Supervolcano
A supervolcano is a
Supervolcanoes occur when magma in the mantle rises into the crust but is unable to break through it. Pressure builds in a large and growing magma pool until the crust is unable to contain the pressure and ruptures. This can occur at hotspots (for example, Yellowstone Caldera) or at subduction zones (for example, Toba).[3][4]
Large-volume supervolcanic eruptions are also often associated with large igneous provinces, which can cover huge areas with lava and volcanic ash. These can cause long-lasting climate change (such as the triggering of a small ice age) and threaten species with extinction. The Oruanui eruption of New Zealand's Taupō Volcano (about 26,500 years ago) was the world's most recent VEI-8 eruption.[5]
Terminology
The term "supervolcano" was first used in a volcanic context in 1949.
More than fifty years after Byers' review was published, the term supervolcano was popularised by the
The term megacaldera is sometimes used for caldera supervolcanoes, such as the Blake River Megacaldera Complex in the Abitibi greenstone belt of Ontario and Quebec, Canada.[12]
Though there is no well-defined minimum explosive size for a "supervolcano", there are at least two types of volcanic eruptions that have been identified as supervolcanoes: large igneous provinces and massive eruptions.[13]
Large igneous provinces
Large igneous provinces, such as Iceland, the Siberian Traps, Deccan Traps, and the Ontong Java Plateau, are extensive regions of basalts on a continental scale resulting from flood basalt eruptions. When created, these regions often occupy several thousand square kilometres and have volumes on the order of millions of cubic kilometers. In most cases, the lavas are normally laid down over several million years. They release large amounts of gases.
The Réunion hotspot produced the Deccan Traps about 66 million years ago, coincident with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. The scientific consensus is that an asteroid impact was the cause of the extinction event, but the volcanic activity may have caused environmental stresses on extant species up to the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary.[14] Additionally, the largest flood basalt event (the Siberian Traps) occurred around 250 million years ago and was coincident with the largest mass extinction in history, the Permian–Triassic extinction event, although it is unknown whether it was solely responsible for the extinction event.
Such outpourings are not explosive, though
The Ontong Java Plateau has an area of about 2,000,000 km2 (770,000 sq mi), and the province was at least 50% larger before the Manihiki and Hikurangi Plateaus broke away.
Massive explosive eruptions
Volcanic eruptions are classified using the volcanic explosivity index. It is a logarithmic scale, and an increase of one in VEI number is equivalent to a tenfold increase in volume of erupted material. VEI 7 or VEI 8 eruptions are so powerful that they often form circular calderas rather than cones because the downward withdrawal of magma causes the overlying rock mass to collapse into the empty magma chamber beneath it.
Known super eruptions
Based on incomplete statistics, at least 60 VEI 8 eruptions have been identified.[13][15]
Name | Zone | Location | Notes | Years ago (approx.) | Ejecta bulk volume (approx.) | Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Youngest Toba eruption | Toba Caldera, North Sumatra | Sumatra, Indonesia | Produced 439–631 million tons of sulfuric acid | 75,000 | 2,000–13,200 km3 | [16][17][18][19][20][21][22] |
Flat Landing Brook Formation | Tetagouche Group | New Brunswick, Canada | Possibly the largest known supereruption. Existence as a single eruption is controversial, and it could have been a multiple 2,000+ km³ event that spanned less than a million years | 466,000,000 | 2,000–12,000 km3 | [23][24] |
Wah Wah Springs Caldera | Indian Peak–Caliente Caldera Complex | Utah, United States | The largest of the Indian Peak-Caliente Caldera Complex eruptions, preserved as the Wah Wah Springs Tuff; includes pyroclastic flows more than 500 meters (1,600 ft) thick | 30,600,000 | 5,500–5,900 km3 | [25][26] |
La Garita Caldera | San Juan volcanic field | Colorado, United States | Fish Canyon eruption | 27,800,000 | 5,000 km3 | [27][28] |
Grey's Landing Supereruption | Yellowstone hotspot | United States | Deposited the Grey's Landing Ignimbrite | 8,720,000 | 2,800 km3 | [29] |
La Pacana | Andes Central Volcanic Zone | Chile | Responsible for the Antana Ignimbrite | 4,000,000 | 2,500 km3 | [30] |
Huckleberry Ridge eruption | Yellowstone hotspot | Idaho, United States | Huckleberry Ridge Tuff; consisted of three distinct eruptions separated by years to decades | 2,100,000 | 2,450–2,500 km3 | [31][32] |
Whakamaru Caldera | Taupō Volcanic Zone | North Island, New Zealand | Whakamaru Ignimbrite/Mount Curl Tephra | 340,000 | 2,000 km3 | [33] |
Heise Volcanic Field | Yellowstone hotspot | Idaho, United States | Kilgore Tuff | 4,500,000 | 1,800 km3 | [34] |
McMullen Supereruption | Yellowstone hotspot | Southern Idaho, United States | McMullen Ignimbrite | 8,990,000 | 1,700 km3 | [29] |
Heise Volcanic Field | Yellowstone hotspot | Idaho, United States | Blacktail Tuff | 6,000,000 | 1,500 km3 | [34] |
Cerro Guacha | Altiplano–Puna volcanic complex | Sur Lípez, Bolivia | Guacha ignimbrite, two smaller eruptions identified | 5,700,000 | 1,300 km3 | [35] |
Mangakino Caldera | Taupō Volcanic Zone | North Island, New Zealand | Kidnappers eruption | 1,080,000 | 1,200 km3 | [36] |
Oruanui eruption | Taupō Volcanic Zone | North Island, New Zealand | Taupō Volcano (Lake Taupō) | 26,500 | 1,170 km3 | [37] |
Galán | Andes Central Volcanic Zone | Catamarca, Argentina | Consisted of three distinct eruptions, separated by 30-40 thousand years | 2,500,000 | 1,050 km3 | [38] |
Lava Creek eruption | Yellowstone hotspot | Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, United States | Lava Creek Tuff; consisted of two distinct eruptions separated by years | 640,000 | 1,000 km3 | [31][32][26] |
Media portrayal
- Nova featured an episode "Mystery of the Megavolcano" in September 2006 examining such eruptions in the last 100,000 years.[39]
- Supervolcano is the title of a British-Canadian television disaster film, first released in 2005. It tells a fictional story of a supereruption at Yellowstone.
