S7 E5: 100 Seconds to Midnight: Super Eruptions

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Hello, and welcome to Cause of
Death one hundred seconds to Midnight.

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I'm your host, Jackie Morante.
This season is called Countdown and it's a

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collection of one hundred seconds to midnight
episodes on various subjects that could affect the

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survival of mankind. I've offered up
some pretty heavy topics this season. I

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hope that you've all learned some things
about how humankind can destroy itself, from

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the opioid crisis to terrorism. I
find that we are our own worst enemies.

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This season is almost over. There
will be two more episodes in this

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season. Then we'll go back to
talking about disease. Season eight is called

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Creepy Crawley's you guessed it. It's
all about parasitic diseases. There will still

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be a few hundred seconds to midnight
episodes sprinkled in. There's a lot to

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talk about with those, But for
the most part we'll talk about brain eating

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amiba, and maybe I'll throw in
a pry on or two. It'll be

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fun to miss it. For today, I'm going to talk about another environmental

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aspect to the end of the world, volcanoes. There have been rumors about

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Yellowstone being overdue for a super volcanic
eruption circulating for years. But is there

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actually a timer on supereruptions? Can
we predict that? And what would the

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consequences of a supereruption be. It's
ninety seconds to midnight and the Earth is

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rumbling with volcanic activity. Could any
of these eruptions mean the end of life

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as we know it? Volcanoes were
once thought to be under control of the

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gods. The word volcano comes from
the Roman god of life, vulcan.

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There are currently about fifteen hundred potentially
active volcanoes worldwide, one hundred and sixty

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nine of those are in the US. And while volcanic eruptions can cause widespread

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death and devastation, they can also
be beneficial. They create valuable mineral deposits

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like gold, aluminum, and nickel. The volcanic ash brings nutrient rich,

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fertile soil. Lava flows also create
land. In twenty eighteen, the Kolue

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eruptions created a new island off the
coast of Hawaii. Much of the energy

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that powers Iceland comes from geothermal sources, and geothermal energy is created by volcanoes.

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Volcanoes are found in the lithosphere,
the outermost layer surrounding the Earth.

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The lithosphere consists of the crust and
part of the mantle of the Earth.

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This is broken up into large slabs
called tectonic plates. The North American Plate

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covers most of North America, Greenland, and part of Siberia and encompasses about

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twenty nine million, three hundred and
five thousand square miles. There are seven

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major plates on the Earth's surface,
and volcanoes are usually located where the plates

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meet. These are called plate boundaries. The Ring of Fire is a twenty

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five thousand mile chain of volcanoes and
seismically active sites that circles the Pacific Ocean.

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About seventy five percent of active volcanoes
exist in the Ring of Fire.

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The best way to explain the tectonic
plates was described in an article by the

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Australian Museum called how are Volcanoes and
earthquakes interrelated. I'm going to read a

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section of the article verbatim because I
can't come up with a better way to

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explain it. My peanut butter sandwich
logic is going to fail me on this

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one, so quote. The outer
layer of the Earth is made up of

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solid rock called lithosphere. The lithosphere
is broken up into seventeen major separate pieces

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that fit together like a bad jigsaw
puzzle. A piece of the puzzle is

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called a tectonic plate. The plates
are horribly placed with overlapping pieces gaps,

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and are forced to fit with each
other even when they don't. Because the

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tectonic plates don't go well together,
it creates earthquakes and volcanic activity when two

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plates collide, diverge, or slide
past each other. There are three types

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of boundaries caused by the tectonic plates
on Earth. First, transform boundaries when

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two plates slide or grind past each
other. Transform boundaries are horizontal movements of

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plates and do not create or destroy
plates. Second, divergent boundaries when two

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plates create a gap in between each
other. Divergent boundaries create ocean basins when

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plates move apart from one another.
Third, convergent boundaries are when two plates

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crash towards each other and overlap to
form a subduction zone. Tectonic plates are

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extremely large and can encompass both land
and ocean. These tectonic plates interact with

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one another because of the Earth's internal
heat. This heat causes movement and material

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beneath the Earth's crust and releases energy
in the form of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

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Interactions between the tectonic plates occur in
three main places. First oceanic continental

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convergence, where the continent meets the
other ocean. Second continental continental convergence where

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two continents meet. Last oceanic oceanic
convergence where two oceans meet. So how

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are volcanoes and earthquakes interrelated? Both
volcanoes and earthquakes are caused along the boundaries

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of tectonic plates due to their movements
and interactions. End quote. They explained

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in a few paragraphs what would take
me a whole episode to explain. The

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term supervolcano was first used during the
nineteen forties. It's not a scientific term.

