Volcanoes have always been one of the central discussion matters in terms of geology and natural sciences in general. One of the reasons behind such interest is the fact that volcanoes have an extraordinary ability to deform over time, with the deformations being caused by various reasons such as subsurface magmatic processes (Biggs & Pritchard, 2017). Hence, over the past years, much attention has been paid to the diachronic development of the volcanoes that are at risk of the eruption in the short-term perspective. A prime example of such a volcano is the Yellowstone Caldera, a volcano that is located in the northern part of the United States.
Yellowstone Caldera has now been closely examined by the researchers due to the question of whether the volcano has a chance to erupt in the near future and what are the scopes of potential threat. Thus, the primary aim of the following paper is to either justify or condemn the hypothesis that the Yellowstone Caldera poses no severe threat to the population of the United States.
To begin with, it is necessary to dwell on the very notion of volcanoes and the nature of their functioning in the normal environment. Thus, a volcano may be defined as a rupture in the surface of the Earth, which allows substances that are stored underneath to escape on the surface. The very process of the substance eruption is caused by the fact that magma, or partially molten rock, rises from below and finds its exit in the mountain’s crust (USGC, n.d.).
The erupted substance is also known as lava, but the openings also allow tephra and steam to come out to the surface. Considering the fact that such a phenomenon already takes place somewhere on the surface, the volcanoes have the risk of repetitive eruption that takes place with frequency specific to each location. As a result, researchers try to estimate the patterns of some volcanoes’ eruptions in order to define the scope and frequency of such an action, as it may be hazardous for the population that lives in the radius of the explosion.
When speaking of the US, the researchers claim the existence of 161 volcanoes that have some chance of eruption in the future. The aforementioned volcanoes are then divided into four major types that help the scientists characterize the scope and outcome of a potential eruption. The types may be outlined as follows:
- Cinder cone. It is the simplest kind of a volcano, which is characterized by a relatively small amount of tephra being erupted.
- Composite volcano (stratovolcano). The following type is characterized by its height, as some of the world’s highest mountains are stratovolcanoes.
- Shield volcano. Shield volcanoes are characterized by the presence of several lava flows, which help the lava to come out either at the peak of the formation or elsewhere in the two or three eruption zones. Some of the world’s biggest volcanoes are the shield ones.
- Lava dome. This type may be considered as a lava flow, but in this case, the lava is thicker than it is required in order to flow from the vent. Instead, the lava that comes out accumulates as a pile around the vent.
- Supervolcano. The type is considered to stand for the world’s most dangerous volcanoes that are likely to affect major areas in case of explosion (USGC, n.d.).
Considering the typology above, it is of crucial importance to define the indicator that helps the researchers identify the affiliation of a specific volcano. Thus, one of the most relevant and widespread tools of a kind is the so-called Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI), which is represented in the form of a scale from zero to eight. According to the scale, zero is put for the volcanoes that no longer erupt, and the further categorization is placed according to the volume of tephra erupted in terms of the area affected by the explosion (USGC, n.d.). Thus, when speaking of the United States and the volcanic situation in the modern context, the Yellowstone Caldera has been one of the most discussed matters in terms of its dangerous implication for the state and even whole world civilization.
To obtain a better understanding of the issue, it is beneficial to dwell upon the historical data related to the eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera. Hence, the Yellowstone Caldera has a relatively recent history of volcanism when compared to the other volcanoes of a kind. The first explosion traces back to 2,100,000 years ago, forming the first caldera in the North-American Plate (Shamloo & Till, 2019). The second eruption took place 1,300,000 years ago, and the last major eruption was fixed approximately 630,000 years ago (Shamloo & Till, 2019). As a result, the following eruptions created the three calderas upon which the Yellowstone hotline is placed. During the last eruption, the Yellowstone Caldera has been proclaimed a supervolcano, as the volume of tephra erupted at the time constituted nearly one thousand cubic kilometers, thus obtaining the VEI of eight (USGC, n.d.).
Hence, taking into account the aforementioned data, it becomes evident that the researchers pay major attention to the investigation of the volcanic patterns of the Yellowstone Caldera, as they have to calculate the possibility of an explosion in order to avoid a potential catastrophe. Over the past decades, geology researchers from all over the world voiced their concerns that there was a possibility for the volcano to erupt once again, but the implication of such a hypothesis was not explicitly outlined. Moreover, the forecasts were speaking of thousands of years that have to pass prior to the possible volcano eruption due to the fact that the Yellowstone Caldera itself did not present any considerable lava emissions in a long time (NPS, 2019). However, even the slightest mention of the eruption possibility has encouraged thousands of people all over the world to create fake news about the fact that the eruption would eventually destroy the world civilization as a whole.
It goes without saying that such information has immediately raised concern over the question of the volcano eruption and people demanded action and justification from the scientists. In order to prove that humanity was not on the verge of extinction, scholars started to conduct explicit research on the matter of seismic magnitudes that indicated the slightest alterations in the overall caldera network (USGC, 2020). In such a way, the only severe modification in the network was estimated in 2014, when the Yellowstone area experienced a 4-point VEI earthquake (USGC, 2020). As a result, a special committee was formed to inform people about the state of events without any misguidance provided for the public.
Hence, over the years, many studies were conducted on the topic of the Yellowstone caldera-forming eruption. However, in 2019, Michael Poland, a scientist-in-charge in the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, posted extensive research explaining why Yellowstone Caldera was no threat to humanity (Poland, 2019). In the research itself, major emphasis was placed on the attempt to describe all the potential outcomes of the caldera-forming eruption in the most accessible way. To begin with, it was stated that when speaking of the volcano, the eruption would cause no extinction not only in the world but even in the United States (Poland, 2019).
When speaking of the implication of an explosion, the author claims that the modification to the area of the explosion is inevitable. It is primarily caused by the fact that the flow of lava and magma accumulation affects the soil, causing severe damage to the crops (Poland, 2019). Thus, when comparing the data from previous eruptions, it may be concluded that the alterations in the environment, while devastating and challenging, do not pose a real threat to humanity and the population of the United States.
Another important argument of the study claimed that the world community had already managed to survive two massive eruptions that were more severe than the Yellowstone Caldera. According to Poland (2019), despite the fact, the data from previous civilizations might not be exhaustive, the core information about the implications of such eruptions as Toba remained relevant to the current study. Hence, having taken everything into consideration, it may be concluded that the hypothesis about the Yellowstone Caldera posing no severe threat to the population of the United States was justified with the help of scholarly data.
References
Biggs, J., & Pritchard, M. E. (2017). Global volcano monitoring: What does it mean when volcanoes deform?. Elements, 13(1), 17-22.
National Park Service (NPS). (2019). Yellowstone: Volcano. Web.
Poland, M. (2019). No, Yellowstone isn’t going to wipe out our humanity.
Shamloo, H. I., & Till, C. B. (2019). Decadal transition from quiescence to supereruption: petrologic investigation of the Lava Creek Tuff, Yellowstone Caldera, WY. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 174(4), 32.
USGC. (n.d.). About volcanoes.