Could The Yellowstone Volcano Eruption Destroy America?

The Yellowstone Volcano…a super volcanowith two magma chambers.

The last time it erupted, the world was plungedinto volcanic winter than spanned decades.

And guess what, honey is due an eruption…butwhat would this mean for America.

Hello and welcome back to Life’s BiggestQuestions…the channel that, let’s face it, likes to answer basically whatever youwant to know….

we’re like a 5 minute long explanatory version of Ask Jeeves…anyoneremember him?! I am your host, Rebecca Felgate and todayI am asking – Could the Yellowstone volcano eruption destroy America….

any Americanswatching? Are you ready for the answer…? Before we get into this video, why don’tyou let me know where you live, and when we get to the end of the video, you can let meknow whether you’d survive a Yellowstone eruption.

Sound like fun? Cool! While you are down there, why don’t youlike this video and click on that notification bell.

OKAY Yellowstone.

What do you have for us.

Urm.

A lot of death and destruction, it seems.

Nice one.

So the Yellowstone volcano is located in Wyomingand she last blew 640, 000 years ago.

The eruption before that took place 1.

3 millionyears ago, and the one before that 2.

1 million years ago.

The time between the first and second explosionwas 800 thousand years, the next came much quicker and 660, 000 years…and now it hasbeen 640, 000 years since the last.

Worrying.

Theoretically she could blow at any minute, but then again, she may need several more millennia.

IF she did blow though….

Well…get ready.

The prior three eruptions at yellow stonewrecked havoc in the past – and there weren’t any humans around to suffer the consequences.

The first eruption spread ash over most ofNorth America and generated the 50-mile-wide Island Park Caldera crater in Yellowstone.

Another eruption would further change thelandscape, but that isn’t really the most concerning thing here…and neither is thehot lava… Firstly, those within an 80 – 100-kilometreradius of the eruption zone would be killed instantly by the hot burning ash.

Salt Lake City and Boise are very much inthe kill zone, with high death tolls in Rapid City and Denver.

Pretty much the entire states of Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and Montana would be a mess, with Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Colorado also sufferingheavily.

You want to know how much of the states wouldbe affected… well…have a look at this map showing the ask spread.

Basically only Miami and the very southerntip of Austin are reasonably unaffected.

Yes, the majority of people in the death zonewould be evacuated, but the entirety of the US can’t be evacuated…because…well…obviously…sosuffice to say there would be a great deal of chaos.

It is hard to say how many people would diebecause monitoring of the volcano would give some forewarning.

None the less, some experts say that 90, 000people would die immediately from the burning hot ash, with tens of millions more effectedby the fall out.

It wouldn’t just be the Unites States severelyinjured, either.

An eruption of Yellowstone would greatly harmCanada, especially Calgary and Winnipeg, which has a combined population of nearing 2 million.

Toronto, the city I live in, would also becoved in anywhere between 3 – 10 millimetres of ash, which is enough to harm those withrespiratory issues and cause significant damage to infrastructure.

Not only would people and animals burn andchoke, but the ash would damage or buildings, cause the temporary shut down of power plantsand telecommunications, pollute water supplies and smother crops.

The worst damage of course would be in theneighbouring regions, but as you can see from the ash fall out map, pretty much every areaof the United States would be affected on some level.

The United States airspace would be a mess, and the ash could would actually affect flights across the world.

In the United States alone, the eruption ofYellowstone would incur upwards of three trillion dollars in economic damages, so 20 percentof the Unites States GDP.

As a result of this severe economic downturn, people in the states would starve and other countries who rely heavily on unites statesexports would also be affected.

In the past similar super volcano eruptionshave lowered global temperatures for several years, which could devastate crop productionworld wide, not just in the states.

It isn’t just people that would suffer….

itis pretty hard to evacuate animals…which would mean a lot would die in the death zone, and scores more would have their habitats buried by ash.

On top of all of that, the world, yes world, could be plunged into a decade long winter.

OH, and it hardly seems worth mentioning, what with all the death, destruction and possible Westeros style seasons, but a Yellowstoneeruption would also be smelly.

The sulfur sure is hard on the old nose.

We don’t know when Yellowstone will erupt.

It is a literal ticking time bomb waitingto take down North America, however Nasa may have the answer as to how to save the hundredsof millions of people it will affect.

Yes, Nasa.

Nasa believes that drilling 10 kilometresdown into the super volcano and pumping in water at a high pressure could cool it.

At a cost of nearing three and a half billiondollars, Nasa thinks this is the most viable solution to save the continent from the disasterthe would be an eruption.

It sounds expensive, but the heat could alsobe used as geothermal plant to generate electric power, although the process could take hundredsof years and if it was conducted poorly, it could actually spark the eruption it is tryingto prevent.

So…could the Yellowstone Volcano EruptionDestroy America – well, it could severely wound it, that is for sure…and it couldtake a good bite out of Canada and other parts of the world, too.

The United states is a rich country and coulddeal with this natural disaster as well if not better than any other country in the world…howeverthe ecomomic damage caused and the time needed for repair could knock the States off theirpodium of super power status, paving the way for Russia and China to be top dogs.

Hopefully, for the lives of the Americansand Canadians it could destroy, the Yellowstone Volcano wont erupt.

Indeed there is only a very very small chancethat it could actually happen in our life time, or even the next 1000 years…so don’tworry too much.

That is one big question answered for you…whatdo you think? Do you agree with this answer? Let me know in the comments section down below.

Also why don’t you hit that thumbs up buttonand stay subscribed for more big answers.

I am your host Rebecca Felgate, I’ll catchyou in the next video, but until then, stay curious, stay alert and never ever stop questioning.

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