For the Crater Good

Italian supervolcano could help predict next catastrophe

The discovery of an ancient ‘supervolcano’ will help scientists predict the next catastrophic explosion to shake the world.

Last week, a team of geologists located a 280 million year old ‘supervolcano’ in the Sesia Valley, north west Italy.

By being able to look much deeper into a supervolcano’s crater, scientists claim this discovery will enable them to forecast when the next supervolcanic blast will occur.

James E. Quick, geologist at Southern Methodist University, Texas, who led the expedition said: “There will be another supervolcano explosion. We don’t know where [but] Sesia Valley help us predict the next event.”

Scientists are able to test rocks 15 miles deep inside the volcano’s ‘plumbing’ after a collision between Europe and Africa 30 million years ago turned this extinct volcano on its edge. Previously, scientists have only been able to see up to three miles into a caldera – a supervolcano’s scientific name.

This new perspective could establish an understanding of a supervolcano’s seismic patterns helping scientists reduce the fatal consequences of the next eruption.

“We want to better understand the tell-tale signs that a caldera is advancing to eruption so that we can improve warnings and avoid false alerts,” Quick said.
                                       
Eclipsing Etna or Krakatoa in size, magnitude and force, supervolcanoes produce the earth’s most violent eruptions. In addition to killing thousands with its lava rivers, raining burning rocks and acid showers, these explosions are likely to last for weeks, eject thousands of cubic miles of materials into the atmosphere, and cause extreme consequences beyond a considerable death toll.

Scientists believe that Sesia’s caldera could have caused an eruption so severe it blocked out the sun, resulting in a period of global cooling.

The environmental and climatic effects of another supervolcano could even potentially alter the earth’s properties that facilitate human survival, killing millions more than the initial explosion.
Ray Cas, a volcanologist with Monash University, Melbourne said, “These supervolcanoes are potentially the greatest hazard on Earth.”

There are seven other supervolcanoes in the world, including the active Yellowstone Park in California, which last erupted 640,000 years ago. The largest supervolcanic explosion was 74,000-year-old Lake Toba in Indonesia. Its crater stretches 56 miles in diameter and is believed to have killed off 60 per cent of the world’s population.

It is thought that supervolcanoes have an eruptive cycle of 2,000 years. The most recent eruption occurred in New Zealand two millennia ago, making another supervolcanic explosion an overdue concern.

“A supervolcano will definitely erupt,” Cas said. “It could be in a few, 50 or another 1000 years but sooner or later one is going to go off.”

Quick hopes this discovery will reduce the effect of another eruption. The consequences would, otherwise, be apocalyptic.