What Happens if a Supervolcano Blows Up?

Summary

The video script delves into the fascinating and often misunderstood world of volcanoes, particularly supervolcanoes, which are not a scientific term but refer to volcanoes with the potential for extremely large eruptions. It explains the two primary sources of volcanic activity: tectonic plate boundaries and mantle plumes. The script outlines the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) to measure eruptions' magnitude, from VEI 2 to catastrophic VEI 7 events. It highlights historical super-eruptions like Krakatoa and Tambora, and the largest known eruption, the Siberian Traps. Despite the dramatic potential, the script reassures that while supervolcanoes are a natural disaster, the likelihood of a civilization-ending eruption is low. It emphasizes the importance of monitoring volcanic activity for early warnings and the potential to harness geothermal energy. The video concludes by encouraging viewers to learn more about these phenomena through interactive science lessons, suggesting that with determination, humanity can understand and mitigate such natural disasters.

Takeaways

• 🌍 The Earth's core is incredibly hot, comparable to the surface of the Sun, and is composed of semi-molten rock with vast amounts of heat from its formation and radioactive decay.
• 🔥 Heat from the Earth's core has no escape but to rise, creating currents of rock that transport energy towards the surface.
• 🏔 The Earth's crust, though seeming solid, is a fragile barrier to the immense heat and pressure beneath it.
• 🌋 Supervolcanoes have the potential to cause catastrophic eruptions far more powerful than all nuclear weapons combined, with global climate impacts.
• ⛰ There are two main sources of volcanoes: tectonic plate boundaries and mantle plumes, which are columns of hot rock rising from the core-mantle boundary.
• 🌊 Tectonic plates, which are constantly moving, can cause volcanic activity when one plate is forced under another into the hot asthenosphere, leading to the formation of magma.
• 📈 The Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) is a logarithmic scale that measures the volume of material ejected during a volcanic eruption, with VEI 8 being the most powerful.
• 🌉 VEI 5 eruptions can release enough material to cause global shockwaves and tsunamis, while VEI 6 eruptions can significantly alter global temperatures and climate.
• 💥 Supervolcanoes are not a scientific term but refer to volcanoes with the potential for extremely large eruptions that can impact the entire planet.
• ⏳ The probability of a VEI 8 eruption in the near future is low, and such events would not occur without significant precursory signs.
• 🛠 While supervolcanoes are not an immediate threat, monitoring volcanic activity is crucial for early warning systems and potential mitigation strategies, such as removing ash and sulfur from the stratosphere.

Q & A

What is the Earth's core primarily composed of and how hot is it?

The Earth's core is primarily composed of iron and it is as hot as the surface of the Sun.

What is the role of tectonic plates in the formation of volcanoes?

Tectonic plates, which cover the Earth like a jigsaw puzzle, interact at their boundaries. When one plate is forced under another (a process known as subduction), it can create magma which rises to the surface and forms volcanoes.

How does the presence of water affect the formation of magma?

Tectonic plates often absorb water over thousands of years. When these plates are submerged into the hot asthenosphere, the water triggers chemical reactions that allow portions of the rock to melt into magma.

What are mantle plumes and how do they contribute to volcanic activity?

Mantle plumes are columns of abnormally hot rock that rise from the core-mantle boundary to the Earth's surface. They are thought to be a source of volcanic activity, independent of tectonic plate movement, and can create volcanoes in the middle of tectonic plates.

What is the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) and how is it used?

The Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) is a logarithmic scale that measures the volume of material ejected during a volcanic eruption. It ranges from very small to extremely large, helping scientists categorize the intensity of volcanic events.

What was the impact of the Krakatoa eruption in 1883 on global climate?

The Krakatoa eruption in 1883 had a significant impact on global climate by releasing massive amounts of gas and ash into the atmosphere. This caused global temperatures to drop by nearly 0.5°C and led to red dusty sunsets for several years.

What is a supervolcano and how does it differ from a regular volcano?

A supervolcano is a term used to describe a volcano with a history of extremely large eruptions, ejecting more than 1,000 cubic kilometers of material. Unlike regular volcanoes, supervolcanoes have colossal magma reservoirs that build up pressure over tens of thousands of years, leading to infrequent but extremely powerful eruptions.

What is the average recurrence interval for a supereruption?

It is estimated that supereruptions capable of causing catastrophic events occur on average every 17,000 years.

What was the significance of the Lake Toba eruption in terms of human history?

