The Big One: When Will the Yellowstone Supervolcano Erupt?
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - 14:30
in Earth & Climate
It's no mere doomsday pseudoscience: The Yellowstone supervolcano really could be the end of us all. When the Yellowstone Caldera — the name of the national park's geographic structure, which roughly translates as "caldron" — blows its lid, much of the continental United States will get covered in a blanket of ash. That ash will clog the atmosphere enough to block out the sun, disrupting the global climate enough to cause mass extinctions.