Earth’s geologic changes are inevitable. Throughout our planet’s existence, it has changed physically and structurally, and it will continue to alter as time goes on. Yet, much of our population is relatively unaware of some of the changes that have taken place throughout Earth’s history. It is crucial to know about significant changes that have occurred throughout geologic time, mostly because our planet is on a cycle and it is scientifically proven that many events will repeat themselves. Many people may not know that the United States, Yellowstone National Park specifically, is home to the world’s largest super volcano, and it is long overdue for an eruption. If this were to erupt, it would be a catastrophic event in Earth’s history.
Yellowstone National Park was established on March 1, 1872 as the world’s first national park. According to the National Park Service, it is 2,221,766 acres in total, which is larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined. 96% of the parks features are located in Wyoming, 3% in Montana and the remaining 1% lie in Idaho. Its highest peak, Eagle Peak, stands at an astounding height of 11,358 feet, or 2.15 miles, into the sky. The park also contains canyons, alpine rivers, forests, hot springs and geysers, including Old Faithful, which is the most famous geyser in the world. It was discovered and named in 1870 on the Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition, and it was named Old Faithful because it would faithfully erupt hot water up to 184 feet into the air every 35-120 minutes. In fact, in a 1883 book entitled The Yellowstone National Park: A Manual for Tourists, author Henry Winser discussed how many army troops that were stationed at Yellowstone would wash their clothes in Old Faithful. Because the water was well over the boiling point, they did not even need to use soap. They would soak their clothes in the geyser and wait for it to erupt, and then pick up their clothes and hang them to dry. Old Faithful is still active today.
Yellowstone sits in a volcanic caldera known as the Yellowstone Caldera. A caldera is a depression, or crater, that forms in the crust after intense magma flow or a volcanic eruption. This caldera also happens to be an area containing an extreme volcanic hot spot, which is a place where magma pushes out from an opening through the mantle to the crust. Yellowstone National Park sits right on top of the North American Plate, and the movement of that plate over the hot spot is what created the super volcano long ago. This is unique when compared to normal volcanism because it does not occur at a tectonic plate boundary, it instead is located in the middle of a plate. Yellowstone’s eruption created a string of volcanoes in California, and it also created Craters of the Moon National Park in central Idaho.
A super volcano is the same as a regular volcano, just a lot larger. A normal volcano can erupt up to 1 km³ of material, while a super volcano can erupt up to 1,000 km³ of material. Even the smallest of eruptions from a super volcano can be extremely dangerous, especially if it were the Yellowstone volcano to erupt. It is predicted that it would eject ash many miles across the United States, but the exact number is unknown. Some predict it could only travel as far as five hundred miles, while others predict it could go for thousands of miles. The eruption would also be about 2,000 times larger than that of Mount St. Helens in 2008. “The one in Yellowstone happens to be the largest on Earth,” said Mr. Scott, science teacher at WSHS. Mr. Scott is also a long-time geologist, and he has studied this specific location in person. In 2004, he traveled to Yellowstone and worked to map out the hot spots in the area in order to figure out how much thermal energy was being released through the crust, and how much was being used to heat the water. Yellowstone’s hot spots can reach scalding temperatures of over 200 degrees Fahrenheit. The scorching liquid could also be very acidic, therefore it is extremely unsafe for humans to touch. There have been many cases in the park’s history where park visitors have gone off-trail and fallen into some of the pools, and the results have been fatal. According to The Montana Pioneer, Yellowstone has over three hundred reported deaths that were not related to vehicle or snowmobile use.
Scientists are unable to predict the next Yellowstone eruption, but what they know for sure is that it is overdue for one. The last eruption was about 640,000 years ago, and they believe that it is on a 600,000 to 700,000 year cycle. This cycle is thought to have started around 2.1 million years ago. Many scientists and geologists have differing beliefs about what the super volcano is capable of, but Mr. Scott predicts that there will be an eruption sometime relatively soon. “In the last seven to eight years the crust has expanded over 1.2 meters, which is direct evidence of thermal loading of the crust. The crusts brittle strength has a breaking point, and once this breaking point is overcome it could result in a catastrophic eruption,” said Scott. “It’s not a rare event, it happens all the time.”
If you ever have the chance to visit this natural American beauty, its wildlife, hiking trails and waters are one of a kind. According to the National Park Service, a total of 4,257,177 people visited the park in 2016, and every year the amount of visitors increases. It is important for our population to be aware of what dangers this super volcano and other natural disasters could produce, because there is no way to prevent them from happening. Who knows, humans may be totally gone before Yellowstone erupts, or maybe it could happen tomorrow.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons License
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