Yellowstone caldera. Possible eruption of Yellowstone Volcano (Wyoming)

Volcanoes from ancient times attracted people. They considered them gods, worshiped them and offered sacrifices, including human ones. And this attitude is quite understandable, since even now the incredible power of these natural objects simply amazes the imagination of even trained researchers.

But among them there are those who stand out even on such a noticeable background. This, for example, is the Yellowstone caldera in the National Park of Wyoming, USA. The power that is dormant in this super volcano is such that it can quite contribute to the complete destruction of our civilization in the event of its awakening. And this is not an exaggeration. Thus, the volcano Pinatubo, which is several times weaker than its American "colleague", during the eruption in 1991 contributed to the fact that the average temperature on the planet dropped by 0.5 degrees, and this continued for several years in succession.

What characterizes this natural object?

Scientists have long assigned this object the status of a super volcano. Known around the world for its megalithic size. During its last large-scale awakening, the entire upper part of the volcano simply collapsed, forming an impressive gap.

It is located right in the middle of the North American plate, and not on the border, as its "colleagues" in the world, who concentrate on the edges of the plates (the same "Ring of Fire" in the Pacific Ocean). Since the 80s of the last century, the Geological Survey of America reports that the number of earthquakes, whose strength does not exceed three points on the Richter scale, has been steadily increasing every year.

What does the state think?

All this is far from imagination. The severity of the statements of scientists confirms the fact that an emergency meeting was created in 2007, attended by the US president and the head of the CIA, the NSA, the FBI.

Study history

When do you think the caldera itself was discovered? The beginning of the development of America by the colonists? Yes, as it were not so! Found it only in 1960, exploring aerospace photographs ...

Of course, the current Yellowstone Park was explored long before the advent of satellites and aircraft. The first naturalist who described these places was John Colter. He was part of the expedition of Lewis and Clark. In 1807, he described the current Wyoming. The staff struck him with incredible geysers and a lot of hot springs, but on his return the "progressive public" did not believe him, mockingly calling the scientist's work "the hell of Colter".

In 1850, hunter and naturalist Jim Bridger also visited Wyoming. The staff met him in the same way as his predecessor: the steam clubs and fountains of boiling water, which escaped directly from the ground. However, no one believed his stories.

Finally, after the Civil War, the new US Government still funded full-scale research of that region. In 1871, the region studied a scientific expedition under the leadership of Ferdinand Hayden. Just a year later, a huge colorful report was prepared with a lot of illustrations and observations. Only then did everyone finally believe that Colter and Bridger did not lie at all. At the same time, Yellowstone Park was created.

Development and study

The first head of the facility was appointed Nathaniel Langford. The situation around the park at first was not too optimistic: the leader and a handful of enthusiasts did not even pay salaries, not to mention some scientific research of this territory. Everything changed after a few years. When the North Pacific Railway was commissioned, a stream of tourists and people came to the valley, to which this natural phenomenon was genuinely interesting.

The merit of the leadership of the park and the government of the country is that, while contributing to the influx of curious people, they did not turn this unique area into a cluttered tourist attraction, and also invited eminent scientists from all over the world to this region.

Particularly attracted to the scientific men are small volcanic cones, which in this area from time to time continue to form in our days. Of course, the most famous for the national park was not the Yellowstone super volcano (then they did not even know such words), but huge, incredibly beautiful geysers. However, the beauty of nature and the richness of the animal world also did not leave people indifferent.

What is a super-volcano in the modern sense?

If we talk about a typical volcano, then most often it is a fairly ordinary mountain in the form of a truncated cone, at its apex there is a muzzle through which the glowing gases pass and molten magma flows out. Actually, the young volcano is just a crack in the ground. When molten lava flows from it and freezes, it quickly forms a characteristic cone.

That's just supervolcanoes are such that they do not even look like their "younger brothers". This is a kind of "boils" on the surface of the earth, under the thin "skin" of which molten magma is bubbling. In the territory of such formation, several ordinary volcanoes can often form, through the vents of which from time to time there is a release of accumulated products. However, even the visible hole there is often not: there is a volcanic caldera, which many people take as a usual dip in the earth.

How many of them exist at all?

To date, no less than 20-30 such formations are known. Their relatively small eruptions, which most often occur through the "use" of ordinary volcanic branches, can be compared with the discharge of steam from the pressure cooker valve. Problems begin at the very moment when the steam pressure is too high and the "boiler" itself flies into the air. It should be taken into account that the volcano in the USA (like Etna, by the way) refers precisely to the "explosive" category due to extremely dense magma.

That's why they are so dangerous. The power of such natural formations is such that they may have enough energy to wipe out the powder of an entire continent. Pessimists believe that if a volcano in the United States still explodes, 97-99% of humanity may die. In principle, even the most optimistic forecasts are not too different from such a grim scenario.

He is waking up?