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It just became a popular way to
describe a volcano of higher magnitude during

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the two thousands and this made it
an accepted term. There are about twenty

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supervolcanoes on Earth. Volcanoes are measured
on a scale from Z zero to eight

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on the Volcanic Explosivity Index by magnitude. Where a volcano appears on the scale

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is related to the amount of material
that it emits and the frequency in which

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they erupt. Hawaiian eruptions are named
after the type of eruptions that are typically

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found in that state. The lava
fountains produced by these eruptions average in temperatures

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around eleven hundred degrees celsius, and
the lava flows reach speeds of roughly one

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hundred meters per second. They also
rise to heights of a few hundred meters.

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The lava flows cover the landscape,
destroying everything in their path. The

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Kaylilie Volcano in Hawaii has been extremely
active over the last several years. In

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twenty twenty three, the volcano erupted
three times. In twenty eighteen, the

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poa U collapsed. That event triggered
an eruption that lasted for four months.

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Lava flowed underground and tore through the
surface of the earth. These eruptions spewed

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lava at up to twenty six thousand
gallons per second. Dangerous levels of sulfur

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dioxide filled the air, and several
earthquakes were recorded, some registering as high

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as six point nine on the Richter
scale. When it was all over,

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seven hundred and sixteen homes were destroyed
and approximately three thousand residents were displaced.

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The eruption caused two hundred and thirty
six point five million dollars in damages to

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public infrastructure, twenty seven point nine
million in farm losses, and four hundred

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and fifteen million dollars in tourism revenue
losses. This eruption was considered a level

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one eruption on the Volcanic Exit plusivity
Index, but it goes to show that

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even a small volcano can cause a
lot of damage. Plinian eruptions shoot eruptive

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columns of lava that travel up to
fifty five kilometers into the atmosphere. Magma

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and volcanic gas are a part of
these eruptions, and the volcano shoots out

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volcanic glass and boulders. Plinian eruptions
were named after Pliny the Elder, who

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documented the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in
seventy nine AD. This eruption destroyed Pompeii

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and Herculaneum, wiping out everything in
its path and killing sixteen thousand people along

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the way. This eruption was considered
a five magnitude on the Volcanic explosive Index.

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Supervolcanoes can spume more than one thousand
kars cubic kilometers of material into the

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atmosphere before an eruption. Magma collects
in a chamber below the surface and pressure

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builds until the magma eventually ruptures the
Earth's crust. A caldera is created when

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the magma leaves the chamber during the
eruption, the overlying rock becomes less supported

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and the ground collapses. Supereruptions produce
calderas that can be more than thirty miles

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wide. Supereruptions with a magnitude of
eight on the Volcanic Explosivity Index are extremely

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rare, the most recent being New
Zealand's top Of volcano twenty six thousand years

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ago. We're going to take a
break to hear from our sponsors. Then

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we'll be right back to talk about
Yellowstone. Let's take a minute to look

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at Yellowstone. Yellowstone National Parks sits
in a caldera that measures forty by thirty

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five miles in size. It has
super erupted three times in recent history,

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well recent by the standards of the
planet anyway. The largest of these occurred

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about two point one million years ago. At that time, the volcano released

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about five hundred and eighty eight cubic
miles of material. So what does that

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mean exactly? If Yellowstone were to
produce another supereruption, the states of Wyoming,

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Montana, and Idaho would take direct
hits. The lava flows would travel

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about one hundred and eighty six miles
per hour and travel distances of over sixty

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two miles. Volcanic ash, pummice, gases, and rocks would cover those

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three states. Nothing would be left
alive. There would be nowhere to run

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and nowhere to hide. This eruption
would impact the entire continent For five hundred

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miles Beyond the pyroclastic flows, the
land would be covered in volcanic ash so

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thick that nothing would be able to
grow. Now, I just told you

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that this eruption is an extremely rare
occurrence, So why am I even talking

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about it? Well, there's a
rumor that Yellowstone was overdue for an eruption,

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and this peaked my interest in volcanoes. I wanted to know if Yellowstone

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was due to erupt. As it
turns out it is not. There is

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no schedule for supereruptions. They don't
have a timer that ticks down until the

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next colossal explosion. What geologists do
know is that it's probably not going to

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happen anytime soon. In fact,
it won't happen in our lifetimes. The

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last time that Yellowstone erupted was six
hundred and thirty thousand years ago, but

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there are no signs that it's going
to erupt again anytime soon. There are

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ways to tell when a volcano is
going to erupt. Geologists look for heat

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anomalies, changes in the amounts of
fumerolic gases, and earthquakes near the volcano.

