Via dailymail.co.uk
The super-volcano beneath Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming has been rising at a record rate since 2004.
It would explode with a force a thousand times more powerful than the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980.
Spewing lava far into the sky, a cloud of plant-killing ash would fan out and dump a layer 10ft deep up to 1,000 miles away.
Two-thirds of the U.S. could become uninhabitable as toxic air sweeps through it, grounding thousands of flights and forcing millions to leave their homes.
This is the nightmare that scientists are predicting could happen if the world?s largest super-volcano erupts, as it could do in the near future.
Yellowstone National Park?s caldera is believed to have has erupted three times in the past and researchers monitoring it say we could be in for another eruption.
They said that the super-volcano underneath the Wyoming park has been rising at a record rate since 2004 – its floor has gone up three inches per year for the last three years alone, the fastest rate since records began in 1923.
But hampered by a lack of data they have stopped short of an all-out warning and they are unable to put a date on when the next disaster might take place.
When the eruption finally happens it will dwarf the effect of Iceland?s Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which erupted in April last year, causing travel chaos around the world.
The University of Utah’s Bob Smith, an expert in Yellowstone’s volcanism told National Geographic: ?It’s an extraordinary uplift, because it covers such a large area and the rates are so high.
But he added: ?Once we saw the magma was at a depth of ten kilometres, we weren’t so concerned.
?If it had been at depths of two or three kilometre we’d have been a lot more concerned.?
Robert B. Smith, professor of geophysics at the University of Utah, who has led a recent study into the volcano, added: ?Our best evidence is that the crustal magma chamber is filling with molten rock.
?But we have no idea how long this process goes on before there either is an eruption or the inflow of molten rock stops and the caldera deflates again?.
The Yellowstone Caldera is one of nature?s most awesome creations and sits atop North America?s largest volcanic field.
Its name means ?cooking pot? or ?cauldron? and it is formed when land collapses following a volcanic explosion.
In Yellowstone, some 400 miles beneath the Earth?s surface is a magma ?hotspot? which rises to 30 miles underground before spreading out over an area of 300 miles across.
Atop this, but still beneath the surface, sits the slumbering volcano.
Scientists monitoring it believe that a swelling magma reservoir six miles underground may be causing the recent uplifts.
They have also been keeping an eye on a ?pancake-shaped blob? of molten rock he size of Los Angeles which was pressed into the volcano some time ago.
But due the extreme conditions it has been hard to work out what exactly is going on down below, leading researchers unable to say with certainty what will happen – or when.
Since the most recent large blast there have been around 30 smaller eruptions.
They filled the caldera with ash and lava and made the flat landscape that draws thousands of tourists to Yellowstone National Park every year.
?Clearly some deep source of magma feeds Yellowstone, and since Yellowstone has erupted in the recent geological past, we know that there is magma at shallower depths too,? said Dan Dzurisin, a Yellowstone expert with the U.S. Geological Survey at Cascades Volcano Observatory in Washington State.
?There has to be magma in the crust, or we wouldn’t have all the hydrothermal activity that we have.
?There is so much heat coming out of Yellowstone right now that if it wasn’t being reheated by magma, the whole system would have gone stone cold since the time of the last eruption.?
i have been following your ‘predictions’ for a couple years. i like what you do, but articles like this make the other stuff lose credibility. stay away from climate asteroid and volcanoes. otherwise, you may as well write articles about aliens from outer space. because you’ll be talking to the same audience that reads that crap.
This is not our prediction, just a news article we found interesting. Some experts in this field suggest that this could possibly happen and they are not even sure. I do not know if this will happen nor do I go around saying it will. I just thought it was interesting that the scientist, who major in this field are concerned about this super-volcano. Will it eventually blow its top? I have no idea, but I will keep an eye on it to see if the conditions get worse.
Its interesting to note that in Revelation Chapter 8 during the Great Tribulation there is some pretty heavy events that will take place that will shake the world up. In sharing these verses I am not suggesting that these Bible predictions have anything to do with the Yellowstone super-volcano. Also, if you read Revelation 16 things get worse in the Wrath of God.
REV.8:7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
REV.8:8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
REV.8:9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
REV.8:10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
REV.8:11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.
REV.8:12 And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.
So according to these Bible predictions the earth , sea, & rivers could be greatly damaged by these disasters whatever they are?