Then, around 1600 BC, the plume of another Santorini eruption may have been responsible for the seventh, eighth and ninth plagues – the fiery hail, the locusts and the days of darkness.

The Minoan eruption was a major catastrophic volcanic eruption that devastated the Aegean island of Thera (now called Santorini) in around 1600 BCE….Minoan eruption.

Minoan eruption of Thera
Volcano	Thera
Date	between 1642 and 1540 BCE (see below)
Type	Ultra Plinian

That fiery explosion killed upwards of 40,000 people in just a few hours, produced colossal tsunamis 40 feet tall, spewed volcanic ash across Asia, and caused a drop in global temperatures and created strangely colored sunsets for three years. The blast was heard 3,000 miles away.

February 1950

At present, the volcano of Santorini is still dormant, or “sleeping.” This means that it is indeed still active, but an explosion is not believed to be imminent. Smaller explosions have nonetheless continued to occur on Santorini throughout the centuries following the catastrophic eruption of 1613 BC.

Yellowstone is not overdue for an eruption. Volcanoes do not work in predictable ways and their eruptions do not follow predictable schedules. In terms of large explosions, Yellowstone has experienced three at 2.08, 1.3, and 0.631 million years ago. This comes out to an average of about 725,000 years between eruptions.

The eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano Just last year Dr Jerzy Zaba, a geologist at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland, predicted an eruption that would destroy most of the United States and could kill five billion people around the world. The supervolcano is still active and could blow at any time.

Scientists have talked about what could happen if Yellowstone’s supervolcano were to erupt in a modern-day setting throughout the United States. One scientist spoke to medically daily and reported that scientists predict that 5 billion people in total would die as a result of an eruption.

YVO gets a lot of questions about whether Yellowstone, or another caldera system, will end all life on Earth. The answer is—NO, a large explosive eruption at Yellowstone will not lead to the end of the human race.

YELLOWSTONE “SUPERVOLCANO” (U.S.) Last erupted: 640,000 years agoEffects of a major eruption: When the Yellowstone Caldera, or “supervolcano,” in Yellowstone National erupts again, it will render a huge swath of North America, from Vancouver to Oklahoma City, uninhabitable.

Kilauea

The largest (super) eruption at Yellowstone (2.1 million years ago) had a volume of 2,450 cubic kilometers. Like many other caldera-forming volcanoes, most of Yellowstone’s many eruptions have been smaller than VEI 8 supereruptions, so it is confusing to categorize Yellowstone as a “supervolcano.”

around 17 times a day

Is Yellowstone’s volcano still active? Yes. The park’s many hydrothermal features attest to the heat still beneath this area. Earthquakes—700 to 3,000 per year— also reveal activity below ground.

Yellowstone Caldera The last time the Yellowstone supervolcano erupted was 640,000+ years ago. The Yellowstone eruption area collapsed upon itself, creating a sunken giant crater or caldera 1,500 square miles in area.

Almost all earthquakes at Yellowstone are brittle-failure events caused when rocks break due to crustal stresses. Though we’ve been looking at Yellowstone for years, no one has yet identified “long-period (LP) events” commonly attributed to magma movement.

approximately 630,000 years ago

Overall there are 43 volcanoes with continuing eruptions as of the Stop Dates indicated, and as reported through the last data update (24 June 2021), sorted with the most recently started eruption at the top.

This article is more than 2 years old. 2018 ranking of the most dangerous volcanoes in the United States. Yellowstone supervolcano ranked only 21st on America’s most dangerous volcanoes. Of the 161 volcanoes the USGS ranked in their assessment, they found 18 are “very high” threat and 39 “high” threat.

Yellowstone is one of the largest known volcanoes in the world and the largest volcanic system in North America. The volcano is found above an intra-plate hot spot that has been feeding the magma chamber underneath Yellowstone for at least 2 million years.

Yellowstone National Park covers some 3,472 square miles of land across three states in the northwest US.

If the supervolcano underneath Yellowstone National Park ever had another massive eruption, it could spew ash for thousands of miles across the United States, damaging buildings, smothering crops, and shutting down power plants. It’d be a huge disaster. But that doesn’t mean we should all start freaking out.

Unlike the ash produced by burning wood and other organic materials, volcanic ash can be dangerous. Its particles are very hard and usually have jagged edges. As a result, it can cause eye, nose, and lung irritation, as well as breathing problems.

As winter approaches, take heart in the fact that it won’t last 80 years. That’s how long two volcanic winters may have lasted after two separate explosions of the Yellowstone volcano about 630,000 years ago, the same eruptions that formed the Yellowstone caldera, and the last big eruptions of the volcano.

During colder climatic periods, Yellowstone has been covered by ice. Bull Lake ice dammed rivers, and deposits from the glaciers are found both above and below Yellowstone lava flows, meaning that the ice age occurred both before and after times of Yellowstone eruptions.

The sulfur dioxide emitted from the volcano interacted with the atmosphere, which cooled the Earth’s surface for three years following the eruption. At the height of the impact, global temperatures dropped by 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit (0.7 degrees Celsius). Learn more: Yellowstone FAQs & Facts.

The effects of volcanic eruptions on recent winters are modest in scale, but historically have been significant. The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, a stratovolcano in the Philippines, cooled global temperatures for about 2–3 years.

Volcanic ash or dust released into the atmosphere during an eruption shade sunlight and cause temporary cooling. These tiny particles are so light that they can stay in the stratosphere for months, blocking sunlight and causing cooling over large areas of the Earth.