go off in the coming years. If this happens, the entire North American continent may perish. And the rest of the world will not seem enough. But it won't be the end of the world, don't worry.

All power to the council

And it all started with joy. In 2002, several new geysers with healing hot water were simultaneously clogged in the Yellowstone Nature Reserve. Local tour companies immediately hyped the phenomenon, and the number of visitors to the park, which is usually about three million people a year, has increased even more.

However, strange things soon began to happen. In 2004, the US government tightened the regime for visiting the reserve. On its territory, the number of guards has increased dramatically, and some areas have been declared closed to the public. But seismologists and volcanologists became frequent in them.

They have worked in Yellowstone before, because the entire reserve with its unique nature is nothing but a huge patch on the mouth of an extinct supervolcano. Actually, hence the hot geysers. On the way to the surface of the earth, they are heated by magma sizzling and gurgling under the earth's crust. All local sources were known back in those days when the white colonialists conquered Yellowstone from the Indians, and here you have three new ones! Why's that?

Scientists are worried. One after another, commissions for the study of volcanic activity began to visit the park. What they dug up there was not reported to the general public, but it is known that in 2007, a Scientific Council was created under the Office of the President of the United States, endowed with emergency powers. 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.

The end crept unnoticed

And the thing is that the ancient and, as it was believed, safe supervolcano, on which the paradise valley is located, suddenly showed signs of activity. The springs that miraculously filled became its first manifestation.

Further more. Seismologists have 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 rise of the soil amounted to no more than 10 centimeters.

Mathematicians joined the seismologists. Based on information about previous eruptions of the Yellowstone volcano, they developed an algorithm for its vital activity. The result was shocking. The fact that the intervals between eruptions are constantly shrinking has been 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 its awakening not earlier than in 20 thousand years. But based on the new data, the computers produced an unexpected result. The next catastrophe should be expected in 2075. However, after some time it became clear that events are developing much faster. The result had to be corrected again.

The terrible date is approaching. Now it looms between 2012 and 2016, with the first figure looking the most likely.

It would seem - just think, an eruption, especially since it is known in advance. Well, the Americans are evacuating the population from a dangerous area, well, 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 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 constantly boils, which from time to time breaks upward through cracks, faults and other "defects" of the earth's crust. As it rises, magma releases gases, turning into volcanic lava, and pours out through upper part fault, commonly called a vent. Freezing around the vent, the products of the eruption build up the cone of the volcano.

Supervolcanoes, on the other hand, have a feature that, until recently, no one even suspected of their existence. They are not at all like 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 is like a pimple, a supervolcano is like a huge inflammation. On the territory of a supervolcano, there may be several ordinary volcanoes. 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 several hundred meters high and 15-20 kilometers in diameter is formed. Numerous vents and cracks appear along the perimeter of the hump, and then its entire central part collapses down into the fiery abyss.

Collapsed rocks like a piston sharply squeeze out giant fountains of lava and ash from the bowels.

The force of this explosion exceeds the charge of the most powerful nuclear bomb. According to the calculations of geophysicists, if the Yellowstone mine explodes, the effect will exceed a hundred Hiroshima. The calculations are, of course, purely theoretical. During its existence, Homo sapiens has never encountered such a phenomenon. The last time it went boom was during the time of the dinosaurs. Maybe that's why they died out.




As it will be

A few days before the explosion Earth's crust rises several meters above the supervolcano. In this case, the soil will heat up to 60-70 degrees. The concentration of hydrogen sulfide and helium will increase sharply in the atmosphere.

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 tossed to great heights. As they fall, they cover gigantic territory. 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 (the city of Seattle) and part of Canada (the cities of Calgary, Vancouver) are in immediate danger.

On the territory of 10 thousand square kilometers, streams of hot mud will rage, the so-called pyroclastic wave - the most deadly product of the eruption. They will arise when the pressure of the lava hitting high into the atmosphere weakens and part of the column collapses into the surroundings in a huge avalanche, burning everything in its path. It will be impossible to survive in pyroclastic flows of this magnitude. At temperatures above 400 degrees, human bodies will simply boil, the flesh will separate from the bones.

