The Yellowstone caldera spreads beneath the states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho and gets its chilling nickname as a supervolcano due to its ability to inflict devastation on a global level. It is monitored by the USGS (United States Geological Survey) for signs that a supereruption is on its way, something that has only happened three times in history, 2.1 million years ago, 1.3 million years ago and 640,000 years ago, leaving some to claim the massive eruption is overdue. Amid the speculation, Naked Science’s “Supervolcanoes” documentary revealed the warning signs would be seen long before an eruption happened.
The narrator said in 2013: “Any way you look at it, a supereruption would be a very nasty surprise, but how will the emergency services know one is on the way?
“The first sign of a Yellowstone eruption would probably be the ground rising.
“Just before Mount St Helens erupted, the mountain bulged, growing five feet per day, a similar kind of uplift would be likely at Yellowstone.
“As magma deep below the surface of the Earth rises, it splits the rocks above.”
The series then went on to discuss how an evacuation would be ordered long before disaster struck.
It added: “In Yellowstone, it would probably lift the whole caldera, an area the size of Houston and Dallas, 10 feet or more into the air.
“Weeks or even months before a Yellowstone supereruption, these warning signs would trigger the mother of all evacuations.
“The area 60 miles around the volcano would become a hazard zone, officials would place on alert the surrounding region up to 200 miles readying people for a violent eruption.
“As people evacuated the area, geologists would lookout for new warning signs that would tell them an eruption is imminent.”
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He added: “You start to see swarms of earthquakes, as fresh magma moves into the system and breaks the rock above it.
“Once that magma has opened a space for itself, it will start to move through that and as it moves fairly rapidly, it vibrates the walls of cracks.
“That will give you a sort of rumbling signal, it sounds like the vibration of a large organ pipe.”
However, the USGS has previously put minds at ease regarding “overdue” claims.
Yellowstone Volcano Observatory’s Scientists-in-Charge Jacob Lowenstern said in 2014: “When you see people claiming it’s overdue, usually the numbers they come up with say the last eruption was 640,000 years ago, but it erupts every 600,000 years.
“But, in fact, if you average the eruption intervals, there’s 2.1 million to 1.3 million and then another 640,000 years ago.
“If you average those numbers you come up with something that’s over 700,000 years.
“So, in reality, even if you tried to make this argument, it wouldn’t be overdue for another 70,000 years.”