What would happen if the Yellowstone caldera erupted?
Giant volcano, the Yellowstone Caldera, which lies beneath Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, United States, predictably erupted in the near future. If that happens, two-thirds of U.S. territory is no longer feared to be habitable. The giant Yellowstone volcano rising to the surface. Currently, approximately 2395 square kilometers of the surface area of caldera and resulted in some areas rose by 25 centimeters.
Since the last three years, the giant volcano that rises above approximately 7.6 centimeters to sea level every year. This is the fastest increase since 1923 last. If the eruption, caldera is estimated to have a thousand times more power than the eruption of Mount St. Helen (USA), 1980 last. The experts indicated, the resulting caldera volcanic dust can reach 304 centimeters thick and cover areas as far as 1600 kilometers.
In addition, the effects will be far more devastating caldera volcanic eruptions than Iceland, Eyjafjallajokull, which could cause air traffic chaos, April 2010. Over the past 2.1 million years, Yellowstone Caldera erupted three times ever recorded. The last time was at 600 thousand years ago. However, according to experts, could be a caldera will erupt for the fourth time in the near future.
“Initially we were worried the increase would lead to the eruption Caldera. But, when we see magma depth of 10 kilometers, we were no longer too worried. If the depth of two or three miles, we will be much more worried,” said Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics University Utah. ”We do not know how long this process will last until the volcano erupted, or the process ends and the caldera shrink back,” he said.
