How will Yellowstone Caldera kill us?

Answer 1

Yellowstone is one of six SuperVolcanos in the world. When Yellowstone National Park experienced its largest eruption 2.1 million years ago, massive volcanic depressions formed, known as " calderas." The explosion also spewed volcanic ash over half of the United States, reaching areas of as far away as Texas, Louisiana and Southern California, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

A similar, smaller but still huge eruption occurred 1.3 million years ago. This eruption formed the Henrys Fork Caldera, located in Island Park, west of Yellowstone National Park, and produced another widespread volcanic deposit called the Mesa Falls Tuff.

The region's most recent caldera-forming eruption 640,000 years ago created the 35-mile-wide, 50-mile-long Yellowstone Caldera. Pyroclastic flows from this eruption left thick volcanic deposits known as the Lava Creek Tuff, which can be seen in the south-facing cliffs east of Madison, where they form the north wall of the caldera. Huge volumes of volcanic ash were blasted high into the atmosphere, and deposits of this ash can still be found in places as distant from Yellowstone as Iowa, Louisiana, and California.

The last eruption of a super volcano was in Toba, Sumatra, and 75,000 years ago. It had 2,800 times the explosive force of Mount St. Helens and changed life on Earth forever. Thousands of cubic miles of ash were thrown into the atmosphere, so much that it blocked out light from the sun all over the world. Two thousand five hundred miles away 14 inches of ash coated the ground. Global temperatures plummeted by 21 degrees. The rain was so poisoned because of the gasses that it turned black and strongly acidic. Mankind was pushed to the edge of extinction; the population forced down to just a couple of thousand people worldwide. Three quarters of all plants in the Northern Hemisphere were killed.

When Yellowstone blows it may not kill you but you may wish that it had.