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Emergency preparedness: How to prepare for the Yellowstone Caldera eruption

March 05, 2020 -

The modern Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) places the Pinatubo and Tambora eruptions at levels 6 and 7 respectively. If the Yellowstone Caldera were to explode, however, it would be ranked at a level 8 or even higher. This eruption would spew ash across almost the entirety of the United States. It would damage buildings, smother crops and shut down power plants, creating an unmitigated disaster that could lead to the deaths of thousands. Here's what you can do to prepare for ...

Scientists report signs of potential eruption at Long Valley Caldera supervolcano

November 30, 2021 -

Scientists have warned of “alarming signs of possible volcanic activity” at the Long Valley caldera. The supervolcano is regarded as one of the most dangerous in the world. The caldera measures 20 miles long and 11 miles wide and reaches a depth of 3000 feet, making it one of the biggest calderas on the planet.

It is situated next to Mammoth Mountain in California and was originally formed 760,000 years ago in a devastating eruption that spewed hot ash that later cooled ...

Melting glaciers awaken hundreds of dormant volcanoes, threatening global chaos

July 11, 2025 -

Key points:

Ice retreat, volcanic awakening: A ticking time bomb

A groundbreaking study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has revealed a chilling connection: As glaciers vanish, the suppression they once exerted on magma chambers beneath them weakens, allowing pent-up gases and molten rock to expand explosively. By analyzing crystal formations in Chilean volcanoes, researchers confirmed that rapid glacial retreat 18,000 years ago led to ...

Earthquakes, volcanoes and “mega droughts” are plaguing Earth in 2021

March 25, 2021 -

Right now in Australia, a plague of rats is being reported with millions upon millions of rodents infesting people's homes, businesses and neighborhood streets. From Queensland to New South Wales, mice are destroying food, farms and lives.

"Some farmers have already lost entire grain harvests to the rampaging mice," reports indicate, adding that "hotels have had to close because they can't keep the critters out of the rooms."

There are also many large earthquakes ...

Study: Benign volcanoes may be more explosive than previously thought

July 31, 2020 -

Many volcanoes do not cause life-threatening eruptions even though they release a steady stream of lava. For example, volcanoes in Iceland, Hawaii and the Galapagos Islands consistently emit lava comprised of molten basaltic rock. These chemically homogeneous level flows stream down these volcanos’ flanks at very slow speeds.

However, the findings of the study suggest that the seemingly predictable behavior of the volcanoes belie potentially explosive activity.“We ...

Scientists thought they knew volcanoes – until they looked under Bermuda

November 01, 2019 -

Experts know of two methods of volcanic formation. One of the processes takes place when tectonic plates crash together. The other process involves "mantle plumes." When the hot rocks in the core-mantle boundary rises to the crust, they create a hot spot.

Cornell University (Cornell) researchers and their colleagues from other universities recently discovered a third way of volcanic formation. Crystals, molten rock, and water in the mantle's transition zone might rise ...

Desperate scientists now claim climate change causes volcanoes to erupt

April 18, 2019 -

Let’s first look at the study’s findings.

According to the study, which was published in the journal Geology, global warming has resulted in less glacier cover in Iceland, and this could lead to an increase in volcanic eruptions in the land of fire and ice.

Dr. Ivan Savov, one of the study’s authors from the School of Earth & Environment at Leeds, explains, "When glaciers retreat there is less pressure on Earth's surface. This can increase the amount of mantle melt ...

Three volcanoes in Alaska are erupting, spewing lava, steam and ash

August 08, 2021 -

All three volcanoes are located in the remote southwestern region of Alaska. Great Sitkin Volcano and Semisopochnoi are located in the Aleutian Islands. The Pavlof Volcano is located in the Aleutian mountain range right next to the islands but connected to mainland North America.

This is the latest volcanic activity recorded in the United States. According to Chris Waythomas, a geologist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO), no Alaskan communities have been affected ...

An ancient volcano lurks beneath Germany – is it capable of erupting?

March 07, 2022 -

History of the ancient volcano outside Berlin

In the late 1960s, a group of excavators mined a site in the state of Brandenburg near Berlin. The group spotted the remains of a volcano but immediately abandoned the site after failing to find precious ores.

Largely forgotten thereafter, the volcano attracted renewed interest when molecular biologist Lutz Essers revisited the location. Essers, who moonlights as a scholar of earth science, determined that the volcano used to ...

El Salvador plans to use geothermal energy from volcanoes for bitcoin mining

June 17, 2021 -

Bukele announced his move on Twitter at 1:35 a.m. Thursday, June 10, just hours after El Salvador became the first country to authorize bitcoin as a legal tender.

"I've just instructed the president of @LaGeoSV (our state-owned geothermal electric company) to put up a plan to offer facilities for bitcoin mining with very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy from our volcanoes," Bukele tweeted.