The Lake Toba eruption 74,000 years ago was a significant turning point in history, releasing a massive amount of material that caused a rapid global temperature drop and potentially led to a volcanic winter lasting up to ten years, followed by worldwide droughts for centuries.

How can we monitor and potentially mitigate the effects of volcanic eruptions?

Monitoring slow changes in magma reservoirs, such as ground swelling and temperature increases, can provide early warnings. Additionally, developing solutions to remove sulfur and ash from the stratosphere could help eliminate the root cause of climate disruption from eruptions.

What is the likelihood of a VEI 8 eruption in the next few hundred years?

The chance of a VEI 8 eruption, which would be a super-colossal event, in the next few hundred years is less than 2%.

How does the Brilliant platform help in understanding complex scientific concepts?

Brilliant is an interactive learning tool that offers hands-on lessons to build understanding of fundamental science. It provides a one-on-one deep-dive version of complex topics, allowing users to explore and learn at their own pace.

Outlines

00:00

🌋 The Power and Phenomenon of Volcanoes

This paragraph introduces the Earth's dynamic geological processes, focusing on the formation and potential catastrophic effects of supervolcanoes. It explains the Earth's structure, including the semi-molten rock and the iron core, and how heat from its formation and radioactive decay is trapped, leading to volcanic activity. The crust is described as a fragile barrier for this heat, which can lead to powerful eruptions. The paragraph also distinguishes between two main sources of volcanoes: tectonic plate boundaries and mantle plumes. It further discusses the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI), providing examples of eruptions at different levels of this scale, and their corresponding global impacts.

05:00

🌍 Super-Eruptions and Their Global Impact

This section delves into the concept of supervolcanoes, which are not a scientific term but rather a media invention. It clarifies that not every eruption from a supervolcano is a 'super eruption.' The paragraph discusses the immense pressure that builds up in magma reservoirs over hundreds of thousands of years, leading to colossal explosions that can affect the entire globe. It provides historical examples of such eruptions, including the Oruanui eruption and the more significant Lake Toba eruption, which had profound effects on global climate and human history. The paragraph also mentions the largest known volcanic events, the Siberian Traps, and their role in mass extinctions. It concludes by addressing the public's fear of supervolcanoes, emphasizing that while they are a natural disaster, they are not an unavoidable apocalypse and that there are ways to mitigate their effects.

10:04

📚 Learning the Science Behind Supervolcanoes and Climate Change

The final paragraph shifts the focus to the importance of understanding the science behind supervolcanoes and climate change. It acknowledges the complexity of the subject and the challenges in self-learning. To address this, the creators of the video script have collaborated with Brilliant, an interactive learning platform, to develop a series of lessons that explore fundamental scientific concepts. These lessons aim to build a deeper understanding of topics such as black holes, the scale of life, and climate change. The paragraph promotes Brilliant as a tool that makes science accessible through hands-on learning, offering a range of lessons from algebra to quantum computing. It encourages viewers to sign up for free and mentions a special offer for the first 200 people to use the provided link, which includes a discount on the annual membership.

Keywords

💡Supervolcano

A supervolcano is a term used to describe a volcano with the potential for an exceptionally powerful eruption that would have widespread effects on the global climate. In the video, it is mentioned that supervolcanoes have colossal magma reservoirs that can build up pressure over hundreds of thousands of years, leading to an explosive release of gas and ash. The term, however, is a media invention and not a scientific one, and not every eruption from a supervolcano is a 'super eruption'.

💡Tectonic Plates

Tectonic plates are the pieces of the Earth's crust that cover the planet like a jigsaw puzzle. There are seven major and dozens of smaller plates that move against each other at varying speeds. In the context of the video, tectonic plate boundaries are one of the main sources of volcanoes. When one plate is forced under another in a process known as subduction, it can create magma, leading to volcanic activity.

💡Mantle Plumes

Mantle plumes are columns of unusually hot rock that rise from deep within the Earth, from the core-mantle boundary, all the way to the surface. They are thought to be a second main source of volcanoes, as they can cause volcanic activity even in the absence of tectonic plate movement. The video describes them as being akin to weather patterns in the Earth's mantle, capable of forming 'storm clouds' of rock that last for millions of years.

💡Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI)

The Volcanic Explosivity Index is a logarithmic scale used by scientists to measure the volume of material ejected during a volcanic eruption. It ranges from VEI 0, representing non-explosive eruptions, to VEI 8, which are the most colossal. The video uses the VEI to illustrate the scale of volcanic eruptions, with each increase in the index representing a significant jump in the volume of ejected material and the potential for global impact.