Hot slurry will kill about 200 thousand people in the first minutes after the start of the eruption.

But these are very small 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 take 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 in breadth. B. within a day, 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 them from 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 at greatest risk. When the layer of volcanic ash reaches a thickness of 15 centimeters, the load on the roofs will become too great and the buildings will begin to collapse. It is estimated that between one and fifty people in each house will die or be seriously injured. This will be the main cause of death in the bypassed areas around Yellowstone, 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 the clouds of ash and cinders to cross the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean, and after a month they will cover the Sun all over the Earth.

Frost Governor

Once upon a time, Soviet scientists 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 is earth's surface fall in different areas 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 at least a year and a half. This is enough to change the natural balance on the planet forever. Vegetation will die due to long frosts and lack of light. Since plants are involved in the production of oxygen, very soon it will become difficult for everyone living on the planet to breathe. Animal world 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 the inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere. Residents of other parts of the world, including the Russians, have a much higher chance of surviving. And the consequences will probably not be so catastrophic. But for the population of North America, the chances of survival are minimal.

Save who can!

But if American authorities 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?

It is not difficult to answer the first question: 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 CIA analysts, “as a result of the disaster, two-thirds of the population will die, the economy will be destroyed, transport and communications will be disorganized. With a near-complete shutdown of supplies, the remaining military potential at our disposal will be reduced to a level sufficient only to maintain order on the territory of the country.

As for alerting 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. And where to run from the broken and burning mainland?

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

In any case, the Scientific Council under the President of the United States came to this conclusion. According to its members, there is only one way out - to leave the majority of the population to the will of fate and attend to the preservation of capital, military potential and the elite of American society. So, a few months before the explosion, the best scientists, military, specialists in high technology and, of course, the rich. There is no doubt that every billionaire has a reserved place in the future ark. But it is no longer possible to vouch for the fate of ordinary millionaires. They will save themselves.

God save Liberia

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

Realizing what the country was heading towards, Howard and his associates created the Civilization Saving Fund. Their goal is to warn humanity of an impending catastrophe and give everyone a chance to survive, not just members of the elites.

Over the years, the Foundation staff have accumulated a lot of information. In particular, they figured out exactly where the cream of American society will go after the disaster.

An island of salvation for them will be Liberia, a small state in western Africa, traditionally following in the footsteps of American politics. For several years now, massive cash injections have been going into this country. It has a network of excellent roads, airports, and, they say, an extensive system of deep, well-maintained bunkers. In this hole, the American elite will be able to sit out 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 the "shaitan" while he licks his wounds. You can't think of a better excuse for jihad.

Therefore, since 2003, preemptive strikes have been carried out against a number of Muslim countries in order to destroy their military potential.

Formed vicious circle. In connection with the aggressive policy, the United States has more and more ill-wishers, and there is less and less time left to neutralize them.

The end of the world will begin in the USA

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

There is still a danger of the death of our entire civilization, many scientists admit. The fact is that the inevitable processes inside our planet, taking place before our eyes, are recognized by experts as a global threat that can wipe entire continents off 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 population of the Earth by about 15 times. Then only 5-10 thousand people survived. The number of animals decreased by the same amount, three quarters died flora northern hemisphere. At the site of that explosion, a pit with an area of ​​​​1775 square meters was formed. km, which could fit two New York or London.

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

STATES LIVE ON A POWDER KEG

What is this time bomb in the US Northwest? A supervolcano is not a cone-shaped formation with a vent, like ordinary volcanoes. In appearance, this is a lowland, called by volcanologists a caldera, which resembles a huge depression. This unremarkable hollow is a giant volcano with an eruption area of ​​several thousand square kilometers. By the way, due to its gigantic size, scientists at first did not even recognize the caldera in the US Yellowstone Park. Satellite photos showed that the entire park is 3825 square kilometers and is a caldera measuring about 55 km by 72 km.

