When will the Yellowstone volcano explode? Probability and consequences of an eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano.
Some time ago, information appeared that the Yellowstone volcano, which is located in the United States of America, began to show unusual activity.
Experts attribute this to the fact that there was an earthquake recently in Alaska. Residents of the country are worried about the actions of the supervolcano. However, experts from the States are ready to prevent the impending disaster.
So, scientists intend to act in two ways. It is necessary to cool the lava with cold water or make wells near the base of the caldera. This way the pressure in the volcano will be reduced. The main reason that holds back scientists is the lack of money. The planned project will cost approximately three and a half billion rubles.
For quite a long time, NASA specialists have been trying to implement their plan to prevent the catastrophe that the largest volcano in the world could bring. Recently, alarm bells have begun to appear, warning that something big is approaching.
In some places, seismic activity is increasing, which indicates that the volcano is beginning to awaken. In addition, there is an increase in temperature at the bottom of lakes in the reserve. Animals began to move from their permanent territory.
If the volcano does explode, there will be no comforting forecasts for residents of the United States of America. Lava can burn everything that gets in its way, and its radius of divergence will be quite large.
After this, the “volcanic winter” will come. The ash will cover a large area, making it impossible for any living thing to live. Since the sun will be covered with ash, it will be impossible to breathe in such conditions.
Currently, scientists are worried that bison have completely disappeared from the reserve, the site reports. Even though they were behind the fence, park guards still cannot find them.
In addition, it became known that the national park has been closed since January twenty-second. After an earthquake occurred in Alaska, special sensors showed that the magma in the volcano began to move more actively. Many Americans are worried about the current situation
Scientists noted that the situation is quite tense. On January 23, an earthquake was recorded near Montana. The outbreak was located at a depth of five kilometers. Now experts are asking people not to panic, because there is no accurate information about the eruption.
However, some scientists believe that a volcano explosion could be a harbinger of the end of the world, although this fact remains controversial among scientists from around the world.
In September last year, one hundred and fifteen earthquakes were recorded in the national park. However, the first earthquake occurred in the early summer of that year.
Experts from the Geological Survey of the United States of America said that in October last year the volcano showed virtually no activity. According to experts, during all this time more than two and a half thousand earthquakes occurred.
The tremors that occur due to the volcano could indicate that a huge fireball filled with magma will soon wake up. Its depth is at least eight thousand kilometers, and the melt temperature is more than eight hundred degrees.
Currently, the Yellowstone volcano is the most dangerous on our planet. Experts believe that if he wakes up, all life within a radius of one hundred kilometers will be destroyed.
It is quite difficult to predict the behavior of a volcano, but Geological Survey workers are observing what is happening and noting any changes in the behavior of the volcano.
Some say there is enough dust and gas from the volcano to block out the sun and begin a “volcanic winter.”
Currently, strange things are happening in the park, rivers are boiling, and the earth is rising. The animals that live in the park are worried. They sense that danger is coming, so they try to run away.
Experts believe that the awakening of the supervolcano was greatly influenced by the seismic activity of the Long Valley volcano, which is located in California. At the beginning of autumn last year, its activity was noticed here, after which more earthquakes began to occur.
Yellowstone Volcano, Supervolcano or Yellowstone Caldera are all names of a volcano located in Yellowstone National Park, in the northwestern part of Wyoming, USA.
The Yellowstone volcano is not located at the junction of tectonic plates, as is usually the case, but in the center of the North American Plate. This is a mysterious and as yet unexplored “hot spot” located in the heart of America.
The Yellowstone volcano is gigantic in size and has no cone. Its upper part seemed to have sunk into a giant cavity in the bowels of the Earth. The depression formed after the failure is called a caldera (Spanish Caldera - cauldron). This is a huge area of thinned earth's crust, under which hot magma pulsates. The dimensions of the Yellowstone caldera are 55 by 75 kilometers.
Yellowstone supervolcano, USA.
According to scientists, over the past 17 million years, the Yellowstone volcano has shown its strength more than 100 times. The last two eruptions were about 2 million and 640 thousand years ago.
The Geological Society of America predicted a new awakening of the American supervolcano no sooner than in 20 thousand years. But, already at the end of the last century, based on computer calculations, the date of the approaching catastrophe is postponed to 2075. However, in 2003, a group of scientists came to new conclusions: the eruption of the supervolcano could begin as early as between 2012 and 2016.
The long-standing and, by all accounts, not dangerous Yellowstone volcano, on which the paradise valley of the same name is conveniently located, suddenly began to show signs of activity.
