Yellowstone Super-volcano
Saturday, 4. March 2006, 09:29:43
The Yellowstone volcano could explode again as a super-volcano that would destroy life for hundreds of miles around and coat the entire country in ash. In the past decade part of the volcano has risen nearly 12 centimetres.
Yellowstone has had three extremely large caldera-forming eruptions in the last 2 million years. These eruptions occurred about 2.0, 1.3, and 0.6 million years ago. Two of those are among the largest eruptions known to have occurred on Earth (each more than 1,000 cubic kilometres). The youngest caldera is an elliptical depression,nearly 80 kilometres long and 50 kilometres wide,that occupies much of Yellowstone National Park (see map).
The eruptions have moved from west to east. The volcano is far from plate boundaries and is a so-called hot spot volcano, like the Hawaii volcanoes. How hot spots work and if hot spot is a relevant term are still under heavy discussions.
More info on volcanoes at http://whatonearth.olehnielsen.dk/volcanoes.asp
- http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,186516,00.html
- http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11622376/
- http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=00071CA3-1130-1406-913083414B7F0000&ref=rss
Yellowstone has had three extremely large caldera-forming eruptions in the last 2 million years. These eruptions occurred about 2.0, 1.3, and 0.6 million years ago. Two of those are among the largest eruptions known to have occurred on Earth (each more than 1,000 cubic kilometres). The youngest caldera is an elliptical depression,nearly 80 kilometres long and 50 kilometres wide,that occupies much of Yellowstone National Park (see map).
The eruptions have moved from west to east. The volcano is far from plate boundaries and is a so-called hot spot volcano, like the Hawaii volcanoes. How hot spots work and if hot spot is a relevant term are still under heavy discussions.
More info on volcanoes at http://whatonearth.olehnielsen.dk/volcanoes.asp
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