Experts Warn of Coming Global Cataclysm Sparked by Yellowstone Supervolcano

Yes, it may have been completely dormant for the last 70,000 years, scientists love to issue dire warnings that any day now, the big eruption is coming…check your local listings for time and channel!

Those fun-loving Brits at the U.K. Guardian are at it again. Over here, we Yanks have become immune to the chicken little threats that emanate every few years regarding this issue. But the Europeans are not familiar. So the Guardian is warning all tourists that their chances of being vaporized in the midst of wilderness splendor is better than the odds of getting the winning lottery ticket. The hidden volcano at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Montana hides a huge reserve of molten rock that last erupted 640,000 years ago. It’s a gigantic global pimple, again ready to pop.

Here is the cheery assessment:

• Experts say there is a one in 700,000 annual chance of a volcanic eruption at the site.

• The eruption, the say, could kill as many as 90,000 people almost instantly and release a 10 ft (3-meter) layer of molten ash 1,000 miles (1,609km) from the park.

• ‘Sulphuric gases released from the volcano would spring into the atmosphere and mix with the planet’s water vapour. ‘The haze of gas that could drape the country wouldn’t just dim the sunlight — it also would cool temperatures.’

Read all about it here.

A supervolcano releases around 45,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each day. Al Gore would be proud. The EPA should shut this thing down!

The Yellowstone volcano has had three super eruptions – which produce more than 240 cubic miles of ash’ in the past. One was 2.1 million years ago, another 1.3 million years ago, and a third 640,000 years ago. So, it could erupt any minute now! Right.

Photo: Michael Privorotsky on Flickr