The first signs of activity were the appearance of new geysers. Further, seismologists identified a significant rise in the ground in the national park. Over twenty years, the soil rise has been no more than 10 cm, and over the last four years - 178 cm.
The largest volcano in the world, the Yellowstone Caldera, located in Yellowstone National Park in the United States, according to many volcanologists, may begin to erupt at any minute.
This supervolcano has not shown its power for more than 600 thousand years and its eruption, according to American scientists, could wipe out more than half of the US territory from the face of the earth.
Today, the hidden life of the volcano is the source of numerous hot springs and geysers in Yellowstone National Park. But if the Yellowstone volcano does erupt, the consequences will be catastrophic for the whole world. In addition to the immediate damage from the eruption, such as the fall of volcanic ash over a wide area, as a result of the eruption of a supervolcano, a large amount of ash will fall into the stratosphere, and a real “volcanic winter” may come to our entire Earth.
But there is another group of volcanologists who argue that the very fact of caldera growth is not a clear signal of an imminent eruption. The growth of the caldera is akin to the inflation of bubbles. Its increase can be caused both by magma growing and pressing on the caldera, and by gases formed during this process. Hydrothermal fluids heated by the magma also exert strong pressure on the caldera. According to this group of scientists, whatever the reason for the growth of the caldera, this is not a sufficient signal of an imminent eruption of the supervolcano. In their opinion, “these restless calderas are constantly rising and falling. But this in itself does not mean that we should expect an imminent eruption.”
To get more information about the supervolcano, you can watch this video from the BBC:
BBC. Supervolcano. The whole truth about Yellowstone
Information about the film:
Year of manufacture: 2005
Country: UK
Genre: Documentary
Director: Tony Mitchell
Cast: Michael Riley, Gary Lewis, Shanon Johnston, Adrian Holmes, Jennifer Copping, Rebecca Jenkins, Tom McBeath, Robert Wisden
This may sound a little inappropriate in this case, but enjoy watching:
Time will tell which of them is right. In the meantime, we live and enjoy - every minute we live, every day we live 😉
There is a danger of death, 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 out entire continents from 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 Earth's population by about 15 times. Then only 5-10 thousand people survived. The number of animals decreased by the same amount, and three quarters of the flora of the Northern Hemisphere died. At the site of that explosion, a pit with an area of 1775 square meters was formed. km, which could fit two New Yorks or Londons!
Against this background, it is difficult to imagine what could happen if the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, which is twice the size of Toba!
“A supervolcano eruption dwarfs all others, and its power is a real threat to everyone living on this planet,” said Bill McGuire, professor of geophysics and climate change expert at University College London.
Many people in the United States claim that their government understands what the situation in Yellowstone really looks like, but is hiding it so as not to cause panic.
As if to contradict this, Utah scientists are assiduous in ensuring that the biggest threat is the risk of a large earthquake, not eruptions. Really?
Geological evidence indicates that eruptions occurred in the National Park 2 million years ago, 1.3 million years ago, and the last time was 630 thousand years ago. Everything indicates that the supervolcano may begin erupting not today - tomorrow, and not in 20 thousand years, as American specialists from the US Geological Society want. However, computer simulations sometimes show that the next catastrophe could happen in 2075.
Are the states feasting on a powder keg?
What is this ticking time bomb in the northwestern United States? A supervolcano is not a cone-shaped formation with a vent, like ordinary volcanoes. In appearance it is a lowland, called a caldera by volcanologists, which resembles a huge depression. This unremarkable hollow is a gigantic volcano with an eruption area of several thousand square kilometers. By the way, due to its gigantic size, scientists initially did not even recognize the caldera in Yellowstone Park in the USA. Satellite photos showed that the entire park covers an area of 3,825 square kilometers and is a caldera measuring about 55 km by 72 km.
The outside of Yellowstone Nature Reserve is covered with picturesque landscapes, but inside this huge valley is filled with hot magma.
Over thousands of years, magma filled huge underground reservoirs, melting rock, becoming so dense that volcanic gases, which cause eruptions in ordinary volcanoes, cannot pass through it. Therefore, a huge amount of molten magma presses from below onto the surface of the Earth. This continues for hundreds of thousands of years until the abscess breaks and a terrible explosion occurs.
With such crushing power at their fingertips, US authorities have set scientists the task of calculating the date of the next supervolcano eruption.
