1. Supervolcanoes Supervolcano:
Any volcano with an eruption 1,000 times greater than normal volcanoes (VEI 8 or higher)
Eruptions can be quiet or explosive
Can occur on plate boundaries or on hot spots

2. Volcano Explosivity Index (VEI)

3. Supervolcano Cover huge areas with lava and ash
Can change weather and climate
Ex: start a new ice age, cause extinctions

5. Yellowstone Caldera
Yellowstone is a “caldera volcano” or “megacaldera”
no volcanic mountain, just a giant caldera!

9. Yellowstone When will Yellowstone blow?!?!
Earthquakes have become more recent, land is rising
But these warning signs are subsiding
Scientists think Yellowstone will blow “geologically” very soon, but not in the immediate future on a human time scale

10. Long Valley, California
Showing warning signs, rising earth, gases seeping, more earthquakes
Last eruption 760,000 years ago, caldera floor dropped a mile and ash reached Nebraska!

11. Valles Caldera, New Mexico
Last erupted 1.2 million years ago
Lots of geothermal springs in area

12. Lake Toba, Indonesia Bigger than Yellowstone!
Largest known explosive eruption on Earth in last 25 million years
Created a volcanic winter that might have wiped out humans in area 70,000 years ago

13. Lake Taupo, New Zealand
Latest large super-eruption 26,000 years ago, may have contributed to most recent Ice Age
Smaller, “normal” eruption 2,000 years ago
Lots of geothermal activity

14. Aira Caldera, Japan
22,000 years ago blew out a chunk of coastline and formed Kagoshima Bay
Lots of earthquakes still today!