Supervolcano in Yellowstone is due to erupt

Yellowstone National Park is sitting on top of a supervolcano and scientists say that it just took a “deep breath.”   It erupts every 640,000 years and it’s been 640,000 years since the last one. If this blows it would be 1,000 times bigger than Mount St. Helen’s eruption.

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42 thoughts on “Supervolcano in Yellowstone is due to erupt”

  1. If it erupts before July I probably won’t make the BABBQ. or anything else.
    PS. if Woody Harrelson shows up with an old RV i am moving to Africa.

  2. Hey guys, don’t worry! Life may end in the United States as we know it. We don’t know when but it’s coming! But the good news is I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to geico!

  3. 640,000 years ago? Not 639,999 years ago? Not 640,001 years ago? What day 640,000 years ago did this happen? I hope it was 640,000 years ago from say, July 12th, and not from July 9th, so I can see ALN again at BABBQ II.

  4. I live inside the 100 miles zone. When it happens, our plan is to get out the lawnchairs, lemonade, and sunglasses, and enjoy the show. It ought to be a good one!

  5. I feel the need for a Florida vacation all of a sudden. The fact it’s snowing again today might also have something to do with that though, not just getting out of blast zone.

  6. I feel the need to point out that by “just took a deep breath” what they actually mean is there has been a rise of about 7 cm a year between 2004 and 2007. Between 07 and 10, this “deep breath” swelling slowed to less than a centimeter a year. There was a study published in December that stated this information, and CNN felt that they needed to hype it up. Not that this volcano won’t someday erupt, without much warning even, just that this risk isn’t any higher now than it was five years ago.
    Thanks, google 🙂 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/01/110119-yellowstone-park-supervolcano-eruption-magma-science/

    • Oh no! This sounds like manmade global lava lifting. I think we need to redistribute the weight of some of the folks from Utah and South Dakota up towards Wyoming to offset the tectonic shift.

  7. And I thought moving from Evanston(WY) to Portland was a good thing but apparently it is going to get meither way LOL

  8. Looking at CNN’s map I guess I’m not worried. They seem to think that Montana is Minnesota……So…we in Montana either don’t actually exist or we are really part of Canada and need not worry anyway…..

  9. Does this article mean the volcano is taking a deep breath in the same way a 6 year old takes a deep breath when (s)he wants the latest toy/sweet/pet? 🙂

  10. I have a google alert for Yellowstone and all I see is the repeated parroting of the gross speculation that an eruption of this volcano is imminent. That may or may not be the case. If it does happen there is not a lot we can do about it. However, at least one scientist monitoring the volcano does not think the eruption will happen anytime soon.

    USGS Scientist-in-Charge of Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Jake Lowenstern has a totally different take on the volcano that can be seen here: http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/publications/2009/greatesthits.php

    Based on his calculations of three previous super eruptions, another eruption will not be overdue for at least another 70,000 years. But then that is ho hum information that does make profitable headlines.

    • Of course a person in authority is not going to stir up a panic. They are not going to put a chief scientist in charge if they think it is someone who screams the sky is falling.

      Volcanos may erupt on a periodic cycle, but there are so many variables that we won’t know till it’s real, real close. Like you said Larry, if it happens it happens. I think I’ll make a google news alert myself.

  11. Yellowstone is like a woman– It’s beautiful, wild, captivating, mysterious, takes your breath away, kind of smelly, steams a lot, it will burn you if you don’t stay on the right path, unstable, and eventually it will erupt without warning unleashing all hell on earth

  12. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_2_156/ai_55369388/
    This is a good article about the Mt. Mazama explosion 7,000 years ago that made Crater Lake and threw rocks from Oregon to Greenland. It compares Mt. Mazama, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Pinatubo and the ancient Yellowstone blowout. It says that if we compare Mt. Mazama to a half-gallon milk carton, Mt. St. Helens would fill half of an espresso cup, Mt. Pinatubo would fill a coffee cup, and Yellowstone would fill a 30 gallon garbage can. Wow! Mt. Mazama made a 1 mile wide lake and threw rocks 4,000 km, and STILL Yellowstone was 60 TIMES more powerful. That must have been an Earthshaking Ka-boom!

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