According to scientists, the period between supervolcano explosions is approximately 600 thousand years. Given this periodicity, the next cataclysm will fall in our century. At first, researchers talked about 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 the magma - began to ooze. These signs gave scientists reason to believe that magma had escaped from the chamber and was approaching the surface at a speed that had increased several times. In this regard, the date of the expected volcanic eruption was shifted by almost 50 years.
“Over the past two million years, Yellowstone has had three massive eruptions, each of which turned half the continent into desert,” says Robert Smith, a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah. “As long as the magma of the supervolcano (although it has been rising by 8 cm per year since 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.” .
The Yellowstone supervolcano, the explosion of which will bring the death of civilization, is beginning to awaken
But 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 later stages of volcanism. Over the past four years, the soil has risen by almost 180 cm, which is 45 times higher than the previous four years.
WHAT WILL IT BE?
If an explosion occurs, then, according to scientists, the picture will be worse than the description of the Apocalypse. It all starts with a sharp rise and overheating of the earth in Yellowstone Park. And when enormous 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 reaching 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 will be able to survive for no more than 5-7 minutes. A thick layer of ash will cover almost the entire US territory - 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 continent will grow to such a size that the level of radiation will approach Chernobyl. All of North America will turn into scorched earth. Southern 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, eruptions of ocean volcanoes will generate many tsunamis that will flood the coasts and all island states. The long-term consequences will be no less terrible than the eruption itself. And if the United States takes the brunt of the blow, the effect will be felt by the whole world. Thousands of cubic kilometers of ash thrown into the atmosphere will block the sunlight - the world will plunge into darkness. This will cause a sharp drop in temperature, for example, in Canada and Norway the thermometer will drop by 15-20oC in a couple of days. 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. Continuous 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 from starvation in the coming months after the explosion. In total, in the first months of the cataclysm, every third inhabitant of the Earth will die. 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.
NUMBERS ONLY
According to the British broadcasting corporation BBC, while ordinary volcanoes kill thousands of people and destroy entire cities, supervolcanoes claim billions of lives and devastate continents.
2,500 times more powerful than Mount Etna's last eruption, Yellowstone is expected to explode.
The Yellowstone caldera will emit 15 times more ash than the Krakatoa volcano, which killed 36 thousand people.
Visibility will decrease to 20-30 cm due to the resulting 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 total destruction of all living things in the first minutes after the start of the eruption.
1000 atomic bombs exploding simultaneously - such is the force of the Yellowstone volcano eruption.
1 in 1000 earthlings will survive the Yellowstone disaster.
EXPERT OPINION
Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, leading employee of IGEM RAS Anatoly KHRENOV shared his opinion:
- Any volcano is unpredictable, and not a single scientist or seismograph can accurately predict when to expect an eruption and what strength it will be. So the consequences of an explosion can be many times greater than the expected effect. The Yellowstone giant is going to cause 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 northwestern United States will be isolated due to a disruption in transport communications. And that's the best case scenario. At worst, the scale of the disaster is even difficult to imagine... The super eruption in Yellowstone will affect almost the entire US territory. The first zone adjacent to the volcano will suffer from pyroclastic flows. This avalanche, consisting of hot gas and ash, spreading 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 a pyroclastic zone. The next zone is the entire United States, whose territory will be covered in ash. People won't be able to breathe. With an ash layer of 15 cm, the load on the roofs will be so strong that buildings will begin to fold like houses of cards. Hundreds of thousands of people will die either from suffocation or from the collapse of buildings. In a few days, the ash will spread throughout the United States and even cover Europe.
According to American volcanologists, the eruption of the largest volcano in the world, the Yellowstone Caldera, which is located in Yellowstone National Park, could begin at any minute. The volcano has not erupted for about 600 thousand years and its eruption can destroy two-thirds of the US territory, which could even begin a world catastrophe.
The super-volcano beneath 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 the catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state on May 18, 1980.
According to volcanologists, lava will rise high into the sky, and ash will cover nearby areas with a layer of 3 meters and a distance of 1,600 kilometers.
Two-thirds of the US could become uninhabitable due to toxic air - thousands of flights would have to be canceled and millions of people would have to leave their homes.
Experts predict that the volcano will erupt in the near future and will be no less powerful than all three times the volcano has erupted over the past 2.1 million years.
Robert B. Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah, noted that the magma came so close to the earth's crust in Yellowstone Park that it literally emanated heat, which cannot be explained by anything other than the impending eruption of a huge volcano.