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These events can be detected with seismographs. Ground deformation can be identified with

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satellites and other surveying equipment. The
small Hawaiian eruptions seem to occur fairly regularly,

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as do Strombolian eruptions, but larger
Plinium eruptions are rare, and even

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less frequent are super eruptions. But
two other supervolcanoes have been showing signs of

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seismic activity. Lung Valley Caldera in
California has been seismically stirring since the eighties,

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a warning sign that the volcano could
erupt. Scientists studying the volcano have

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recently become less concerned about an eruption
since the magma under the Earth has shown

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signs of cooling. Now that doesn't
mean that the volcano won't erupt at all,

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but it does mean that if it
does, it probably won't be a

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supereruption. Now, don't wipe your
brows with relief and tell yourself that another

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crisis was averted, because even small
volcanoes have an impact on the environment.

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The greatest impact on the climate from
volcanic release into the atmosphere comes from the

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conversion of sulfur dioxide to sulfuric acid. When the sulfuric acid condenses, it

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becomes aerosolized. These aerosols reflect the
radiation from the Sun back into space.

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The effect is that the troposphere cools. This in turn cools the Earth temporarily.

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Now many of you are thinking that's
great, we need the Earth to

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cool so the global warming will be
negated, But it doesn't work. Like

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that. When Mount Pinatubo erupted on
June fifteenth, nineteen ninety one, it

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was one of the largest eruptions of
the twentieth century. It shot twenty million

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metric tons of sulfur dioxide into the
stratosphere, reaching an altitude of more than

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twenty miles. This was the largest
sulfur dioxide cloud ever to be observed by

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satellites. At the height of the
impact, it cooled the Earth by roughly

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one point three degrees fahrenheit, but
the cooling period only lasted for about three

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years. Then the temperature of the
Earth began to rise again. Another thing

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to consider is that the sulphuric acid
released by volcanoes can deplete the ozone layer.

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This is the concentration of ozone that
surrounds the Earth and absorbs ultraviolet B

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radiation that's given off by the Sun. Without the ozone layer, we would

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just burn to a crisp. And
let's not forget that volcanoes emit co two

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into the atmosphere, causing the climate
to warm. It's believed that extreme volcanic

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activity over millions of years caused a
global warming event that changed the Earth so

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severely it caused mass extinction. Science
changes. It has its own evolution,

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and progress can either be at a
snail's pace, or one particular finding can

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make it a landslide of information can't
be Flagray in Naples is currently on the

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list of volcanoes to watch for scientists. Campy Flagray has been going through several

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rupturing sequences, developing across four episodes
of ground uplift. The series started in

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nineteen fifty and ran through nineteen fifty
two. There was another occurrence between nineteen

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sixty nine and nineteen seventy two.
A third occurrence took place from nineteen eighty

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two to nineteen eighty four, and
this episode began in two thousand and four

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and has been ongoing ever since.
Before a long sleeping volcano can erupt,

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the Earth's crust has to rupture to
allow the magma to escape. Generally,

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this occurs through seismic activity, more
specifically earthquakes. Researchers studying the Caldera have

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found that the activity in and around
the volcano has changed the structure of the

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volcano's crust. The last time that
Campi Flegre erupted was in fifteen thirty eight,

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after a resting period of three thousand
years. Intervals before that were as

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short as decades or maybe centuries,
so it is possible that this leaping giant

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is about to awaken. The caldera
has a very interesting structure. It's roughly

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seven to ten miles wide and is
the largest active caldera in Europe. It

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extends west from the outskirts of Naples
to the Tyrannian Sea, and about one

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third of the caldera is partially submerged
beneath the Bay of Pizzuli. The rest

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is home to more than three hundred
and sixty thousand people. At the center

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of the most recent seismic activity,
the ground has risen more than thirteen feet

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in the coastal town of Pazzuos.
This activity has twice triggered the evacuation of

