Is Yellowstone Park sitting on a supervolcano thats about to blow?
Dear Cecil: My friend Melanie loves to watch the Discovery Channel and share what she has watched with others. The problem is she can never get the story straight. Her latest tale is about Yellowstone Park sitting on top of a supervolcano that has been dormant for 6,000-ish years. She said the supervolcano is starting to show signs that point to its being active. Is there any truth to her tale? — Tina Cecil replies: Cut Melanie some slack. Yeah, she screwed up some details: it’s been 600,000-ish years since Yellowstone’s supervolcano has gone off full blast, not 6,000. She got the drift, though. Nobody’s saying Yellowstone is going to blow in time to mess up your summer vacation plans. But it’s a question of when, not if. A supervolcano is one that explodes in (natch) supereruptions. Definitions vary, but usually we’re talking a magnitude-eight (M8) eruption: one trillion metric tons of ash and other debris filling at least 100 cubic miles, typically upchucked over the course of about