In another tweet, Bukele said the country's engineers ...

Ancient rocks provide new clues on how volcanoes caused “biggest mass extinction” ever

September 16, 2019 -

The event, known as the Permian-Triassic (P-T) extinction, took place 252 million years ago and lasted for hundreds of thousands of years. Dubbed "the Great Dying," it killed off more than 95 percent of life on Earth, including species that had survived earlier mass extinctions. It also ushered in the age of the dinosaurs.

For the study, the team visited sites around the world. They found spikes of mercury in the rock layers formed during the time of the P-T extinction ...

Climatologists admit wildfire smoke is already COOLING the planet, just as volcanoes do

October 04, 2017 -

It almost seems counterintuitive, as wildfires produce immense amounts of heat that are released directly into the atmosphere. But the amazing reality is that the carbon particles produced by the burning of trees and other organic matter are capable of traveling upwards into the higher levels of the earth's atmosphere, effectively diverting the sun's rays and thus their heat output.

Published in the May 22 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, the study, which was ...

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS erupts with icy volcanoes, forcing scientists to rethink cosmic history

December 04, 2025 -

A pristine messenger from a star system born billions of years before our own is rewriting the cosmic rulebook right before our eyes. Between July and November of 2025, an international team of astronomers trained their telescopes on the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it screamed through our solar system at 130,000 miles per hour. What they witnessed was not just a simple icy dirtball, but an active, erupting world covered in "icy volcanoes," powered ...

This distant planet lost its atmosphere, so its volcanoes made it a new one

May 04, 2021 -

Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory made the discovery after examining existing observations of GJ 1132 b with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). They gathered the data back in 2017.

Raissa Estrela, a postdoctoral fellow at the lab who was part of the research team, said their finding was "super exciting" because the planet's atmosphere could be a new or a secondary one.

Estrela said she and her colleagues ...

3 Crucial processes: Study suggests humans can breathe thanks to volcanoes, tectonics and cyanobacteria

April 12, 2021 -

In a paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers described how tectonic activity –the shifting of Earth's outer crust – led to the formation of volcanoes that spewed massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In turn, the climate warmed and populations of photosynthetic organisms called cyanobacteria increased. These processes collectively increased oxygen levels around 2.5 billion years ago, giving birth to oxygen-dependent organisms such as ...

Volcanoes beneath ice in Antarctica could erupt and leave the planet “uninhabitable,” warn researchers

March 16, 2021 -

What are underwater volcanoes?

Underwater volcanoes are also called submarine volcanoes. Experts estimate that there are around 1,500 active volcanoes on the surface of the plane, but there are at least 10,000 volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean alone.

Water exerts at least 250 times more pressure on the surface of the earth than air and this higher pressure can lead to an underwater explosion.

Because most underwater volcanoes erupt at a depth of about 2200 meters below ...

When twin volcanoes shook the world: How a 15th-century double eruption rewrote climate history

October 23, 2025 -

Key points:

The eruption that rewrote history

For years, scientists have debated the origin of the 1458/59 CE volcanic event, one of the most powerful eruptions of the last millennium. The leading suspect was Kuwae, a tropical volcano in Vanuatu, whose explosive temper tantrum sent sulfur dioxide spiraling into the stratosphere, reflecting sunlight and cooling the planet. But something never quite added up. The chemical fingerprint of the ...

Volcanoes mobilize carbon: New studies upend climate narratives with 3X CO² estimate and 19,000 new undersea peaks

May 21, 2025 -

Two groundbreaking studies have reshaped our understanding of Earth’s carbon cycle, casting doubt on long-held assumptions about natural versus human-driven carbon emissions. Researchers from the University of Manchester and the University of Hawaii’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) uncovered that volcanic CO? emissions are three times higher than previously estimated, while simultaneously discovering nearly 20,000 unknown undersea ...

One of the world’s largest supervolcanoes nearing eruption, scientists warn… would cause global cooling

October 01, 2017 -

Centuries ago, the volcanic caldera known as Campi Flegrei erupted just west of Naples, sending tons of ash into the atmosphere. This ash, rich in sulfur dioxide, blocked solar radiation, causing global temperatures to fall. The caldera is active today. Pressure is building as the super volcano nears eruption.Volcanoes curb greenhouse gases naturally and block solar radiation

If the super volcano were to erupt, it could potentially quell the hysteria of global warming ...

Yellowstone Volcano will not erupt soon, according to latest USGS report

August 10, 2021 -

Geologists assure everyone that the volcano will not be erupting violently anytime soon. But because the volcano erupts every 600,000 to 700,000 years on average, many believe that it is overdue for another one.

The latest reports from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) have done little to dull the people's concerns, as it has confirmed 1,008 earthquakes in the park in July 2021 alone, all of which were recorded by the Yellowstone Seismic Network.

The Yellowstone ...