Volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer revealed that ash clouds emitted during a super eruption have immediate and long-lasting effects and can quickly impact a variety of different areas. In an interview with Express.co.uk, the Cambridge professor explained that radio communications in the immediate area of the eruption could be severed through physical destruction to power lines and power grids. Mr Oppenheimer also revealed that because the ash clouds would lift into the atmosphere, Yellowstone eruption has the potential to prevent radio communications from reaching satellites, cutting off contact over long distances.
This could potentially hinder relief efforts, preventative measures and containment measures for the US and the rest of the world.
Mr Oppenheimer said: “In a worst case scenario is that there will be a huge local and regional impact.
“So there will be quiet a wide range of I’d say within 100km or so there will be heavy fallout of ash and pumice, hot flows of ash and pumice within that kind of radius.
“There will be a much wider zone of fallout of ash from the eruption cloud as it drifts in the atmosphere.
“So you could have quite a large part of the continental US, continental North America will get a fallout of ash where it is thick it will have a big impact on agriculture and farming.
“It will greatly impact roads, transport, aviation and radio communications.
“The ash clouds will first physically damage landlines and overhead cables and power grids.
“But also when an eruption is ongoing and there is a big ash cloud in the sky.
“That does interrupt with radio communications.”
Yellowstone has erupted three times in history, 2.1 million years ago, 1.2 million years ago and 640,000 years ago.
If the Wyoming volcano were to erupt, an estimated 87,000 people could be killed immediately, it has been claimed and two-thirds of the USA would immediately be made uninhabitable.
The large spew of ash into the atmosphere would block out sunlight and directly affect life beneath it creating a “nuclear winter”.