Outside, the Yellowstone Preserve is covered with a picturesque landscape, and inside this huge valley is filled with red-hot magma. For millennia, magma filled huge underground reservoirs, melting rock, becoming so dense that volcanic gases, which cause eruption in ordinary volcanoes, cannot pass through it. So great amount molten magma presses down on the Earth's surface. This continues for hundreds of thousands of years until the abscess bursts and a terrible explosion occurs.

With such a crushing force at their side, the US authorities set the task for scientists to calculate the date of the next supervolcano eruption. According to scientists, the period between explosions of a supervolcano is approximately 600 thousand years. Given this periodicity, it is in our century that another cataclysm will fall. At first, researchers talked about the year 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 magma, began to ooze. These signs gave scientists reason to believe that the magma escaped from the chamber and approaches the surface with a speed that has increased several times. In this regard, the term of the alleged outburst of the volcano was shifted by almost 50 years. “Over the past two million years, Yellowstone has experienced three super-powerful eruptions, and each of them turned half the continent into a desert,” says Robert Smith, a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah, Robert Smith. 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.”

And 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 late stages of volcanism. For four recent years the soil has risen by almost 180 cm, which is 45 times higher than in the previous four years.

AS IT WILL BE

If an explosion occurs, then, according to the vision of scientists, the picture will be worse than the description of the Apocalypse. Everything will begin with a sharp rise and overheating of the earth in Yellowstone Park. And when huge 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, developing 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 can hold out for no more than 5-7 minutes. A thick layer of ash will cover almost the entire territory of the United States - 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 mainland will grow to such a size that the level of radiation will approach Chernobyl. All North America turns into scorched earth. The southern part of 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, oceanic volcanic eruptions will generate many tsunamis that will flood the coasts and all island states. Long-term consequences will be no less terrible than the eruption itself. And if the main blow is taken by the States, then the whole world will feel the effect.

Thousands of cubic kilometers of ash thrown into the atmosphere will block out the sunlight - the world will plunge into darkness. This will cause a sharp drop in temperature, for example, in Canada and Norway in a couple of days the thermometer will drop by 15-20oC. 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. Incessant 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 of starvation in the coming months after the explosion. In total, every third inhabitant of the Earth will die in the first months of the cataclysm. 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

While conventional volcanoes kill thousands and destroy entire cities, supervolcanoes claim billions of lives and devastate continents, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation BBC.

With 2,500 times more powerful than Etna's last eruption, Yellowstone is expected to explode.

The Yellowstone caldera will throw out 15 times more ash than the Krakatoa volcano, which killed 36 thousand people, threw out.

Visibility will decrease to 20-30 cm due to the formed 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 the total destruction of all life in the first minutes after the start of the eruption.

10,000 atomic bombs exploded at the same time - such is the force of the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano.

1 out of 100,000 earthlings will survive the Yellowstone disaster.

EXPERT OPINION

Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Leading Researcher at IGEM RAS Anatoly KHRENOV:

Any volcano is unpredictable, and when to expect an eruption and what strength, no scientist and no seismograph can predict with accuracy. So the consequences of the explosion can be many times greater than the expected effect. The Yellowstone Giant will make 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 northwest of the United States will be isolated due to a failure in transport communications. And it's in best case. In the worst scale of the disaster, it is even difficult to imagine ... A super-eruption in Yellowstone will affect almost the entire territory of the United States. The first zone adjacent to the volcano will suffer from pyroclastic flows. This avalanche, consisting of hot gas and ash, propagating 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 the pyroclastic zone. The next zone is the entire United States, whose territory will be covered with ash. People won't be able to breathe. With a layer of ash of 15 cm, the load on the roofs will be so strong that the buildings will begin to fold like houses of cards. Hundreds of thousands of people will die either from suffocation or when buildings collapse. In a few days, the ash will spread throughout the United States and even take over Europe.

American supervolcano will destroy the world.

Seismic activity is increasing on Earth, even in areas that are stable from a tectonic point of view. And the main danger is, according to scientists, the so-called supervolcanoes. There are few such volcanoes and they rarely erupt. One of them is in American Yellowstone. If he comes to life, he will destroy not only America, but also half the world. We talked more about supervolcanoes with Pavel Plechov, professor of the department of petrology at the Faculty of Geology of Moscow State University.

