Aleksandra Tadić I-9

SUPERVOLCANO
YELLOWSTONE
◼This volcano lies under the green forests of
the Yellowstone National Park, USA
◼Its exact size is unknown, but it is estimated
that it is around 80km long and 45km wide
◼Because of its enormous size, it is called a
“supervolcano’’
◼The caldera of the volcano lies over a hotspot
under the Yellowstone Plateau where magma
from the mantle rises towards the surface.
◼ The hotspot seems to move across in the
east-northeast direction, but actually, the
hotspot is much deeper than this surface and
remains still while the North American Plate
moves west-southwest over it
Consequences of the eruption would be:
1. It would destroy everything within 1.000 km
2. Lava would cover an area as big as Europe
3. The explosion would cause earthquakes, tsunamis
and hurricanes to happen in the next few days
4. The explosion would pollute the atmosphere with
billions of tons of ash ; the wind would blow the ash
around the world and we would enter `a volcanic
winter`
5. We wouldn’t see the sun for a couple of years
6. Food production would stop, because plants
wouldn’t grow and animals would die
◼This is not the only supervolcano in the world
◼There are other supervolcanoes in California,
near Naples in Italy, Indonesia and New
Zealand
◼One of the normal volcanoes in Indonesia
erupted in 1815, and produced `a year
without a summer` of 1816 ; the eruption of
Yellowstone would be much worse
◼Scientists don’t think that the volcano is
going to erupt soon, but it has erupted before
◼In fact, it erupts every 600.000 years, and the
last eruption was 640.000 years ago…

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