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more than forty thousand residents. The
last uplift has been occurring since two thousand

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and five. In a paper published
on June ninth, twenty twenty three,

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by Christopher R. J. Kilburn
and his team called potential for rupture before

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eruption at Clampflagary Caldera, Southern Italy, these researchers surmise that the uplift behavior

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has been caused by magmatic gas accumulation
about two miles below the surface. This

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is causing a slow rupture in the
crust of the Earth. When the rupture

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is complete, it will give the
magma and gas an avenue of escape and

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possibly trigger volcanic activity in the area. Historically, earthquake activity at volcanic sites

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over long periods of time has triggered
eruptions at those sites because the seismic activity

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weakens the crust, causing fissures.
Think about those poorly fitting puzzle pieces coming

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apart. It's believed that the crust
has been becoming less and less elastic since

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nineteen fifty and the continued seismic activity
is leading to a breakdown of the crust,

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allowing the magma that's trapped underneath to
eventually escape. No one is saying

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that this is going to happen tomorrow
or even next week, but it may

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happen soon, and there's really no
way to tell whether this will be a

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supereruption or a Hawaiian eruption. There's
no way to know when volcanoes are going

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to erupt. The science is getting
better, but it's not there yet and

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we're not even close to knowing the
size or velocity of an eruption, and

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just as earthquakes can trigger volcanic eruptions, volcanic eruptions can trigger earthquakes. Earthquakes

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are caused by movement of the tectonic
plates. These are what we commonly refer

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to as fault lines. Heat and
energy released from the core of the Earth

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can cause the plates to move.
If the tectonic plates move severely enough,

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they can trigger volcanic eruption. On
the other side of the coin, volcanic

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eruptions can trigger earthquakes when the magma
moves through the volcano. Iceland is no

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stranger to volcanic activity, and on
December eighteenth, twenty twenty three, a

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volcano on the rech Jains Peninsula began
erupting. This was a fissure eruption.

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Three events of lava began pushing through
a crack in the earth that was about

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two miles long. This was a
very small, short eruption, so the

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details are pretty straightforward. Residents of
Grindevec, which lies two miles from the

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eruption, were evacuated earlier in the
year as the eruption was predicted to happen

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any time. Iceland's Civil Protection Agency
said that the magma tunnel formed by the

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volcano could reach Grindevec, but they
were unsure where the magma might break through

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because Grindevec had been evacuated. The
eruption didn't pose a threat to life,

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but gas pollution was a concern for
populated areas as far away as the capital

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Reyquavec. During the eruption, the
Meteorological Office recorded more than three hundred earthquakes

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over the magma channels. This was
the fourth eruption in the area since twenty

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twenty one, and the largest one
to date. The following day, the

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eruption had slowed and it appeared that
there was no structural damage. Iceland sits

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on a tectonic plate boundary that constantly
splits apart. This activity pushes North America

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farther from Eurasia along the line of
the mid Atlantic Ridge. This area is

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home to more than thirty two active
volcanoes. Iceland experiences several volcanic eruptions every

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year, but most of them happen
in wilderness areas far away from human settlements.

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About forty five volcanoes have continuing eruptions, and about eighty erupt every year.

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Most of these are small eruptions that
can be dangerous, but aren't threatening

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unless people are caught in the eruption. This has been a rather anti climatic

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episode. I don't have a doom
and gloom for you. Yes, volcanoes

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are dangerous, but most of them
are rather small, and most recently they've

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been fairly easy to predict. There
is no way of knowing exactly when the

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next super eruption will be, but
it's unlikely that'll happen in our lifetimes.

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There has not been an uptick in
volcanic activity due to global warming over the

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last several decades, so that's not
super exciting. I don't have much else

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for you on this one. It
was suggested by a longtime listener who was

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concerned about Yellowstone, and to tell
you the truth, I was a little

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concerned about it too. I'd been
hearing that it was overdue for a major

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eruption for years, but when that
turned out to be a false lead,

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I started looking at other things that
could affect volcanic activity, and I came

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up with nothing on all of them. So good news. We don't have

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to worry about volcanoes in twenty twenty
four, but I'll still end with something

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00:26:56.519 --> 00:27:04.039
scary. So here we go.
It's ninety seconds to midnight, and if

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any of the super volcanoes does decide
to erupt, it would cause a global

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catastrophe through a mass extinction event.
Over the past five million years, all

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five of the largest mass extinctions have
coincided with massive lava eruptions. Could it

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00:27:26.960 --> 00:27:33.640
happen during our lifetime. It's pretty
unlikely, But while geologists can predict an

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eruption with some accuracy, no one
knows how big that eruption will be.

