Don’t want to ruin this awful week any more, but a supervolcano is coming and could wipe out life on the planet
Wow, you guys, what a week! And it’s only Thursday! We’ve still got a full, like, 36 more hours before it can be declared ~officially~ the weekend, and here’s one more blow to this never-ending parade of bad news and stomach-churning information: The world is going to end soon!
Yes, you read that right! Maybe you’re like me, and live in constant fear and concern that world will end at literally any second. But this time it’s not just a thought that keeps you awake at night. It could really happen! I just read this story in National Geographic, and I want you to know that there’s a supervolcano in Yellowstone National Park and it’s getting ready to erupt, and that’s exactly what it sounds like. It is a SUPER volcano, and not in the sense that The Incredibles are super. According to The New York Times, this supervolcano:
“Has the ability to expel more than 1,000 cubic kilometers of rock and ash at once — 2,500 times more material than erupted from Mount St. Helens in 1980, which killed 57 people. That could blanket most of the United States in a thick layer of ash and even plunge the Earth into a volcanic winter.”
Cool! Kinda like that movie Snowpiercer, which is now becoming a TV show, if we’re still on Earth long enough for it to arrive on Hulu so we can binge it.
As I literally just learned after reading this story, I am an expert in volcano activity, so let me tell you how bad this really is: Kinda bad. It’s doubtful that the world will end today, but maybe tomorrow. Researchers at Yellowstone believe there’s a “1 in 730,000” chance of this happening, which okay, doesn’t sound too bad. But let me put it like this, there is a 1 in 700,000 chance of getting struck by lightning, and you hear about that on the news every now and then. Those odds aren’t that far off from this supervolcano erupting…
Scientists believe that this supervolcano has erupted in the past, but it happened before the area had been settled; now that it has been, it could have catastrophic results. Even better, while the odds are still extreme, no one knows when this will happen! Back in 2011, NatGeo did a separate study, and learned that the ground around this supervolcano had bulged 10 inches; it’s currently averaging about a centimeter a year, which isn’t a lot. BUT THIS IS THE EARTH WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. It’s not really supposed to move and change that much — even though I live in California and, yes, I’m very well aware of tectonic plates. Earthquakes are scary, but the idea of a supervolcano is even scarier.
Sorry to have to break this news to you after this dumpsterfire of a past week, but let’s pretend this is one of those “the more you know
![]]>��<
” situations. Now you know! Sorry if you lie awake tonight, thinking about supervolcanos. If anyone has any more questions, feel free to @ me because I guess I love to talk about magma and lava now.