Sometimes it seems that only heavenly punishment can stop the United States in its desire to impose “freedom and democracy” on the world through carpet bombing and the outbreak of civil wars and revolutions. Those who believe in the evil doom 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. Yellowstone National Park, known for its forests, grizzly bears and hot springs, is actually a bomb that will explode in the coming years.
If this happens, the entire North American continent may perish. And the rest of the world will not find it enough. But the world won't end, don't worry.
And it all started with joy. In 2002, several new geysers with healing hot water appeared simultaneously in the Yellowstone Nature Reserve. Local tourism companies immediately began to promote this phenomenon, and the number of visitors to the park, which usually amounts to about three million people a year, increased even more.
However, strange things soon began to happen. In 2004, the US government tightened the regime for visiting the reserve. The number of security guards on its territory has sharply increased, and some areas have been declared closed to visitors. But seismologists and volcanologists frequented them.
They had worked in Yellowstone before, because the entire reserve with its unique nature is nothing more than a huge patch on the crater of an extinct supervolcano. Actually, this is where the hot geysers come from. On their way to the surface of the earth, they are heated by the magma rustling and gurgling under the earth's crust. All local sources were known back in the days when white colonizers recaptured Yellowstone from the Indians, and here you have three new ones! Why would that be?
Scientists became worried. One after another, commissions to study 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 with emergency powers was created under the Office of the President of the United States. 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.
George W. Bush personally chaired the monthly meetings of this body.
That same year, Yellowstone National Park moved from departmental subordination to the Department of the Interior under the direct control of the Scientific Council. Why would the American authorities pay so much attention to a simple resort?
And the whole point is that the ancient and, as it was believed, safe supervolcano, on which the Paradise Valley is located, suddenly showed signs of activity. The miraculously clogged springs became its first manifestation.
Further - more. Seismologists 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-five years the ground rise was no more than 10 centimeters.
Seismologists were joined by mathematicians. Based on information about previous eruptions of the Yellowstone volcano, they developed an algorithm for its life activity. The result was shocking.
The fact that the intervals between eruptions are constantly decreasing was 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 his awakening no earlier than 21 thousand years later. But based on new data, computers produced an unexpected result. The next catastrophe should be expected in 2075. However, after some time it became clear that events were developing much faster. The result had to be adjusted again.
The terrible date has approached. Now it looms between 2014 and 2016, with the first figure looking more likely.
It would seem, just think, an eruption, especially since it was known in advance. Well, the Americans will evacuate the population from a dangerous area, and then they will spend money on restoring the destroyed infrastructure...
Alas, only those who are not familiar with supervolcanoes can argue this way.
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 is constantly boiling, which from time to time bursts upward through cracks, faults and other “defects” in the earth’s crust. As the magma rises, it releases gases, becoming volcanic lava, and flows out through the top of a fissure, commonly called a vent. Solidifying around the vent, the products of the eruption build up the cone of the volcano.
Supervolcanoes have a feature that, until recently, no one even suspected of their existence. They are not at all similar to 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 looks like a pimple, a supervolcano looks like a huge inflammation. Several ordinary volcanoes may be located on the territory of a supervolcano. 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.
The collapsed rocks, like a piston, sharply squeeze out gigantic fountains of lava and ash from the depths.
The force of this explosion exceeds the charge of the most powerful nuclear bomb. According to geophysicists, if the Yellowstone mine explodes, the effect will exceed a hundred Hiroshimas. The calculations, of course, are purely theoretical. During its existence, homo sapiens has never encountered such a phenomenon. The last time it boomed was during the time of the dinosaurs. Perhaps this is why they became extinct.
A few days before the explosion, the earth's crust above the supervolcano will rise several meters. At the same time, the soil will heat up to 60–70 degrees. The concentration of hydrogen sulfide and helium in the atmosphere will increase sharply.
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 thrown to great heights. As they fall, they will cover a gigantic area. 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 (Seattle) and parts of Canada (Calgary, Vancouver) are in immediate danger.
Streams of hot mud will rage over an area of 10 thousand square kilometers, the so-called pyroclastic wave - the deadliest product of the eruption. They will arise when the pressure of lava shooting high into the atmosphere weakens and part of the column collapses on the surrounding area in a huge avalanche, burning everything in its path. It will be impossible to survive in pyroclastic flows of such magnitude. At temperatures above 400 degrees, human bodies will simply cook, the flesh will separate from the bones.
The hot liquid will kill about 200 thousand people in the first minutes after the eruption begins.