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Thank you all for listening to Cause
of Death one hundred seconds to midnight.

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00:27:45.799 --> 00:27:52.039
Happy New Year everyone. I wanted
to thank everyone who voted in the poll

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00:27:52.200 --> 00:27:56.599
for adding a few humorous episodes here
and there. If you've listened to the

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00:27:56.640 --> 00:28:03.000
Halloween episode on Demons and Disease or
the Christmas episode on Norad, you know

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00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:07.559
what I'm talking about. I appreciate
that everyone who voted said that they would

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00:28:07.599 --> 00:28:11.359
like a little humor mixed in,
but many of you said it was okay

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00:28:11.400 --> 00:28:15.680
as long as I didn't overdo it. This will never be a comedy podcast

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00:28:17.599 --> 00:28:22.240
in most episodes, I interject a
bit of dry humor, but the podcast

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is intended as a learning experience,
even for me. There are things that

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I talk about that I know,
like certain diseases and their propensity to cause

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00:28:30.319 --> 00:28:36.680
pandemics. But there are things that
I know nothing about, like volcanoes and

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00:28:36.720 --> 00:28:41.960
their chances of eruption. That's what
keeps the podcast going. I learn right

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00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:48.039
along with all of you, especially
in the hundred Seconds to Midnight episodes.

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00:28:49.160 --> 00:28:53.400
That being said, this is a
very hard podcast to do. There's a

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00:28:53.440 --> 00:28:59.920
lot of research, writing, verifying, then more writing, all about subjects

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00:29:00.079 --> 00:29:04.880
that can be terribly depressing. Most
of these episodes don't have happy endings.

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00:29:07.400 --> 00:29:11.759
I'm hoping that by injecting a little
humor, maybe as a bonus episode or

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00:29:11.880 --> 00:29:15.559
during some holiday, it will help
me push through some of the more depressing

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00:29:15.680 --> 00:29:22.319
subjects that are on my list to
talk about. With that, I'll give

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00:29:22.359 --> 00:29:26.119
you the list of episodes for the
rest of this season. Countdown is Counting

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00:29:26.200 --> 00:29:30.680
Down. I was only going to
do one more episode in this season on

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00:29:30.839 --> 00:29:37.279
bees in the environment, but I'm
adding another one. The last episode will

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00:29:37.279 --> 00:29:41.279
be on nuclear arms. After all, we can't talk about the atomic clock

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00:29:41.359 --> 00:29:45.680
ticking down without talking about the one
reason that the clock was created in the

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first place. The next season will
be on parasitic diseases. Season eight is

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00:29:52.079 --> 00:30:00.319
called Creepy Crawley's and It'll make you
think twice about eating raw sushi. If

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00:30:00.319 --> 00:30:03.200
you love the show, please take
a moment to rate, subscribe, and

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00:30:03.319 --> 00:30:08.119
review and share these episodes. Reviews
really do help the show grow. Of

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00:30:08.200 --> 00:30:12.079
course, getting your friends hooked on
Cause of Death one hundred sex is the

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00:30:12.119 --> 00:30:18.559
best way to ensure that I'll be
around for a long time. If you'd

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00:30:18.599 --> 00:30:22.000
like to get ad free episodes,
please check out my Patreon page or subscribe

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00:30:22.039 --> 00:30:26.880
on Apple subscriptions. The link to
my Patreon page is in the show notes.

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00:30:29.039 --> 00:30:32.359
The show notes are also full of
all the information that I read through

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00:30:32.400 --> 00:30:37.559
to find out if we were going
to experience an apocalyptic volcanic event. It's

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00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:41.319
pretty interesting reading. Go check them
out. If you'd like to get a

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00:30:41.319 --> 00:30:45.319
hold of me, you can email
me at Jackie at Cause of Death one

296
00:30:45.440 --> 00:30:52.359
hundred sex dot net or leave a
message on my website at www. Cause

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00:30:52.400 --> 00:30:59.079
of Death one hundredsex dot net.
Next time, I'll talk about bees and

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00:30:59.119 --> 00:31:04.480
what would happen if they ceased to
exist until then don't go near any erupting volcanoes.