Mother Nature is trying to kill you #3

So I've told you about a small number of creatures Mother Nature has spent a little more creativity on than others to make them rather frightening for their size. Today’s post is not about an animal the size of an eraser that could render you unconscious in minutes or any cute little critters who could kill you with one bite… No today I’m going to tell you about Mother Nature’s fail safe. Her BIG RED BUTTON she could press at any second to just reboot the planet and start again when the dust settles.(literally)

Please welcome to the monster party: Supervolcanoes!(insert dramatic echo)

You read that right… SUPERvolcanoes… You know, because regular volcanoes weren't scary enough.
I actually learned about Supervolcanoes when I was in high school, not in school because why would they teach us of such evil. No I watched documentaries and stumbled across one about these beauts. (Got to say I've had a little crush on Mother Nature since then. Bitches be twisted!)

So what makes a Supervolcano different to a regular volcano? Glad you asked.
A Supervolcano is a volcano on a massive scale, (DUH!) it erupts at least 1,000 cubic kilometers of material, a large volcano erupts around 1 cubic km… (oh crap.) While a regular volcano forms a cone like shape, a Supervolcano forms a depression in the earth (it’s called a caldera) and often has a ridge of higher land around it - Check out the images below.

Regular Volcano

Supervolcano
(Pretty)

Super-volcanic eruptions typically cause a long-lasting change to the weather and have the ability to trigger a small ice age sufficient enough to threaten our species with extinction.
Lucky for us a Supervolcano erupts less frequently… Eruptions are hundreds of thousands of years apart. (Approximately one erupts every 50,000 years) The most recent eruption on Earth occurred 74,000 years ago at the Toba Caldera in Sumatra, Indonesia. It cooled the whole Earth by 6.1 degrees and it has never heated up again. (Imagine our Summers 6.1 degrees hotter than they are. Pffft! Toba did us a favor.)

Here is a basic breakdown of how a Caldera is created:

Magma cannot escape to the surface and
collects under the lower crust.

An 'uplifted bulge' begins to form under the lower crust
as the magma chamber enlarges.

Cracks appear on the surface. Gas and ash erupt
from the magma chamber through these cracks.

The magma chamber collapses and
a depression is formed. This is called a caldera

There are about 40 known Supervolcanoes around the world, most are inactive. I have my favorites though. (As one does) The Toba Caldera is pretty rad but it's no Yellowstone Caldera. 
Yellowstone National Park has one of the largest Supervolcanoes in the world, the Yellowstone Caldera. The last eruption was 640,000 years ago. 
It is over 80 Kilometers long, 45 Kilometers wide and is large enough to hold the worlds largest city Tokyo in it. (Population 18 million)

The force of a supervolcanic eruption at Yellowstone would be the equivalent of 1,000 Hiroshima bombs exploding every second. Temperatures would drop by up to 12 degrees in the Northern Hemisphere and up to 16 degrees in the Southern Hemisphere causing mass starvation as the monsoon rains would stop. Not to mention the toxic smog and ash emitted from one single eruption would cover two thirds of the planet. The estimated total worldwide death toll from a Yellowstone eruption has been set at a minimum of 1 billion. 

Although scientists have concluded there is no threat of it erupting in the foreseeable future, it is however very active, changing in height and size every couple of years.

This is Mother Natures ultimate weapon and half the planet has no clue it even exists. You've got to hand it to her Mother Nature has a warped but creative imagination.


*Random Fact to make you feel better about life and all fuzzy inside again. One of Scotland's National Animals is a Unicorn. True story.