- In the 2009 disaster film 2012, a supereruption of Yellowstone is one of the events that contributes to a global cataclysm.
Gallery
-
Volcano, lake, and caldera locations in the Taupō Volcanic Zone
See also
- Global catastrophic risk – Potentially harmful worldwide events
- Timeline of volcanism on Earth
- Toba catastrophe theory – Supereruption 74,000 years ago that may have caused a global volcanic winter
- Volcanic winter – Temperature anomaly event caused by a volcanic eruption
Notes
- ^ The term was first used in Conquering the World, a 1925 travelogue by Helen Bridgeman, referring to an Indian Ocean sunset in Indonesia as an upside down "super-volcano".[6]
- ^ Subsequent research proved that each peak of the Three Sisters was formed independently, and that Mount Multnomah never existed.[citation needed]
References
- .
- USGS Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. 21 August 2015. Archivedfrom the original on 3 July 2017. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
- ISSN 1943-2682.
- PMID 28120860.
- .
- ^ a b c Klemetti, Erik (4 October 2013). "The rise of a supervolcano". Wired. Retrieved 29 November 2023.
- ^ Harris, Stephen (1988). Fire Mountains of the West: The Cascade and Mono Lake Volcanoes. Missoula, Mountain Press.
- ^ supervolcano, n. Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, online version June 2012. Retrieved on 2012-08-17.
- ^ Byers Jr., F. M. (May 1949). "Review of The Ancient Volcanoes of Oregon, by H. Williams". The Journal of Geology. 57 (3): 325 – via JSTOR.
- ^ "Supervolcanoes". bbc.co.uk. BBC. 3 February 2000. Retrieved 30 November 2023.
- ^ USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory Archived 4 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Vulcan.wr.usgs.gov. Retrieved on 2011-11-18.
- .
- ^ .
- ISBN 9780813725055.
- S2CID 129680497.
- S2CID 20380351.
- doi:10.1029/JB091iB10p10355.)
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - S2CID 128626019.)
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - (PDF) from the original on 17 June 2010.
- .
- .
- .
- ^ "Lexique du substrat rocheux". dnr-mrn.gnb.ca. Retrieved 22 December 2019.
- ^ "A mid-Darriwilian super volcano in northern New Brunswick, rapid climate change and the start of the great Ordovician biodiversification event" (PDF). pp. 118–119. Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 December 2019. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
- .
- ^ a b King, Hobart M. "Volcanic Explosivity Index: Measuring the size of an eruption". Geology.com.
- ^ Ort, Michael (22 September 1997). "La Garita Caldera". Northern Arizona University. Archived from the original on 19 May 2011. Retrieved 5 August 2010.
- ^ Lipman, Peter W. (2 November 2007). "Geologic Map of the Central San Juan Caldera Cluster, Southwestern Colorado". USGS Investigations Series I-2799. Archived from the original on 31 August 2010. Retrieved 6 August 2010.
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: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help) - ^ doi:10.1130/G47384.1. Retrieved 21 June 2022.
- ISSN 0022-3530.
- ^ a b Large Holocene Eruptions. Global Volcanism Program. Archived 13 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine. Volcano.si.edu. Retrieved on 2011-11-18.
- ^ a b "What is a supervolcano? What is a supereruption?". USGS.
- S2CID 4332421.
The minimum total volume of tephra is 1,200 km3 but probably nearer 2,000 km3, ...
- ^ S2CID 53648675.
- doi:10.1130/B30280.1.
- ^ Rejuvenation and Repeated Eruption of a 1.0 Ma Supervolcanic System at Mangakino Caldera, Taupo Volcanic Zone, New Zealand American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2012, abstract #V31C-2797. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
- ISSN 0377-0273.
- ISSN 1432-0819.
- ^ "Mystery of the Megavolcano" Archived 17 June 2017 at the Wayback Machine. Pbs.org. Accessed on 2017-10-12.
Further reading
- Mason, Ben G.; Pyle, David M.; Oppenheimer, Clive (2004). "The size and frequency of the largest explosive eruptions on Earth". Bulletin of Volcanology. 66 (8): 735–748. S2CID 129680497.
- Oppenheimer, C. (2011). Eruptions that shook the world. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-64112-8.
- Timmreck, C.; Graf, H.-F. (2006). "The initial dispersal and radiative forcing of a Northern Hemisphere mid-latitude super volcano: a model study". Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 6 (1): 35–49. .
External links
- Overview and Transcript of the original BBC program
- Yellowstone Supervolcano and Map of Supervolcanoes Around The World
- USGS Fact Sheet – Steam Explosions, Earthquakes, and Volcanic Eruptions – What's in Yellowstone's Future?
- Scientific American's The Secrets of Supervolcanoes
- Supervolcano eruption mystery solved, BBC Science, 6 January 2014