I don't know where to put this question. Could Yellowstone blow in our lifetime? (I'm 56) If so, what do we think would happen? I've only been to Yellowstone once and I was very young then, but there was so much volcanic activity there I remember wondering about it then. Would it be a worldwide catastrophe? What could it do to the atmosphere? Would it have any affect on the oceans? Is this even a feasible question?

It is not likely, but the next 10,000 years it has a likely chance of going.

For it to be a worldwide catastrophe it would have to all blow, which is the likely if it did blow. Millions would die, starvation would kill hundreds of millions. But we would likely have some warning.

These types of volcanoes around earth erupt every 50,000 years (all together), the last one in indonesia, java, was thought to nearly wipe out humans, however this is only a theory.

Humans will not die, but it would hinder out growth severly.

It's a possibility. But we simply do not have the information to quantify how likely it is no blow or when it will. Nor how severely. It's possible to get a volcanic eruption that's not significantly different from other volcanoes. It's also possible that "the big one" will happen and most of North America will be covered in ash to the depth of many feet.

How would we go about gathering that kind of information? I suppose we have just as much to be concerned about with earthquakes and tsunamis. I wonder if earthquakes are connected in any way to volcanic activity? Oh and thanks for the replies so far, I appreciate it.

We observe yellowstone, look at past events. About earthquakes, volcanoes can cause minor earthquakes, but big earthquakes can also set of a volcano.

These "big" catastrophe's always have a chance of happening in your lifetime, but you must understand that it is rather unlikely. You'd be better off buying some lottery tickets.

This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Fault) has probably the highest chance of happening during our time (that I know of). Last time it shook it made the Mississippi River flow backwards for a few days.

The probability of magnitude 6.0 or greater in the near future is considered significant; a 90% chance of such an earthquake by 2040 has been given. In the June 23, 2005, issue of the journal "Nature", the odds of another 8.0 event within 50 years were estimated to be between 7 and 10 percent.[6]

Because of the unconsolidated sediments which are a major part of the underlying geology of the Mississippi embayment, as well as the river sediments along the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys to the north and east (note the red fingers extending up these valleys in the image above), large quakes have the potential for more widespread damage than major quakes on the west coast.

Yes the Yellowstone supervolcano can blow in our lifetimes, but it's highly unlikely it will happen. I'd be dead anyway if it does happen.

Looks like I live just out of reach of the New Madrid Fault. :p

I sort of remember Mount St. Helens. It did a lot of damage but I don't recall a very large loss of lives. I think if Yellowstone were to blow, it might impact the entire earth. I wonder how it would affect weather patterns.

Are there any faults that we know of that circle the entire earth? Where is the most likely places a big earthquake would hit besides where you mentioned Strider?

Yes, it could happen tomorrow or in a 10,000 years from now. We don't exactly know when.

If it blew, I think that we would have to stop playing civ for awhile.

It would greatly alter the weather patterns resulting in a volcanic winter that lasts about a decade. The Toba Catastrophe Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory) shows what possibly happened during the last major supervolcano eruption about 70,000 years ago. There was a "smaller" supervolcano eruption in New Zealand about 26,500 years ago, but it wasn't even close to the magnitude of previous eruptions at Yellowstone or Toba. A Yellowstone eruption would drop at least 3 feet of ash across much of the US and Southern Canada.

I don't know about other parts of the world, but that pesky San Andreas Fault always has the potential for a monster quake.

How would we go about gathering that kind of information? I suppose we have just as much to be concerned about with earthquakes and tsunamis. I wonder if earthquakes are connected in any way to volcanic activity? Oh and thanks for the replies so far, I appreciate it.

We don't even begin to have a theory that would narrow down the possibilities. The observations we are capable of making are just not enough.

It's simply not something to worry about, because it's so far beyond our ability to do anything about.

:agree:

We haven't actually observed one of these events, so we just don't know what happens to these things leading up to an eruption. There really isn't much we could do anyway.

hehe, if yellowstone blows.... that will be a spectacle. But it must be said that the (apparent) cyclic re-eruptions may simpply have come to an end there..... so who knows? I'd rather put money on Mt. Hood - that one will be far less violent and huge, but it has a far higher potential of killing people.

I went to Yellowstone last summer, it already blows.

Yosemite, now that's where's the fun's at.

Yellowstone will blow someday. There's about a 1% chance that it'd happen before 2100.

The US will be covered with 10 inches of ash, the climate will cool down to an ice age of three years, and billions might die from starvation etc if humans are still in the relative development level as now.

Another one to worry about:

Mega-tsunami: Wave of Destruction

Scattered across the world’s oceans are a handful of rare geological time-bombs.

...ideal conditions for just such a landslide - and consequent mega-tsunami - now exist on the island of La Palma in the Canaries. What will happen when the volcano on La Palma collapses? Scientists predict that it will generate a wave that will be almost inconceivably destructive, far bigger than anything ever witnessed in modern times. It will surge across the entire Atlantic in a matter of hours, engulfing the whole US east coast, sweeping away everything in its path up to 20km inland. Boston would be hit first, followed by New York, then all the way down the coast to Miami and the Caribbean.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/mega_tsunami.shtml

Good thing I'm 1100ft above sea level and about 1000 miles from the nearest ocean.

There's several supervolcanoes which are set to blow in several millenia time, give or take several centuries. Curiously, there is one underneath Naples, Italy, near where the infamous Mt. Pompeii is.

Supervolcanoes will erupt sometime in the next 10,000 years as stated, but by then, global warming will have pretty much sunk the earth anyway.

There's several supervolcanoes which are set to blow in several millenia time, give or take several centuries. Curiously, there is one underneath Naples, Italy, near where the infamous Mt. Pompeii is.

Do you mean Mt. Vesuivus (http://www.volcanolive.com/vesuvius.html), near Naples and Pompeii? That's not a supervolcano, but just your ordinary highly volatile continental subduction zone high-derivate volcano of the neighbourhood. 'BOOM!', not 'Boom!'. In comparison, Kilauea (http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/) would be 'trickle, trickle', btw.

I'm not sure if it's technically a supervolcano, but I think he meant Campi Flegrei (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campi_Flegrei) near Naples, Italy. It pales in comparison to Yellowstone, but it did have an eruption 12,000 years ago that was 100 times Mount St. Helens.

Oh, ok - still: while pheratomagmatic blows can be quite spectacular (and these were), this is a far cry from a hotspot that slowly burns through a nice fat continental mass.....