Jacob Lowenstern is a researcher with the US Geological Survey in Vancouver, Washington, who spent 15 years in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. The supervolcano, located in Yellowstone National Park, has erupted three times in history, 2.1 million years ago, 1.2 million years ago and 640,000 years ago. However, Dr Lowenstern has detailed how a fourth eruption could happen in just a matter of weeks.
He revealed during the 2015 BBC documentary “Supervolcano” that a sudden rise of magma could be fatal.
He said: “Typically when these eruptions begin, they begin from a certain event, then they get larger as they move along the fracture system.
“The entire sequence that formed the last Yellowstone eruption may have taken as little as two weeks.
“Humans haven’t seen another eruption of this magnitude, so we are challenged as to whether the same could happen again.
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“Predicting the eruption could be a matter of life and death.”
The last eruption of Yellowstone produced around 2,500 times more volcanic material than the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens.
This created an eruptive column so colossal that it covered about 60 percent of the US in a thick layer of ash.
Should the same happen again, the ground around Yellowstone National Park would rise upwards forming a swarm of earthquakes.
Then, following the eruption, enormous pyroclastic flows would blast their way across the park.
These mixtures of ash, lava blebs, and superheated gas exceed temperatures of 1,000C and can move at speeds of up to 300mph.
They are predicted to spread more than 100 miles out from Yellowstone, burying states like Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Colorado in three feet of harmful volcanic ash.
If the pyroclastic flow hits anyone, they would possibly die within seconds as the air could heat up to around 300C.