Yes, the Yellowstone volcano can wipe out humanity, but we’ll have years of warning

Sensational news headlines over the last couple days have promoted the idea that the formidable Yellowstone supervolcano “may blow sooner” and “could blow faster” than scientists previously thought. 

This makes it seem like Yellowstone is either threatening to erupt or might one day catastrophically explode with little warning, suffocating us frail humans under black, ashy skies.

But even if this research is accurate, we’ll still have decades of warning before an apocalyptic blast.

In the the last 2 million years, Yellowstone geologists believe that the supervolcano has had three major eruptions that unleashed hundreds of cubic miles of ash into Earth’s atmosphere. The source of these eruptions are enormous amounts of hot molten and semi-molten rock, or magma, which still sit under the park today. Scientists suspect that when enough pressure builds beneath the ground, Yellowstone will have another such major blast — although there’s no current evidence of impending doom. Read more…

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