When a volcanic eruption in America. Supervolcano Yellowstone: Americans are looking for a new home. What a volcano

7-10-2017, 16:09

There is a hearth under the territory of Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming) large volcanowhich is now activated.

According to experts, the volcano woke up after a recent earthquake, which triggered an increase in the number of magma eruptions. Today Yellowstone volcano considered one of the most dangerous active volcanoes on the ground.

The only volcano in Europe boils under the surface

The Phlegrean Fields are located about 20 kilometers from Vesuvius, on the other side, on the western side of Naples. A hilly, rocky landscape that stretches in a cauldron of 150 square kilometers. It is not without reason that several research groups are monitoring geophysical activity in the area. One is directed by Christopher Kilburn of University College London's Hazard Center.

Thereafter, the caldera ascending magma approaches a critical point. If this is exceeded, the rock above the magma will become very hot and expand. In the computer, this leads to an eruption. There is no doubt whether complex geophysical processespreceding volcanic eruption... And even if they fit reality, they don't make specific predictions.

What kind of volcano?

Yellowstone volcano is a supervolcano. Recall that supervolcano is not a strictly scientific term, usually volcanoes that formed in a depression in the earth called a caldera.

It is not only a volcano that is large in area and size. It is extremely dangerous, as its eruption can provoke climate change on the planet. Now there are about 20 known supervolcanoes on the planet, including Yellowstone.

If so, we would rather not swallow our espresso in Naples. Maybe we can find better ways enter the textbooks of our descendants. Volcanoes - like earthquakes - are some of the most powerful natural disasters that can hit us.

A volcano is the point where rocky rock emerges on the surface of the earth. All accompanying phenomena associated with it are called volcanism. In the depths of the earth, from a depth of about 100 kilometers, the temperature ranges from 000 to 500 degrees Celsius. In this heat, the rocks melt and the so-called are formed. Viscous magma accumulates in large, mainly teardrop-shaped magma herds, about 2-50 kilometers deep. As the pressure increases, as more and more magma is produced, it rises through cracks and cracks in the rock to the surface of the earth.

Another difference between a supervolcano and an ordinary one is that when an ordinary volcano erupts, lava gradually accumulates in the mountain, and only then begins to come out.

At a supervolcano, magma, approaching the surface, is collected in a huge underground reservoir. It melts the nearby rocks and becomes even thicker, while the pressure continues to build.

Not only magma is released, but also gaseous and solid substances. Exit to the surface of the earth can be slow and uniform in bad cases, as well as a sudden explosion that can be devastating. How a volcano erupts is highly dependent on the chemical composition of the magma. Typically, a high proportion of silica makes magma viscous - a high water vapor content is highly explosive.

Volcanoes differ in their shape and their magmatic delivery system. They are distinguished according to their shape. Shield volcanoes and stratovolcanoes. ... And the nature of magma feeding is differentiated. Central volcanoes and columnar volcanoes. ... Shield volcanoes feed on lava originating from top mantle Earth. In these places, the earth's surface is "relatively" thin, i.e. the earth offers little resistance to the emerging magma. This wide lava pit is similar in shape to a shield from which these volcanoes also have their names.

The Yellowstone supervolcano is just above the hot spot, where hot molten rock is closest to the surface.

The last day of Pompeii

The Yellowstone supervolcano has long worried scientists and ordinary people. They began to talk about its danger back in April 2016, when experts first suspected a possible catastrophe.

An example of a shield volcano is Kilauea in Hawaii. Layered volcanoes such as Vesuvius or Stromboli, but also a mountain. The magma of these volcanoes is 700-900 degrees Celsius much colder than that of the shield volcanoes. The magma of the stratovolcano has a high content of silicic acid and gas, which is then responsible for the explosive eruption. The viscous magma prevents the gas bubbles from igniting, so that enormous pressure builds up, leading to an explosion. This explosion can be so strong that ash particles fall into the stratosphere.

The special forms of volcanoes are. Maars are formed when magma meets aquifers on its way to the earth's surface. In this case, a huge explosion occurs when magma gets stuck in depth and only gas components appear upward. A round funnel is formed with the wall.

Then, in April 2016, when a series of earthquakes swept across America, many were horrified by the news in the media: “The most dangerous volcano woke up "," America will fly into the air "- journalists frightened.

Or maybe they did not frighten in vain?

Then in April the correspondent of "Ridus" spoke with the professor of the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University Andrey Lukashev, who was not going to frighten anyone once again, but did not feel a positive attitude either:

When the magma chamber is empty, the chamber ceiling will no longer be able to withstand the pressure of the overlying rock. Then there is the usually round or oval funeral funnel called the Caldera. Supervolcanoes are characterized by a particularly large magma chamber. For example, the magma chamber of the most famous volcano, Yellowstone Volcano, is 60 kilometers long, 40 kilometers wide and about 10 kilometers. In addition to the direct damage caused by the explosion, this will lead to a climate disaster that is causing global temperatures to drop by several degrees Celsius.

