There’s no danger of Yellowstone blowing its lid just yet, despite the ominous earthquakes that have rocked the national park and geophysical maps showing Yellowstone’s shape is shifting. Don’t worry, even if Yellowstone were to erupt it wouldn’t be a full explosion-type eruption, only slow moving lava.
So for now, we’re quite safe. The future? Potentially not.
The giant ‘supervolcano” has the potential to “super erupt” causing massive damage setting off a chain reaction. The eruption will damage agriculture triggering economic collapse killing thousands maybe millions of people from starvation in the process.
Image: Yellowstone from above
This prediction has worried NASA, so much so, they’ve come up with a plan to avoid a volcanic future. They want to drill into the magma chamber to cool the volcano down.
A study by the Space Agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed that Yellowstone’s threat of eruption is more of a danger to Earth than an asteroid hitting the earth. No one is certain when the supervolcano may erupt, so NASA is preparing for the worst now.
Yellowstone is only a threat if its magma is eruptible. If the magma is solid, there isn’t an immediate danger. If the magma is significantly molten, then there’s potential for eruption. NASA’s plan to eradicate the danger is drilling into the magma chambers to release heat, chilling the molten and avoiding potential eruption.
The drill will not touch the magma, as that would cause massive depressurization and could even set Yellowstone off. It’ll sit above the magma, ten km deep in the hydrothermal fluids.
These fluids rob the magma of their heat. By adding water to the fluids, NASA will cool down the volcano's heat significantly.
It’s a fairly expensive undertaking, but the benefits would be many, apart from saving the world, the excess heat from the volcano could be used in America’s power grid.
The project will take thousands of years to see results, and by that time the initial project leaders will be dead.