Increased activity is recorded over the past decade. Many people in America do not even realize that one to three underground things are fixed every year. So far, many of them are fixed only with special equipment. Of course, it is too early to speak about the explosion, but the number and strength of such tremors gradually grow. The facts are disappointing - the underground reservoir is probably filled with lava.

In general, for the first time scientists drew attention to the national park in 2012, when dozens of new geysers began to appear on its territory. Just two hours after the visit of scientists, the Government banned access to a large part of the national park to tourists. But seismologists, geologists, biologists and other researchers became tens of times larger.

There are other dangerous volcanoes in the United States. In Oregon, there is also the caldera of the giant Crater Lake, which was also formed as a result of volcanic activity, and it can be no less dangerous to its "colleague" from Wyoming. However, literally fifteen or twenty years ago, scientists believed that super-volcanoes needed centuries to awaken, and therefore, it is always possible to predict catastrophe ahead of time. Unfortunately, they were obviously wrong.

Research by Margaret Mangan

Margaret Mangan, one of the prominent scientists of the Geological Survey of America, has long been closely monitoring the manifestations of volcanic activity around the world. Not long ago, she told the world community that seismologists had completely reconsidered their views on the timing of the awakening of the world's largest volcanoes .

But this is very bad news. Our knowledge has expanded significantly in recent years, but there is no relief from this. Thus, a large volcano in the USA constantly demonstrates growing activity: there were moments when the earth near the caldera was heated to 550 degrees Celsius, a lava dome appeared in the form of a hemisphere protruding upward rocks, and the lake gradually began to boil.

Just two years ago, some seismologists vied with each other that volcanic activity for the next couple of centuries was not threatened by mankind. Really? After the grandiose tsunami, which literally washed away Fukushima, they stopped issuing their forecasts. Now they prefer to get rid of intrusive journalists with nothing meaningful terms of general significance. So what are they afraid of? The onset of a new Ice Age as a result of a huge eruption?

The first disturbing forecasts

In fairness, it should be noted that scientists have known about the gradual reduction in the time between cataclysms. However, given the astronomical time, humanity was not concerned with this. Initially, the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano in the US was expected in about 20 thousand years. But after studying the accumulated information, it turned out that this would happen in 2074. And this is a very optimistic forecast, because volcanoes are extremely unpredictable and very dangerous.

A researcher from the University of Utah, Robert Smith, in 2008 said that "... while the magma is located at a depth of 10 kilometers from the vent (with its constant rise of 8 centimeters per year), there are no grounds for panic ... But if it rises at least Up to three kilometers, we all do not fit. " This is the more dangerous Yellowstone. The USA (or rather, the country's scientific community) is well aware of this.

Meanwhile, back in 2006, Ilya Bindeman and John Valay published in the journal "Earth and planetary science," and they did not spoil the public with comforting forecasts. The data for the last three years, they said, indicate a sharp acceleration of the lava rise, new crevices are constantly opening, through which hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide exit to the surface .

This is a sure sign that some big trouble will surely happen. Today even skeptics agree that this danger is quite real.

New Signals

But why was this topic the "trend" of last year? After all, people already had enough hysteria with the year 2012? And all because in March there was a sharply increased seismic activity. Increasingly, even geysers, considered to have long since fallen asleep, began to wake up. From the territory of the national park, animals and birds began to migrate massively. But these are real precursors of something very bad.

After the bison, the deer also fled, quickly leaving the Yellowstone plateau. In a year, a third of the livestock migrated, which even the indigenous Aboriginal people never remembered. Especially strange, all these movements of animals look in the light of the fact that no one hunts on the territory of the park. However, people have known since ancient times that animals perfectly feel the signals that foreshadow major natural disasters.

The available data further increase the anxiety of the scientific world community. In March of last year, seismographs recorded an earthquake with a strength of up to four points, and this is no longer a joke. At the end of March, the area shook noticeably with a strength of 4.8 points. Since 1980, this is the most powerful manifestation of seismic activity. And unlike the events of thirty years ago, these concussions are strictly localized.

Why is the volcano so dangerous?

For decades, during which there was at least some study of this area, the scientists for a long time assumed that the Yellowstone caldera is no longer dangerous: the volcano, supposedly, had long since died out. According to the new data of geodetic and geophysical prospecting, in the reservoir under the caldera of magma is approximately twice as much as was indicated in the most pessimistic reports.

Today it is known for sure that this reservoir extends as much as 80 kilometers in length and 20 in width. It was learned by Robert Smith, a geophysicist from the city of Salt Lake City, collecting and analyzing a huge amount of seismological data. In late October 2013, he made a report on this in the city of Denver, at the annual scientific conference. His message was immediately replicated, almost all the leading seismic laboratories in the world were interested in the results of the research.

