yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Supervolcanoes 101 | National Geographic


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

(Dramatic music)

[Narrator] Supervolcanoes are the most violent and complex class of volcanoes. But despite their destructive capabilities, they can also make way for life renewed. Around 20 supervolcanoes are scattered across the planet. They're usually characterized as large depressions in the ground, called calderas, located above multiple openings in the Earth's crust.

In terms of eruptions, supervolcanoes explode at a magnitude of eight, the highest and most violent classification on the Volcanic Explosivity Index. Supervolcanoes undergo a life cycle of three major stages: a surge of trapped magma, a supereruption, and a resurgence. The first stage of a supervolcano's life cycle involves a pocket of magma trapped under the Earth's crust. Called a hotspot, this magma reservoir is fed by a pipeline deep into Earth's molten interior. It grows and builds pressure underground, eventually causing the crust above to be pushed upward.

The supervolcano Campi Flegrei on the west coast of Italy has pushed the ground up several times over the past few decades. At one point, within a matter of only two years, enough magma accumulated to cause the ground to swell up to six and a half feet. The next stage of a supervolcano's life cycle is a supereruption. At this point, the buildup of pressure in a magma reservoir hits a critical mass and then explodes, sending over 1,000 cubic kilometers of tephra, or ash and rocky material, into the sky. The most recent supereruption occurred in New Zealand approximately 26,000 years ago.

The supervolcano Taupo ejected about 1,100 cubic kilometers of tephra into the air, enough material to constitute nearly half a million Great Pyramids of Giza. After a supereruption, a supervolcano undergoes a stage called resurgence. Having dispelled its contents, a supervolcano's magma reservoir collapses and forms a caldera. The Yellowstone Caldera in the United States is currently in resurgence, after a supereruption occurred about 640,000 years ago.

In the time since, freshwater collected in the caldera to form a lake, plants and wildlife returned to reclaim the space, and some of the world's largest geothermal features emerged. Supervolcanoes have created unparalleled natural beauty, all in the wake of some of the world's most cataclysmic events.

More Articles

View All
Conclusion for a two sample t test using a P value
We’re told a sociologist studying fertility in Argentina and Bolivia wanted to test if there was a difference in the average number of babies women in each country have. The sociologist obtained a random sample of women from each country. Here are the res…
How Stoics deal with jerks, narcissists, and other difficult people
Have you ever found yourself amid rush hour on public transportation, packed like sardines, only to be met with the unmistakable scent of sweat from the individual before you? Well, this situation may trigger some irritation. Especially when this person t…
Mughal rule in India | 1450 - Present | World History | Khan Academy
As we’ve talked about in other videos, by the time we get into the 15th century, Timur’s Persia and Central Asia has been fragmented. You have many of Timur’s descendants with their own kingdoms, especially in Central Asia. In 1483, in the Central Asian c…
The Birthplace of Afterlife Thought | The Story of God
Here we are at Saqqara. That’s a step pyramid of Kings Osa, and it’s one of the first pyramids. It is the first pyramid ever to be built. That one is over there. Yes, this entire site is a big cemetery. So the ideas that people now have about rebirth and …
Visual representations of decimal multiplication
So we have here on this number line that we’ve now marked off with the tenths, and you can see that this is three tenths. Here we can think about this as a multiplication of a decimal. And so what is this representing? I’ll give you a hint: it’s represent…
2015 AP Calculus BC 5c
Find the value of K for which F has a critical point at X = -5. All right, so let’s just remind ourselves what F of X and F prime of X were. They gave it to us at the top. F of X is equal to ( \frac{1}{x^2 - Kx} ) and then F prime of X is equal to all of…