Effects forthcoming eruption will lead to the so-called nuclear winter effect: people will not see the Sun for several years, Lukashev said then.

Even then, scientists began to sound the alarm, pointing to a catastrophe that could occur at any moment.

Zone of destruction

As you know, the dangerous volcano is located in the Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming (USA), the size of its basin is 55 by 72 kilometers, which is about a third of the entire territory of the park and is almost twice the size of New York and Moscow.

As a result, food shortages are threatening throughout the year, and studies show that up to 5 billion people can die at the start of a supervisor. The Yellowstone volcano erupted just over a thousand years ago, which made it wait a long time from a geological point of view.

Others famous volcanoes: Aira, Aso, Kikai, Lake Toba, Long Valley Caldera, Lake Taupo, Valle Grande. There are many volcanoes in Germany. Kaiserstuhl, Vogelsberg, Drachenfels in Siebengebirge or many Maare in Volcanifel are just a few of them. Whether they are truly extinct or just resting cannot be said with certainty. While a re-eruption may be unlikely over the next several centuries, there are more signs of increased activity. Until now, bubbles of carbon dioxide rising in the Eifel swamps, as a sign of a decrease in volcanic activity, may also indicate an increase in Magmaplam.

This size and power of the volcano seriously worries not only geologists, but also ordinary people, because if an eruption begins, it will not only destroy the United States, but also cause great environmental damage to the entire Earth. According to some researchers, the consequences of the eruption will lower the temperature on Earth by 21 degrees, but it will also destroy huge populations of animals and plants, which will become a catastrophe of a universal scale.

Yellowstone Park is very big volcano... But in any case, this is a very large volcano. For over 150 years, the movements that the earth makes there have been known. The land has been growing over the years and the area is famous for its many geysers. That is, there is hot water in the depths, which heats up from below. But it has been known for over 100 years that after several years the soil subsides again. These ground movements, which are also known by other volcanoes and are caused by the fact that the groundwater is heated, is nothing special to colleagues working there.

You may also be interested in the following answers

The issue of Yellowstone and the Supervolcano was brought into the discussion, especially by the English colleagues, a little sensitively. These colleagues told me that Yellowstone is nothing special. It is important to know that the latter major eruption with a huge number of avalanches occurred thousands of years ago; then there were still a few smaller ones. But the great eruptions of Yellowstone - there were several of them - occurred at a distance of about a thousand years. But there may be further outbreaks in the future. It is also the main component of all glass - window panes, spectacle lenses; it's silica.

The eruption will kill at least 87,000 people, experts say.

The Yellowstone volcano shows its activity once every 600 years, and now, these 600 years have passed. This is a normal action of standard volcanoes, so I do not see anything strange in this, and all geologists, too - this was predicted a long time ago. Besides, it is not a fact that there will be an eruption, Pyotr Shebalin, a researcher at the Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Ridus. Old campaigner

There are incredibly many different types of magmas, and depending on this: aluminum, magnesium, iron, manganese, potassium, sodium, calcium, titanium, etc. it is a very complex mixture and most magmas on earth, but also other planets or dark lavas on the moon. IN last years researchers are working intensively on bacteria in hot springs, including Black Smokers. These bacteria play a large role in what we call anaerobic metabolism - without oxygen. They are part of this very interesting community that is forming around these "black smokers" at the bottom of the ocean.

And yet, in recent times the dormant volcano is beginning to show more and more obvious signs of activity, which only further inflames the atmosphere around it. So, more recently, on the night of October 3-4, 2017, black smoke poured out of the volcano, which scared the residents of the state in no joke. It turned out that the smoke came from the Old Faithful geyser - the most famous geyser of the volcano.

Small pieces of pumice - that is, a glass case that has holes in it. Where there is not much rain, For example, in the eastern Canary Islands, moisture can settle on the ground from clouds during the night and is stored in these porous particles during the day. A super volcano outbreak cannot be prevented or mitigated. Destruction would be devastating - but there is hope.

Apocalypseists are right in one respect: the likelihood of such a massive volcanic eruption is very high. However, it is unlikely that we will experience such a disaster. An outbreak in the next few thousand years is much more realistic than an eruption before the end of the year.

Usually the volcano throws out streams of hot water from the geyser with the height of a 9-storey building at intervals of 45 to 125 minutes, but here instead of water or at least steam, black smoke poured down.

