The Looming Danger of Yellowstone

The active supervolcano capable of covering entire states in deadly ash is an annual  tourist attraction for millions. Yellowstone, located in the states Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, is a national park that is famous for its numerous natural geysers and wildlife, especially the buffalo! Scientists have already concluded that it is a potential threat to human civilization with records of catastrophic eruptions in the past. With that in mind...What about Yellowstone is attractive enough that people continue to visit, despite the risks?

 

What is Yellowstone?

 

Described simply, Yellowstone is  “  a supervolcano... It sits on top of an enormous hot spot, a reservoir of molten rock that rises from at least 125 miles down in the Earth” (Bryson, 2004). However, Yellowstone is also a national park sitting on top of a caldera, which is the crater that is made after a volcano explodes. Yellowstone is around 2.2 million acres big. Yellowstone has a long history, from contributing to America’s automobile industry, to having eruptions thousands of times larger than the Mt. St Helens eruption. You might be wondering why many people visit Yellowstone if it is an active supervolcano. Scientists from the late 20th century would have told you it was overdue to erupt, but thankfully, with modern technology,  they have come to the conclusion that while it's highly unlikely to erupt anytime soon, there's still the chance of it occurring. Scientists have been working on researching and surveying Yellowstone, and Bob Christiansen was one of the first to do so.

 

Dangerous? How did we figure that out?

 

Bob Christiansan, a Geologist from the U.S Geological Survey was the first to be curious about Yellowstone as a supervolcano in the 20th century.. It was accepted that Yellowstone was a supervolcano but it did not have the caldera that would form after it explodes. This is because the whole national park is on the crater, and these images were only found after high altitude pictures had been released by NASA. With these pictures, Bob Christiansan was able to determine that the National Park was atop the whole crater. Other scientists that worked with Christiansen at the time are Professor Robert B. Smith and Paul Doss, who were Geologists as well and helped with surveying the dangers of Yellowstone (Bryson, 2004). There are even scientists in modern times using advanced technology to survey Yellowstone, back then, due to lack of technology, the scientists had thought Yellowstone was overdue since the last eruption was around 630,000 years ago and it’s supposed to erupt every 600,000 years (Morgan, 2019), but with modern technology, we had figured out that is not the case. If Yellowstone was overdue, I don’t think Yellowstone would still be getting the amount of tourists each year, and I just went there last winter and there were plenty of tourists there!

 

What about the  future? Will it erupt?

 

Hypothetically, if Yellowstone were to erupt again, the whole midwest will experience an “ash winter” where ash would rain down for years on end. If you don’t die from the initial explosion, the ash will still affect you. Roads will be unusable, the volcanic ash will make it difficult to breathe, global climate will increase, and the ecosystems in the area will suffer greatly (US DOI, 2019). If you’re still skeptical about Yellowstone, Bryson describes it as, “ a pile of TNT about the size of Rhode Island and reaching eight miles into the sky, to about the height of the highest cirrus clouds” (Bryson, 2004). That might be difficult to imagine, but that is a lot of TNT. In the future, if Yellowstone shows signs of erupting, the whole west side of the US will have to take precautions. Scientists will then continue to monitor the volcano and consider if it is safe for the people in the surrounding areas and the tourists.

 

So, why do people visit Yellowstone? Maybe it’s the scenery that makes it worth it to visit, or is it that people trust the scientists that are in charge of Yellowstone safety. A short glimpse of the history and the danger of Yellowstone has me thinking, if Yellowstone were to explode right now, what would happen to us? The whole of the US and even people on a global scale will be affected by one supervolcano eruption. Thankfully, we have these scientists that discovered the threat of Yellowstone and have ones that are constantly observing and monitoring it today! Does knowing Yellowstone is an active supervolcano more likely or less likely make you want to visit it? Let me know in the comments!

 

References

 

Bryson, B. (2003). A short history of nearly everything. New York: Broadway Books.

Morgan , L. A. (2019, April 15). The evolution of the Yellowstone Plateau Volcanic Field: Past, present, and future! https://www.usgs.gov/center-news/evolution-yellowstone-plateau-volcanic-field-past-present-and-future.

US DOI, U.S. Department of the Interior. (2019, December 29). Volcano. National Parks Service. https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/volcano.htm.