The Wheeler Monument, Colorado, USA, is a classic example of volcanic deposits formed by a super eruption. (Picture: Dave Minkel, flickr. com CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
ETH researchers show that magma chambers under supervolcanoes are more like soggy sponges than reservoirs of molten rock. Before a volcano of this kind erupts, such mush must slowly be reactivated by heat input following deep magma recharge ultimately derived from the Earth's mantle. Supervolcanoes are superlative in every respect. The eruption of the Toba caldera in modern-day Indonesia approximately 74,000 years ago was so powerful that it led to a period of global cooling and, possibly, a drastic fall in the population of humankind. Around 2.1 million years ago, the first of three eruptions of the Yellowstone supervolcano in the USA formed a crater with an area of 50 x 80 kilometres. Approximately 2,800 cubic kilometres of material were ejected in the process - around 10 to 20 times as much as in the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. Even this relatively small eruption, considered the largest in recent times, produced effects that could be felt around the world.
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