💡Caldera

A caldera is a large bowl-shaped depression or crater formed by the collapse of a volcano following a major eruption. The video explains that after a supervolcano eruption, the ground collapses into the void left by the expelled magma, creating a caldera. This process is depicted as a metaphor for a boiling pot of water with its lid being popped off.

💡Asthenosphere

The asthenosphere is a layer of the Earth's mantle located below the lithosphere. It is characterized by its partially molten rock that, despite being hot enough to melt rock, remains a superheated solid due to the immense pressure. In the video, the asthenosphere is mentioned as the layer into which a subducting tectonic plate is forced, and where the presence of water can trigger the formation of magma.

💡Magma

Magma is molten rock found beneath the Earth's surface. It is formed when rock melts due to high temperatures and pressure changes. In the context of the video, magma is crucial for volcanic activity. When magma accumulates in reservoirs beneath the Earth's crust and becomes dense enough, it can force its way to the surface, resulting in a volcanic eruption.

💡Krakatoa Eruption

The Krakatoa eruption of 1883 is a historical example of a powerful volcanic event discussed in the video. The eruption was so massive that it produced the loudest sound ever recorded, caused tsunamis up to 30 meters high, and released enough ash and gas to lower global temperatures by nearly 0.5°C. This event is used to illustrate the potential global impact of a VEI 6 eruption.

💡Mount Tambora

Mount Tambora's 1815 eruption is highlighted in the video as a Super-Colossal eruption (VEI 7) with far-reaching consequences. The eruption released an immense amount of ash and dust, leading to a 'Year Without a Summer' the following year, widespread crop failures, and the death of over a hundred thousand people. This example underscores the catastrophic potential of very large volcanic eruptions.

💡Siberian Traps

The Siberian Traps refer to a large igneous province in Russia that was formed by volcanic activity around 250 million years ago. The video mentions this event as one of the largest volcanic episodes in Earth's history, which led to a significant rise in ocean temperatures and the Permian–Triassic extinction event. This keyword is used to contrast the different scales of volcanic activity and their respective impacts on global climate and life.

💡Yellowstone

Yellowstone National Park is home to a well-known supervolcano. The video addresses common fears about its potential for a catastrophic eruption, explaining that while it will erupt again, the expected eruptions will be relatively small and not capable of ending humanity. Yellowstone serves as a reassurance that despite the potential for large volcanic events, the likelihood of an extremely devastating eruption in the near future is low.

Highlights

The Earth's core is as hot as the surface of the Sun, powering massive heat and energy transfers.

Volcanic activity is primarily driven by tectonic plate movements and mantle plumes.

Water absorbed by tectonic plates triggers chemical reactions that produce magma.

The Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) quantifies eruption sizes, where VEI 2 represents smaller eruptions and VEI 8 indicates catastrophic supereruptions.

The 1883 Krakatoa eruption, a VEI 6 event, significantly impacted global climates and produced audible sound halfway around the world.

The 1815 Mount Tambora eruption was a VEI 7 event, causing a 'year without a summer' and profound global agricultural effects.

Supervolcanoes have the potential to eject thousands of cubic kilometers of material, impacting global climate for centuries.

The term 'supervolcano' is more a media creation than a scientific classification.

A supervolcano's eruption is likened to a boiling pot's lid popping off, with the ground subsequently collapsing to form a caldera.

The Siberian Traps event around 250 million years ago is an example of an eruption so vast it defined Earth's climate, contributing to a mass extinction.

Despite their potential for devastation, supervolcanoes should not be a source of immediate fear, with more frequent smaller eruptions posing greater immediate risk.

Monitoring volcanic activity involves observing signs like ground swelling and temperature increases.

Advancements in technology might allow us to mitigate volcanic impacts by removing harmful substances from the atmosphere.

Collaborative efforts in education and research, like those with Brilliant, aim to deepen public understanding of volcanic science.

Brilliant.org partners with educational channels to provide interactive lessons on complex scientific topics, including volcanoes and climate change.

Transcripts

The Earth is a gigantic ball of semi-molten rock,  with a heart of iron as hot as the surface of the  

Sun. Titanic amounts of heat left over from its  birth and the radioactive decay of trillions of  

tons of radioactive elements find no escape  but up. Currents of rock spanning thousands  

of kilometers carry this energy to the surface.  Earth’s crust is the only thing in their way.  

It feels solid to us, but it is only a fragile  barrier, an apple skin around a flaming behemoth.  

True apocalypses can break through  and unleash eruptions tens of times  

more powerful than all of our nuclear weapons  combined, subjecting the climate to centuries  

worth of change in a single year, while  drowning continents in toxic ash and gases:  

supervolcanoes. How big can they get?  And will they put an end to humanity?

Volcanoes

There are many types of volcanos,  from towering mountains to lava domes,  

but they have two main sources:

The first is at the boundaries between tectonic  plates, the pieces of the crust that cover the  

Earth like a giant jigsaw puzzle. There are seven  major tectonic plates and dozens of smaller ones,  

drifting against each other at up  to 15 cm per year. This sounds slow,  

but on geological timescales it is a  titanic struggle over who gets to stay  

on the surface. The winning plate crumples  into a new mountain range while the loser  

is shoved underneath, into an ocean of  hot rock at1300°Ct: The asthenosphere.

The temperature here is enough  to melt rock into a liquid,  

but the insane pressures of all that  mass keep it a superheated solid.

Tectonic plates are usually in contact  with water for thousands of years and  

absorb some of it. When they are  submerged into the hot underworld,  

this water triggers chemical transformations  that allow tiny portions to melt into magma.  

Liquid magma is less dense than solid rock,  so it rises to the surface in furious bubbles  

that accumulate in sponge-like reservoirs right  under the crust. If enough magma accumulates,  

it becomes powerful enough to pierce through the  crust – which we experience as volcanoes. This  

happens under the winning plate, like a revenge  attack by the loser before it is erased forever.

The second main source of volcanoes are thought to  be mantle plumes. These are columns of abnormally  

hot rock that rise all the way from the planet’s  core-mantle boundary to the surface. Much less is  

known about them, but in a way it is as if the  Earth’s mantle has weather patterns and mantle  

plumes are a little like hot air rising to form  storm clouds. Storms hundreds of millions of  

years old, made of rock circulating at  a rate of a few millimetres per month.  

They don’t care about the motion of tectonic  plates, so they can break the crust to create  

volcanoes in the middle of nowhere that stubbornly  stay active as the crust shifts around them.

The volcanic boom-meter

Scientists love to put big booms on a  scale and came up with a logarithmic  

scale that measures the volume ejected during  an eruption: The Volcanic Explosivity Index,  

or VEI. Simply put, it starts really  small and gets very big very quickly.

A VEI 2 eruption would fill four hundred  full Olympic swimming pools with lava.  

We have around 10 of these per year.

At VEI 3 we already see devastating effects,  

like the eruption of the Semeru volcano in 2021  that destroyed thousands of homes in Indonesia.

At VEI 5, we see catastrophic amounts of  materials, cubic kilometers of debris, equivalent  

to an entire lake of molten rock blasted into  the air. Like the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai  

eruption that sent a shockwave around the globe  many times and created ocean-wide tsunamis.

At a VEI of 6, an eruption can change the world.  In 1883, the Indonesian island volcano Krakatoa  

erupted nearly continuously over the course of  5 months. One of those eruptions blew it apart,  

producing the loudest sound recorded in history,  

10 trillion times louder than a rocket  taking off, heard halfway around the world.  

30m high tsunamis swept away nearby populations  and so much gas and ash were released that  

global temperatures cooled by nearly 0.5°C.  Red dusty sunsets followed for many years.

At VEI 7, we get Super-Colossal  eruptions, millennium-defining  

events that human civilization has  only encountered a handful of times.  

Mount Tambora was a 4300m high mountain  until it exploded in 1815 and released 400  

times more energy than the Tsar Bomba.  140 billion tons of ash and dust were  

shot halfway to space before smothering the  world’s skies, turning them a sickly yellow.  

There was no summer the following year, crops  died and over a hundred thousand people perished.

This is the dreadful potential of volcanic  eruptions, with famines across the other  

side of the world and even centuries-long  cold periods being attributed to them.

Ok. But what is a supervolcano?

The term “Super volcano” is a media invention  and not a scientific term. The main issue with  

them is that not every eruption from  a supervolcano is a super eruption.

What makes super volcanoes special is that  they have been waiting to erupt for hundreds  

of thousands of years. Pressure builds up in  colossal magma reservoirs several kilometers deep,  

until it becomes strong enough to lift  the rock above it by several meters.  

Rocks crack under the pressure, until they finally  give way and billions of tons of gas and ash blast  

out at supersonic speed. An insane explosion  of at least a thousand cubic kilometers that  

impacts every corner of the globe. And yet, that  is only a small portion of the magma reservoir.

Super eruptions are like a boiling pot of water  popping its lid off and spilling a bit off the  

top. Afterwards the ground collapses into  the void left behind, forming a hole called  

a caldera. Under this caldera, pressure starts  building again until the volcano gathers enough  

energy for another supereruption – but this  could take hundreds of thousands of years.

It is estimated that one of the few  volcanoes capable of supereruptions  

on Earth could cause a catastrophic eruption every  

17,000 years on average. That would make them far  more frequent than comparable asteroid impacts..

The most recent super-eruption is the Oruanui  eruption 26,500 years ago in New Zealand.  

With the force of dozens of billions of tons of  TNT, a Mount Everest- sized pile of explosives,  

a huge portion of the landscape was  scooped out and thrown into the atmosphere.  

It left behind a caldera spanning 20km and  it caused the entire Southern Hemisphere  

to undergo a period of abrupt cooling. Though  among super-eruptions, it is a mere firework.

The Lake Toba eruption of 74,000 years ago  was a much more significant turning point  

in history. It released a gargantuan 5300 cubic  kilometers of material, enough to blanket parts  

of South Asia in 15 cm of ash and trigger  a rapid 4°C drop in global temperatures.  

It’s possible that the volcanic winter lasted  ten years, followed by worldwide droughts for  

centuries. Earth’s climate might have  not recovered for a thousand years.

The largest volcanic events we know  of were not really huge explosions,  

but floods of millions of cubic kilometers of  lava. The grand finale were the Siberian Traps  

around 250 million years ago, a continuous  release of lava for two million years.  

They raised the ocean temperatures to over 40°C,  which caused the Permian–Triassic extinction,  

killing over 90% of all species. Earth’s surface  needed 9 million years to recover. These sorts  

of eruptions don’t change the climate:  they are the climate. But thankfully,  

we haven’t seen anything even remotely close  to that scale in many millions of years.

So. Should you be scared of super-volcanoes?  Definitely not. They’ve been used to frighten  

many people and are overhyped as an unavoidable  apocalypse. The most famous one, Yellowstone,  

will erupt again, but they will  be relatively small eruptions.  

Natural disasters for sure, but not enough to  devastate the US or come close to ending humanity.

The chance of a VEI 8 eruption in the  next few hundred years is less than 2%  

and more importantly, it would  not come as a sudden surprise.  

However, less powerful but more  frequent eruptions can also do  

serious damage to our civilizations and  are in many ways a much greater concern.

So we must watch for slow changes in  magma reservoirs, like ground swelling  

and temperature increases, to get an early  warning that can save the lives of people  

living the closest to a volcano. And there’s time  to develop solutions that can remove sulfur and  

ash from the stratosphere to eliminate the root  cause of the climate disruption we’ve seen from  

previous eruptions. Who knows, maybe we’ll even  be able to turn this force of destruction into  

an agent for good by exploiting the geothermal  energy held in their giant magma reservoirs.

We’ve done this work for so many other disasters  and we are already doing things we could only  

have dreamed about decades ago, like sending a  probe to perform our first asteroid redirection  

test. With determination, humanity really  can solve anything. So while deep below us  

an angry hell is churning and waiting for  its moment, you can sleep well tonight.

Learning how we can get ahead of catastrophes like  climate change and supervolcanoes is interesting,  

but can also be challenging. Maybe you still  feel like you don’t really understand how  

most of the science behind it works. And on  your own it seems too hard to dig deeper.

To solve this, we’ve collaborated with our  friends from Brilliant to create a series of  

lessons to build your understanding of fundamental  science — by exploring fascinating insights from  

our most popular videos, on topics like black  holes, the size of life, and climate change.

Brilliant is an interactive learning  tool that makes science accessible with  

a hands-on approach. Because we know that  to really learn something, you’ve got to do  

it. Think of each lesson as a one-on-one  deep-dive version of a Kurzgesagt video.

In our latest lessons, you’ll discover the  mechanisms that drive climate change and  

use them to understand the impact of  supervolcanoes on our global climate.

Beyond new Kurzgesagt lessons regularly released,  

Brilliant has thousands of lessons for members  to explore—from math-based topics like algebra  

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