Supervolcanoes

Supervolcanoes or mega volcanoes produce monstrous explosions, far larger than Mt. St. Helens or Mt. Vesuvius or even Krakatau.Geologists have developed a scale to describe the size of a volcanic explosion; this is called the Volcanic Explosivity Index ( VEI).The index ranges from zero to 8.

The table is taken from National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution

Table 1.1: A table of VEI
VEI Volume(km3) Example
0 Very Small Masaya (Nicuargua),1570
1 >0.00001 Poas (Costa Rica),1991
2 >0.001 Ruapehu (New Zealand),1971
3 >0.01 Nevado del Ruiz( Columbia), 1985
4 >0. 1 Pelee (West Indies), 1902
5 >1 Mount St. Helens(U.S.), 1980
6 >10 Krakatau( Indonesia) 1883
7 >100 Tambora( Indonesia) ,1815
8 >1000 Toba (Sumatra) 73,500 years ago

There have been many mega volcanoes during earth's history, but none during historical times. Some of the of the largest have occurred at Yellowstone in Wyoming,USA. There hasn’t been a monster explosion here for at least 600,000 years, but there is plenty of seismic and volcanic activity. In 1959 there was a powerful earthquake (7.8 on the Richter scale) a little west of the park. There followed landslides and abnormal behavior in geysers within the park.

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