Yellowstone National Park, which we proudly call ‘a unique magical paradise on earth’, has always attracted people all over the world with its spectacular and magical natural resources. Whenever my foreign friend asked me for tour advice, I would not hesitate to recommend that he go to Yellowstone Park because this national park is the pride of Americans. The nature owns the superlative craftsmanship which has left us this extraordinary and magnificent place. It is the first national park in the world, mainly located in Wyoming, part of Montana, and Idaho. The park has convenient transportation with more than 500 kilometers of roads and 1,500 kilometers of hiking paths. However, there is another name for this famous resort: the Yellowstone supervolcano, one of the largest craters in the world.
To think out why we described it as a supervolcano, by definition, a supervolcano eruption (an eruption with an index of more than 8) will eject at least 1,000 cubic kilometers of ejecta. As we all know, the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 blew up half of the whole mountain, but the ejecta was only 0.25 cubic kilometers (index 4); the eruption of Italian volcano Vesuvius in 79 A.D. destroyed several cities such as Pompeii city, but its volume was only three cubic kilometers (index 5); the most severe eruption in the 20th century, the Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines erupted in 1991, with only five cubic kilometers of ejecta (index 5); and the most massive eruption ever recorded in our human history, Tambora volcano erupted in 1815, spewing 150 cubic kilometers of material (index 7).
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Last time, the Yellowstone supervolcano spewed out materials that covered most of the Mississippi River Basin today, which is the largest granary in the world and the origin of half of the world's grains. Furthermore, what makes thing worse is since 1923, the ground in some areas of Yellowstone Park has risen by 70 cm; in January 2011, scientists warned that Yellowstone volcano might have entered an active period: and in 2014, it continued to release tremendous heat, coupled with the local hot summer climate, resulting in a section of asphalt road about 5 kilometers long began to ‘melt’. It cannot drive any more, many areas are as soft as ‘mud’.
Although some insiders said that Yellowstone National Park belongs to lava terrain, the underground is relatively unstable, and the heat released by the volcano plus long-term sunshine, melting asphalt road is possible, which does not necessarily mean eruption. We still need to be vigilant. According to some scientists, after the outbreak of Yellowstone volcano, three-quarters of the United States will be covered by volcanic ash, and the pyroclastic flow of the volcano will sweep everything within 10,000 square kilometers, including Yellowstone National Park and about 80,000-100,000 people will die of the pyroclastic flow. Within 1000 kilometers, the ash will be 20 to 60 centimeters thick, crushing most of the roofs, and hundreds of thousands of people may be killed or seriously injured. The ash will then enter the power grid, resulting in a power failure, communication interruption, water pollution, food, and traffic paralysis. But the most dangerous one is sulfur dioxide. The sulfur dioxide emitted by the volcano will cause large-scale cooling. In three years or more, the temperature may drop 13 degrees in the United States, Europe, and other places. After massive climate change, the warm and humid airflow in Southeast Asia will disappear, and the precipitation in Southeast Asia and China will be significantly reduced. Such a cold climate will last for nearly a decade, with disastrous consequences for the earth's ecosystem. These make me recalled the movie ‘2012’, which was also set in Yellowstone National Park. So, one can imagine what serious and catastrophic consequences the Yellowstone supervolcano will inflict on our beloved America.
In the past 2.1 million years, the Yellowstone volcano has had a super eruption with an index of more than eight levels every 600,000 years, and now it has just reached the eruption cycle of more than 600,000 years. NASA believes that the Yellowstone volcano is one of the biggest threats to human civilization, even surpassing asteroids and comets. So, NASA put forward a super plan to save human civilization. They are going to drill a hole 10 kilometers deep in the Yellowstone volcano and cool it down by injecting water. On the other hand, the recovered high-pressure water with a temperature of 350°C can be used as geothermal energy for power generation. The whole project costs about 3.46 billion US dollars, and the power generation cost is about 0.1 US dollars / kWh. Through hundreds or even thousands of years of continuous cooling, scientists hope to eliminate the threat of volcanoes and implement it on other volcanoes around the world. It's a perfect plan. But Brian Wilcox, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has doubts that building a large water tank in the mountains is neither economic nor difficult. Most importantly, it is hazardous to drill into the top of the lava chamber and cool it. Because this may make the top cover of the magma chamber more fragile and break easily, release a large number of harmful volatile gases, causing catastrophic consequences. His suggestion is to drill under the magma chamber, but how? All of this is still being considered, but what the public needs are action.
Nowadays, standing in the famous Yellowstone National Park, it's hard to imagine a super time bomb buried at your feet. It is also difficult for our people not to panic. However, the geological activity is so chaotic, and no one can guarantee whether the Yellowstone supervolcano will erupt. I hope that both the government and scientific research institutions can give sufficient attention to this issue. Whether it is a timely notification or early protection, relevant measures should be taken.
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