Yellowstone Burst Could Hit 1 Billion Early Deaths, Say Scholars

Every few years, scientists come up with a worst-case scenario for a Yellowstone National Park mega volcano eruption, and it seems like the picture painted gets bleaker as the years go by.

Yellowstone Park is one of America's great mysteries. Lying beneath the territory that expands into Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, lies a supervolcano not visible to tourists and park visitors. It's no secret that if an eruption happens within the park, you'll want to be as far away from it as you possibly can be.

I've visited the park a handful of times in the past 20 years. Each time I've walked around the bubbling, acid-spitting thermal pools and felt the heat from the waters blow over my body in the breeze, I've never once thought about an eruption.

Researchers Estimate Over 1 Billion Premature Deaths Could Result From A Yellowstone Mega Volcano Eruption

Seismic activity  Credit: YouTube

The totality of a full-scale volcanic eruption inside Yellowstone National Park wouldn't be felt immediately in most states in the U.S.; it would take weeks and months. The ground inside the park has been swelling annually for the past several years. The last catastrophic eruption of the park's supervolcano took place over 70,000 years ago, according to USGS.

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One of the latest predictions to come to fruition from those who research such catastrophic natural disasters as a supervolcano bursting its top is a possible premature casualty tally totaling close to a billion humans.

The minds at the New York Post have factored in the likely total shutdown of western government health departments and hospitals, a regional collapse of infrastructure, transit, trade, travel, and other casualties of such an event, not to mention how America's food supply would be affected months after the eruption by a lack of sunlight and total crop destruction from millions of pounds of fallen ash, rock, and other debris.

The United States wouldn't be the only country to suffer repercussions if Yellowstone were to experience a supervolcano eruption.