He said that supervolcanoes differ from ordinary ones primarily in the volume of the eruption. “It is believed that the supervolcano has an eruption force of 8. This means that the volume exceeds 1000 cubic kilometers,” the scientist noted. As a rule, these are not mountains, but depressions. Even if the supervolcano was once a mountain, after a large eruption and the removal of material for many hundreds of kilometers around, a depression formed on the site of the mountain.Today, 20-30 supervolcanoes are known in the world.

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

As for Yellowstone, according to the scientist, three very large eruptions of this volcano are known. “Earlier was 2.1 million years ago, the next was about 1.2 million years ago, the last very large was 640 thousand years ago. We can determine the periodicity – 600 thousand years. Pavel Plechov.Meanwhile, according to him, nothing threatens us yet.“At least tomorrow it will not explode,” 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 so far there is little data on it. 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.”

Well, watch a very informative film about this volcano in the United States:





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The Yellowstone Caldera is essentially a gigantic, lidded steam boiler, and it's so huge that it can only be seen in its entirety from Earth orbit. Its crater reaches a size of 72 kilometers, and its caldera contains several tens of thousands of cubic kilometers of igneous material. It would take Niagara Falls 624 years to fill a caldera of that size.

What would happen if this monster exploded, shaking the world with a terrifying volcanic eruption?

Who will live, who will die - and will the United States of America survive? We spoke to one of the country's most respected volcanologists for the latest information on the future of the world's most famous supervolcano.

Now the two-stage magma chamber is at rest. According to a scientist from the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Dr. Michael Poland, at present the volcano may not have enough energy to produce a super-eruption.

"Now most of the Yellowstone magma body is partially solidified and you need a lot of magma to feed a big eruption."

For most of its life, the region has been characterized by extensive lava flows and much more frequent hydrothermal explosions, suggesting that any future eruption will occur much less frequently.

The chances of a superculan paroxysm are currently about 730,000, making it less likely than a catastrophic asteroid impact.

However, a sudden injection of new magma from below, or a sudden weakening of the geological layers covering it, may be enough to cause a sudden depressurization event, as a result of which all that has accumulated in the bowels of the volcano will be ejected in the form of a powerful explosion.

What happens next is somewhat hypothetical, but Yellowstone's frightening story gives us a clue to the consequences. We're thinking of the worst-case scenario, so let's assume that his entire magma cauldron is emptied in a colossal supervolcanic explosion.

This has already happened in Yellowstone three times in the 660,000-800,000 year cycle: 2.1 million years ago, 1.3 million years ago and 640,000 years ago.

The most explosive eruption was its first, which produced 2.5 times more quantity volcanic material than the 1980 eruption at Mount St. Helens. Even the most recent explosion created an ash column so colossal that it covered about 60 percent of the United States in a thick layer of ash.

So, let's just say that such a powerful explosion will happen again today: what will happen to the United States and the world?

It's unclear how warning organizations like the United States Geological Survey (USGS) will act, but shortly before an eruption occurs, land around Yellowstone national park rise, the level of the earth's surface will rise.

The hydrothermal system, including geysers and geothermal pools, will quickly heat up to above boiling temperatures, and they are likely to become extremely acidic - more than normal.

A swarm of earthquakes will be detected heading towards the central point, indicating that magma is rapidly moving through the crust. Then the cover of the magma chamber covering the caldera will collapse and a powerful volcanic eruption will occur, which the world has not yet seen.

A huge column of ash and lava will rise up to a height of about 25 kilometers. Clouds of ash will cover the sky, and lava bombs will scatter for many kilometers around, destroying everything around. This will continue for several days and the ash will gradually spread through the stratosphere.

Huge pyroclastic flows will sweep through Yellowstone Park, destroying all life in its path.

This mixture of ash, lava and superheated gas exceeds temperatures of 1000°C (1832°F) and these flows can move at speeds up to 482 kilometers per hour (about 300 miles per hour). If they get anyone in their way, those people or animals will die within seconds, they will simply be burned as the air heats up to about 300 °C (570 °F).

