Jul 28, 2008 1:17 am US/Central
Author: Yellowstone Park A Ticking Bomb
(CBS)
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The beauty and wonder of Yellowstone provide a protected home for wildlife as well as being an amazing tourist attraction.
CBS
Three million visitors go to Yellowstone National Park each year, but little do they know, it's the world's largest active volcano.
It's the country's first national park for obvious reasons. The beauty and wonder of Yellowstone provide a protected home for wildlife as well as being an amazing tourist attraction. It's an incredible piece of earth for a good reason.
"There is this huge volcano underneath Yellowstone National Park," said Greg Breining, a writer from St. Paul, Minn.
Breining spent some time studying the geology and enjoying the natural wonders of Yellowstone before writing
Super Volcano: The Ticking Time Bomb Beneath Yellowstone National Park.
"There is this huge reservoir of magma just 3 or 4 miles beneath the surface of the park, and it is that magma -- this is still an active volcano -- that creates the geysers, the mudpots, the hot springs, all the other features for which Yellowstone is famous," said Breining.
The volcano here has erupted three times in the past 2 million years at fairly regular intervals of every 600,000 to 700,000 years.
The last blast was about 640,000 years ago.
Volcanic eruptions around the world today give us only a small glimpse of what another explosion at Yellowstone would be like. Thick ash deposits would bury large parts of the United States and volcanic gases could drastically affect the global climate.
"The aerosols that wind up high into the atmosphere circle the globe, and for a period of 20 years, 30 years, we would have cool cloudy weather as a result. Agriculture would be less successful than normal, and people would die by the millions," said Breining.
Nearly 30 years ago, Mount St. Helens near the Washington/Oregon border erupted killing 57 people and blowing more than a 1000 feet off the top of the mountain.
"We think of mount St. Helens -- went off in 1980 -- as a big explosion, and indeed it was," said Breining. "The most recent Yellowstone explosion was a thousand times larger than Mount St. Helens."
Scientists carefully watch what's happening with the earth at Yellowstone and it's very interesting.
"Indeed the land beneath Yellowstone is rising and falling like ... you know, somebody breathing," said Breining.
You don't have to be a scientist to be impressed with the wonder and mysterious beauty of Yellowstone, all due to the fact that just beneath the surface lies a napping volcano.
"So, it's going to go off again. It's still hot, it's still active. Will it happen in our life times? Chances are microscopic," said Breining. "I wouldn't put my vacation to Yellowstone on hold, though. I think I'd feel pretty safe in going."
Breining is also writing about the volcanic ash that blew out the last time the Yellowstone volcano erupted.
It reached as far as parts of Iowa and left amazing fossil remains in Nebraska.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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