Why black smoke comes from the volcano is not clear. Perhaps this is burning organic matter that has approached the surface. But it is too early to worry, since the burning of one geyser still does not say anything, Shebalin explained. Can't you fool the animals?
It is generally accepted that animals are well aware of approaching catastrophes, as they have the ability of seismic indicators.

However, the probability is still a hundred or a thousand times greater than the probability of an asteroid impact. The degree of destruction in two scenarios natural DisastersComparable: By definition, sources in a super volcano outbreak over several days have at least 500 cubic kilometers of magma to the surface - even twenty times more would be possible. Eruptions throw huge ash clouds into the atmosphere, lava avalanches roll down the mountain and release toxic gases.

The worst is yet to come

The result of such an eruption is the collapse of a giant crater ring, which can have a diameter of 30 kilometers. Part of the earth's crust is immersed in a kilometer into a magma chamber for several hours. At the same time, magma, ash and gas are released with tremendous pressure. This process continues until the camera is closed again. Within a radius of up to 50 kilometers, the soil is covered with a thick layer of molten rock, ash and boulders - just like in Pompeii, only much more.

For example, before the earthquake, many pet owners noticed that the animals behaved extremely strange: dogs barked incessantly and cats rushed around the house, etc.

In September 1927, in the Crimea, 12 hours before the start of the tremors, the cows refused to feed and began to bellow anxiously, the horses were torn from the leash, the cats and dogs huddled to the owners, howled and meowed.

All of North America was covered in a layer of ash, the thickness of which could still be within a radius of 500 kilometers per meter, and even on the east coast was still a millimeter thick. The rain washed the ash into rivers, clogging the Mississippi for months or years. Sulfur and other toxic gases killed most of all mammals.

But the worst is yet to come, because the eruption of a super volcano takes days or weeks. At this time, ash and sulfur continue to penetrate into the atmosphere and spread around the Earth at high speed in jet streams. At the same time, ash is transported to both poles by circulation in the earth's atmosphere. Thus, eruptions, eruption-like volcano in Sumatra a thousand years ago, are a global threat. We know that gray gases from such eruptions in the past reached Greenland and Antarctica.

In Ashgabat (1948) at the stud farm, the behavior of animals before the earthquake was even more violent. The horses knocked down the stable gate and burst out. Two hours later, the building collapsed from an earthquake.

As for Yellowstone, animals behave strangely there too. As news of the possibility of an eruption of a supervolcano began to alarm people more and more often, a video of buffaloes fleeing from Yellowstone appeared on the network. National park... This caused concern already among people who decided that this could be a sign imminent eruption supervolcano.

Long before the outbreak is recognizable

An outbreak of a super volcano would change the entire world region and therefore the global economy. What can we do about it? Modern man never had to cope with the consequences of such an eruption of this magnitude: a super volcanic eruption would be a hundred times more violent than famous eruption Such a disaster cannot be prevented in Krakatoa. The good news, however, is that outbreaks rarely occur without warning. Even ten years before the appearance of the super-volcano, the first signs would have been recognizable: the earth rose and fell for many kilometers.

And although experts say that these are just seasonal migrations of animals in search of food, the public still does not believe in such coincidences.

Should the United States be afraid?

From all that has been said above, it is obvious that if the eruption does begin, then the fate of at least the United States looks clearly unenviable. The world's leading state is unlikely to survive a potential catastrophe. However, the danger is amplified by the fact that the apocalypse will not be limited to the United States alone. After the eruption, the temperature on the ground will drop by 21 degrees, and due to emissions, visibility will not exceed one meter. The very same territory of the United States will be completely filled with lava.

Gaps in earth crust will allow the gas to escape, causing the death of a huge and catastrophic tree. Earthquakes will indicate magmatic movements in the ground. Minor eruptions and geysers foreshadowed inevitable drama. With today's technology, size and condition magma chambers cannot be studied accurately. However, we can hope that seismographs will evolve over the coming decades and ultimately allow us to capture accurate real-time images of near-surface magma cameras - just as we use tomography in medicine today.

Molten Rock Analysis Yellowstone supervolcano showed that an eruption is possible without any external influences, so a catastrophe can occur at any time.

The Yellowstone Volcano in the United States is considered a hot spot on Earth, just like Hawaii with its Kilauea or Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. They are, of course, very dangerous during their eruption both because of their size and because of the power, since they will eject millions of cubic meters of magma, and there will be a lot of ash. But we do not yet have sufficient data to talk about the exact or at least an approximate date of its eruption, said Vasily Lavrushin, employee of the Geological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Scientists are engaged in setting the date of a possible eruption. This is necessary in order to be prepared for the coming disaster. The volcano problem is being dealt with by NASA, volcanologists from the University of Victoria, and New Zealand geologists.

However, not all experts believe in the fatal nature of the alleged disaster.



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