Pyroclastic flows extend up to 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from their source, but theoretically they can spread up to 100 kilometers (62 miles) if a supervolcano erupts.

This is essentially the length of Yellowstone National Park, so if a new eruption vent appeared right in the center and the pyroclastic flows were especially vigorous, many in the park would die, either from the pyroclastic flows or from a collapsing caldera roof.

On average, there are about 11,000 visitors to the park each day, based on an annual visitation of 3.8 million. There are many more visitors during the summer months, so the summer eruption will be much more deadly.

When pyroclastic flows and ash deposits settle and cool, they may appear harmless, but they are not. They accumulate on uplands and slopes, can mix with mud, rain water flows and turn into fast moving cement slurries called lahars. Anyone who falls into such a lahar will die.

However, the most dangerous aspect of the eruption is the fallout of ash, both locally and globally.

Breathe it in and it will rupture your lungs and form vitreous cement. This ash is also about six times denser than water, which means that most of the buildings will collapse under their own weight when the ash accumulates on the roofs. Our interlocutor Poland says that "even a few tens of centimeters of wet ash can lead to the collapse of weak buildings."

Roads and sewer systems will become clogged and destroyed, the water supply will be polluted, and Electricity of the net will go out of order. Millions of houses could become uninhabitable.

In that sense, those who take refuge in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming are most at risk of harm. The eruption can last for months and people in these states will have to survive in incredibly harsh conditions.

An area of ​​about 80 km (50 miles) around the vent of the volcano will be covered in a layer of ash of 3 meters (about 10 feet) in just a few days. Simulations have also shown that superelementation could bury Salt Lake City and its environs under more than a meter of ash.

If there are no strong winds, Denver will receive about 30 centimeters of ash cover, while Calgary will receive about 10 centimeters. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will help clean up and move this ash for many months or even years.

Elsewhere - say, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Minneapolis and Chicago - about 3 centimeters of ash will fall. Within a few days thin layer ash could reach Miami, New York and Toronto and be enough to cause cars to break down and turn drinking water sources into poisoned swamps.

Flights will be suspended over the entire United States for at least a few weeks and the National Guard and possibly the military will almost certainly be mobilized to help evacuate many tens of millions of people from the affected region.

The death toll is extremely difficult to predict, but Poland suggests that "if people were present in the immediate vicinity of the eruption, say, for several tens to several hundred kilometers, they would be in danger."

But there is another threat - air pollution.

The release of ash into the stratosphere will darken the sky and cool the planetary temperature. If the eruption is especially rich in sulfur - effective blocker sunlight - then the temperature will drop a few degrees and there will be no summer for the next few years.

“It is likely that there will be significant cooling over the years,” explains Poland. “But how long this will continue, and how much cooling will be, I cannot say. I'm not sure anyone can."

If the much smaller but very sulfur-rich Tambora eruption occurred in 1815, then in any case, the Yellowstone explosion will be much more powerful for many years to "alter global weather patterns and have a huge impact on human activity," according to the USGS statement.

The paths and duration of the monsoons would change. The formation of the tropical cycle will become much more unpredictable for a while, and the spread of waterborne diseases could be very widespread.

Agriculture will also be affected, which could seriously undermine food supplies. This would result in an overall economic loss that would be severe: FEMA's recent assessment of the effects of the Yellowstone explosion suggests a total damage to the US of $3 trillion, about 16 percent of the country's total GDP. To put this into perspective, that's $400 million more than was lost during the recent global recession.

The USGS says in the report that "scientists at this time do not have the predictive ability to determine the specific consequences or duration of possible global impacts of such large eruptions."

Poland is confident that this will not lead to the destruction of civilization. “This does not mean the end of life on Earth,” says Poland. “In fact, this experiment is already running, but few people understand it.”

He points to the Toba eruption that happened 74,000 years ago, and humanity survived it, and "they didn't have the advantages of technology back then!"

However, the professor himself agrees that it is impossible to accurately predict all the consequences of the Yellowstone eruption, since it will be such a global and grandiose event that its consequences for our world can be very unpredictable and catastrophic, and we can only hope that our modern technologies help humanity cope with these consequences and survive in the world after the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano.