The Biggest Eruptions That Changed Earth Forever

Name: The Biggest Eruptions That Changed Earth Forever
Uploaded: 2022-10-18T13:59:41.000Z
Duration: 18 min 59 s

Introduction

The Earth is a semi-molten rock with a heart of iron as hot as the surface of the Sun. This heat comes from its birth and radioactive decay of trillions of tons of radioactive elements.

The Earth's crust is a fragile barrier that can be broken through by true apocalypses, unleashing eruptions tens of times more powerful than all our nuclear weapons combined.

This video will focus on super volcanoes, how big they can get, and whether they will put an end to humanity.

Volcanoes

There are two main sources for volcanoes - tectonic plates and mantle plumes. Tectonic plates are pieces of the crust that cover the Earth like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Mantle plumes are columns of abnormally hot rock that rise all the way from the planet's core mantle boundary to the surface.

Tectonic plates drift against each other at up to 15 centimeters per year, crumpling into new mountain ranges or being shoved underneath into an ocean of hot rock at 1,300 degrees Celsius.

Liquid magma 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.

Mantle plumes break through the crust creating volcanoes in places where tectonic plates do not meet. They are like hot air rising to form storm clouds made up of rocks circulating at a rate of a few millimeters per month.

Volcanic Explosivity Index

The volcanic explosivity index (VEI) is a logarithmic scale that measures the volume ejected during an eruption. It starts small and gets very big very quickly.

A VEI 2 eruption would fill 400 full Olympic swimming pools with lava, and we have around 10 of these per year.

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.

At VEI 7, we get super colossal eruptions millennium-defining events that human civilization has only encountered a handful of times.

Super Volcanoes

Super volcanoes are not a scientific term but rather a media invention. They have been waiting to erupt for hundreds of thousands of years, building up pressure in colossal magma reservoirs several kilometers deep until it becomes strong enough to lift the rock above it by several meters.

When rocks crack under the pressure, billions of tons of gas and ash blast out at supersonic speeds. Not every eruption from a super volcano is a super eruption, but when they do occur, they can change the world.

Super Volcanoes

The video discusses the formation and potential dangers of super volcanoes, including their ability to cause catastrophic eruptions that can impact global climate. It also explores the likelihood of a super eruption occurring in the near future and what measures can be taken to mitigate their effects.

Formation and Potential Dangers

Super volcanoes form when magma builds up beneath the Earth's surface, creating a caldera. These volcanoes are capable of causing catastrophic eruptions that can impact global climate.

The largest volcanic events we know of were not really huge explosions but floods of millions of cubic kilometers of lava. The Siberian traps around 250 million years ago caused the Permian Triassic Extinction killing over 90 percent of all species.

The lake tuber eruption released a gargantuan 5,300 cubic kilometers of material enough to blanket parts of South Asia in 15 centimeters of Ash and trigger a rapid 4 degrees Celsius drop in global temperatures.

While super eruptions are natural disasters for sure, they are overhyped as an unavoidable apocalypse. The most famous one Yellowstone will erupt again but they will be relatively smaller options.

Likelihood and Mitigation

Super eruptions occur on average every 17,000 years making them far more frequent than comparable asteroid impacts.

Chance of a VEI8 eruption in the next few hundred years is less than two percent and more importantly it wouldn't 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.

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. 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.

Exploiting geothermal energy held in giant magma reservoirs could turn this force of destruction into an agent for good.

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