Assessment of opportunities

To sum up his conclusions, the scientist had to collect statistical data on more than 4,500,000 earthquakes of varying intensity. This is how he defined the boundaries of the Yellowstone caldera. Data showed that the size of the "hot" area in previous years was understated more than twice. Today it is believed that the volume of magma is within four thousand cubic meters of hot rock.

It is assumed that "only" 6-8% of this amount falls on molten magma, but it is very, very much. So Yellowstone Park is a real delayed mine, on which the whole world will explode (which will happen alas, alas).

The first phenomenon

In general, the first time the volcano brightly showed itself about 2.1 million years ago. A quarter of the whole of North America at that time was covered with a thick layer of volcanic ash. In principle, nothing more significant since then has happened. Scientists believe that all the super volcanoes manifest themselves once in 600 thousand years. Given that the last time the Yellowstone Super Volcano exploded more than 640,000 years ago, there is every reason to prepare for trouble.

And now everything can be much worse, because just in the past three hundred years, the density of the world's population has increased many times. An indicator of what happened then is the volcano caldera. It is a cyclopean crater that arose as a result of an unimaginable earthquake that occurred 642 thousand years ago. How much ash and gas were thrown out then, is unknown, but this event greatly influenced the climate of our planet for the next millenniums.

For comparison: one of the comparatively recent (by geological measures) Etna eruptions, which occurred six thousand years ago, and which was hundreds of times weaker than the release from the caldera, caused a grand tsunami. Its traces are found by archaeologists throughout the Mediterranean. It is assumed that this was the basis for the traditions of the Biblical Flood. Apparently, our ancestors really experienced then many tragic events: hundreds of settlements were simply washed away in a few moments. The residents of the settlement of Attle-Yam were more fortunate, but even their descendants continue to talk about the grandiose waves that crushed everything in their path.

If Yellowstone behaves badly, then the eruption will be 2.5 thousand times more powerful, and the ash will emerge into the atmosphere 15 times more than it got there after the last awakening of Krakatoa, when about 40 thousand people died.

Eruption is not the main thing

Smith himself repeatedly stressed that the eruption is the tenth thing. He and his colleagues-seismologists say that the main danger lies in subsequent earthquakes that will be clearly more powerful than the eight points on the Richter scale. In the territory of the national park and now almost every year there are minor concussions. The harbingers of the future also exist: in 1959 an earthquake with a capacity of 7.3 points happened at once. Only 28 people died, as the others managed to evacuate in a timely manner.

In general, the Yellowstone caldera will certainly bring many more troubles. Most likely, the lava flows immediately cover an area of at least a hundred square kilometers, and then the gas flows will suffocate all life on the territory of North America. Perhaps, a grandiose ash cloud will reach the coast of Europe for a maximum of a couple of days.

That's what Yellowstone Park is hidden in. When a catastrophe of a global scale occurs, no one knows. It remains to be hoped that this will happen very soon.

Approximate model of the catastrophe

If the volcano explodes, then the effect can be compared with the detonation of a dozen powerful intercontinental missiles. The Earth's crust for hundreds of kilometers will rise tens of meters up and warm up to about a hundred degrees on a Celsius scale. Pieces of rock in the form of volcanic bombs will bombard the surface of North America for several days in a row. In the atmosphere, the content of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and other dangerous compounds will increase thousands of times. What are the other consequences of the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano?

Today it is believed that the explosion will instantly burn out an area of about 1000 km ² . The whole northwest of the USA and a significant part of Canada will become a red-hot desert. At least 10 thousand square kilometers will immediately cover with a layer of red-hot rock that will forever change this world!

For a long time, mankind believed that today civilization is threatened only by mutual destruction during the atomic war. But today there is every reason to believe that we have forgotten about the power of nature. It was she who arranged on the planet several Ice Age, during which thousands of species of plants, animals and birds died out. You can not be so self-assured and consider that man is the king of this world. Our species can also be erased from the face of this planet, which has happened repeatedly in the past millennia.

What are other dangerous volcanoes?

Are there any active active volcanoes on the planet? You can see a list of them below:

• Ljuljajljako in the Andes.

• Popocatepetl in Mexico (the last eruption in 2003).

• Klyuchevskaya hill in Kamchatka. Erupt in 2004.

• Mauna Loa. In 1868, Hawaii was literally washed away by the giant tsunami that arose because of its activity.

• Fujiyama. The famous symbol of Japan. The last time "pleased" the Land of the Rising Sun in 1923, when almost 700 thousand houses were destroyed almost instantly, and the number of missing persons (not counting the victims found) exceeded 150 thousand people.

• Shiveluch, Kamchatka. Erupted simultaneously with Sopka.

• Etna, about which we have already spoken. It is considered "asleep", but the calmness of the volcano is a relative thing.

• Aso, Japan. For all the known history - more than 70 eruptions.

• The famous Vesuvius. Like Etna, was considered "dead", but suddenly resurrected in 1944.

Perhaps, this should be finished. As you can see, the danger of the eruption accompanied humanity on the whole path of its development.