But these are very minor 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 already claim 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 wider. Within 24 hours, 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 against 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 most at risk. When the layer of volcanic ash reaches a thickness of 15 centimeters, the load on the roofs will become too great and buildings will begin to collapse. It is estimated that between one and fifty people in each home will be killed or seriously injured. This will be the main cause of death in the areas around Yellowstone bypassed by the pyroclastic wave, 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 clouds of ash and ash to cross the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and after a month they will cover the Sun across the entire Earth.
Soviet scientists once 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 on the earth's surface will drop in various parts of 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 for at least a year and a half. This is enough to forever change the natural balance on the planet. Due to long frosts and lack of light, vegetation will die. Since plants are involved in the production of oxygen, very soon it will become difficult for everyone living on the planet to breathe. The fauna of 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 residents of the Western Hemisphere. Residents of other parts of the world, including Russians, have a much higher chance of survival. And the consequences will apparently not be so catastrophic. But for the population of North America, the chances of survival are minimal.
But if the American authorities are 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?
The first question is not difficult to answer: 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. In the context of an almost complete cessation of supplies, the military potential remaining at our disposal will decrease to a level sufficient only to maintain order in the country.”.
As for notifying 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. Where to run from the broken and burning continent?
The US population is now approaching the three hundred million mark. In principle, there is nowhere to put this biomass, especially since after the disaster there will be no safe places left on the planet. Every state will have big problems, and no one will want to aggravate them by accepting millions of refugees.
In any case, this is the conclusion reached by the Scientific Council under the President of the United States. According to its members, there is only one way out - to abandon the majority of the population to the will of fate and take care of preserving capital, military potential and the elite of American society. So, a few months before the explosion, the best scientists, military, high-tech specialists, and, of course, the rich will be taken out of the country. There is no doubt that every billionaire has a reserved place on the future ark. But you can no longer guarantee the fate of ordinary millionaires. They will save themselves.
Actually, the above information became known thanks to the efforts of the American scientist and journalist Howard Huxley, who has been working on the problems of the Yellowstone volcano since the 80s, has established connections in geophysics circles, like many famous journalists was associated with the CIA and is a recognized authority in scientific circles.
Realizing what the country was heading for, Howard and his like-minded people created the Foundation for Saving Civilization. Their goal is to warn humanity about the impending disaster and give everyone a chance to survive, not just members of the elite.
Over the course of several years, Foundation employees have accumulated a wealth of information. In particular, they calculated exactly where the cream of American society would go after the disaster.
Liberia, a small state in West Africa, traditionally following in the wake of American politics, will become an island of salvation for them. Massive cash injections have been going into this country for several years now. There is a network of excellent roads, airports and, as they say, an extensive system of deep, very well-maintained bunkers. The American elite will be able to sit in this hole 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 “shaitan” while he licks his wounds. You can't think of a better reason for jihad.
Therefore, since 2003, preemptive strikes have been carried out on a number of Muslim countries with the aim of destroying their military potential. Whether the American military machine will have time to neutralize these threats before hour X, God knows.
A vicious circle has formed. Due to its aggressive policy, the United States has more and more ill-wishers, and less and less time remains to neutralize them.
There is still a danger of the destruction of our entire civilization, many scientists admit. The fact is that the inevitable processes within our planet, occurring before our eyes, are recognized by experts as a global threat that can wipe out entire continents from 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 Earth's population by about 15 times. Then only 5–10 thousand people survived. The number of animals decreased by the same amount, and three quarters of the flora of the Northern Hemisphere died. At the site of that explosion, a pit with an area of 1775 square meters was formed. km, which could fit two New Yorks or Londons.
Against this background, it is difficult to imagine what could happen if the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, which is twice the size of Toba! “Against the backdrop of a supervolcano eruption, everyone else seems dwarfed, and its power is a real threat to everyone living on this planet,”– noted Bill McGuire, professor of geophysics and climate change specialist from University College London.
If an explosion occurs, then, according to scientists, the picture will be worse than the description of the Apocalypse. It will all start with a sharp rise and overheating of the earth in Yellowstone Park. And when enormous 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 reaching 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 will be able to survive for no more than 5–7 minutes. A thick layer of ash will cover almost the entire US territory - 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 continent will grow to such a size that the level of radiation will approach Chernobyl. All of North America will turn into scorched earth. Southern 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, eruptions of ocean volcanoes will generate many tsunamis that will flood the coasts and all island states. The long-term consequences will be no less terrible than the eruption itself. And if the United States bears the brunt, the effect will be felt by the whole world.
Thousands of cubic kilometers of ash thrown into the atmosphere will block the sunlight - the world will plunge into darkness. This will cause a sharp drop in temperature, for example, in Canada and Norway the thermometer will drop by 15–18 degrees in a couple of days. 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.
Continuous 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 from starvation in the coming months after the explosion. In total, in the first months of the cataclysm, every third inhabitant of the Earth will die. 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.
Yellowstone is a supervolcano in the United States. For several years now, the world has been disturbed by the news that it is about to wake up, a catastrophe will happen, America will come to an end, and the world will plunge into nuclear winter. While the supervolcano is sleeping.
Worst case scenario
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 crater with a diameter of fifty kilometers. An environmental disaster will occur on Earth. For the United States, the eruption of Yellowstone would mean the end of existence.
The saddest thing is that not only alarmists, but also experts talk about such consequences. Jacob Lowenstern from the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (USA) said that during all previous eruptions of the supervolcano (there were three), more than 1 thousand km³ of magma fell out. This is enough to cover most of North America with a layer of ash up to 30 cm (at the epicenter of the disaster). Löwenstern also noted that the air temperature throughout the Earth will drop by 21 degrees, visibility for several years will become 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 prepared for such large-scale disasters - and no country’s defense system can prepare for them.
Domestic scientists never tire of predicting the eruption of a supervolcano. Nikolai Koronovsky, head of the Department of Dynamic Geology, Faculty of Geology, Moscow State University, in an interview with Vesti, told what would happen after the eruption:
“Winds are predominantly westerly, so everything will go to the eastern United States. Will cover them. Solar radiation will decrease, which means the temperature will have to drop. The famous eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in the Sunda Strait in 1873 lowered the temperature by about 2 degrees in the equatorial region for a year and a half until the ash dissipated.”
Supervolcano
Such forecasts are not surprising if we remember that we are facing a supervolcano. What is this? Supervolcanoes can be called the most dangerous zones on the globe.
Yellowstone is a huge caldera hidden underground. Its area is 4000 km 2. For comparison: the area of Moscow is 2500 km 2, that is, Yellowstone is one and a half times larger than the capital of Russia, twice larger than Tokyo, and four times larger than New York.
Scientists did not know about the existence of supervolcanoes until the first geosatellites were launched. Yellowstone is so huge that it doesn't even form a cone, so it doesn't look like a typical volcano.
The threat is near
Alarming predictions of an imminent eruption come from the scientific community. Geology professor Bill McGuire, who constantly monitors the park, assesses the situation this way: “America is literally living on a powder keg. Satellite images and movements of the earth's crust indicate that active processes are taking place deep in the depths. There are other signs that he may wake up. The surface of Yellowstone Park emits 30 to 40 times more thermal energy than the rest of the continent."
The peak of panic came last spring. Since the beginning of 2014, 60 tremors have been recorded in the area of the volcano. The strongest - on the morning of March 30 - its magnitude was 4.8 - a record since 1980.
The Internet community did not stand aside either. A video of bison rushing away from the park has received millions of views on YouTube. However, the reserve workers immediately stated that this was seasonal migration and there was nothing to worry about.
Casey says
The prediction of the legendary Edgar Cayce, one of the most prominent predictors of the 20th century, who in his time predicted both world wars, the discovery of the Qumran scrolls and the rise of China, does not bring peace of mind.
He also predicted a catastrophe that could destroy the United States during the reign of America's 44th president. Barack Obama is 44th.
Is it all that serious?
What is happening now in the Yellowstone National Park? Apparently, everything is relatively calm. CBS News, citing the National Park Service and the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, reported in March 2014 that the probability of a super eruption at that time was 0.00014%. That is, it “almost certainly will not happen.”
As it was before
Yellowstone's last major eruption occurred approximately 640 thousand years ago. Its force was 2,500 times greater than that of the largest eruptions of Mount Etna, and as a result, the ocean coastline changed and the Mediterranean Sea froze.
It’s difficult to visualize, but for the Earth it was a disaster.
The build-up of information noise around Yellowstone is becoming seasonal and started quite deliberately. Thus, in the 80s in the USSR and Eastern Europe it was common to say that the USA was about to be destroyed by the AIDS epidemic. Meanwhile, there is still controversy in medicine about whether HIV is the infectious agent of AIDS.
In the case of Yellowstone, the situation is similar. As we know, the objective probability of a catastrophe is calculated in tiny percentages, but every time the media starts their “Yellowstone Campaign,” sales in stores increase, and newspapers with fresh news about the supervolcano are taken off the shelves in entire circulations.