A Surprise From the Supervolcano Under Yellowstone

AP Biology

Olivia Scotti

Mr. Ippolito

11 October, 2017

"A Suprise From the Supervolcano Under Yellowstone"

By Shannon Hall

Hall, Shannon. “A Surprise From the Supervolcano Under Yellowstone.” The New York Times,

The New York Times, 10 Oct. 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/science/yellowstone-volcano-eruption.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

The article I reviewed was “A Surprise From the Supervolcano Under Yellowstone” by Shannon Hall. The article mainly discussed the large volcano that lies below Yellowstone. In the article, Hall discusses how an eruption from Yellowstone could unleash “ 1,000 cubic kilometers of rock and ash at once” which would be 2,500 times bigger than when Mount St. Helen erupted. She then discusses how an event like this could cover most of the United States with ash. She continues the article by discussing how the eruption occurred when new magma moved into the system decades before. To understand why this is occurring the article added a description of research done by Hannah Shamloo a graduate student at Arizona State. After examining crystals from the last eruption she found that “ the outer rims of the crystals revealed a clear uptick in temperature and a change in composition that occurred on a rapid time scale.” From this, they learned that the past super eruption could have only occurred decades after fresh magma was injected beneath the volcano. The article then adds Kari Cooper, a geochemist, insights on supervolcanos. Cooper believes that “It’s one thing to think about this slow gradual buildup — it’s another thing to think about how you mobilize 1,000 cubic kilometers of magma in a decade.” Mainly Cooper is suggesting how difficult it is for geologists to pinpoint the exact time frames of these super-eruptions.

Although we do not know much about these supervolcanoes the research done to examine these eruptions because of the drastic effect they could have on society. As we have seen with, Mount St. Helen, eruptions can be very devastating and cause lots of destruction and death. The author discovered that if Yellowstone were to erupt then it “ could blanket most of the United States in a thick layer of ash and even plunge the Earth into a volcanic winter”. This would be very unfortunate because not only would be people be affected by the ash but there could be a shortage in our food supply because the crops would be ruined by the ash. Although these volcanoes do not erupt very often it is important we research the effects because of the drastic results these eruptions could have. Also, Yellowstone is a popular tourist spot so it's important we continue to research when this super eruption will occur because the people in the park could all be killed. Volcanoes are something we don't usually need to worry about but it's valuable to behave scientists research these eruptions to help plan for them and prevent them.

Overall, I thought this article was very well written. There were many things done well in the article. For instance, the author was able to add many sources on geologists who have studied supervolcanoes that helped the readers see different perspectives on this topic. Another thing that was done well in this article was the author's ability to describe the research and all the steps that were done to learn about the timescale of supervolcanoes. Although there were many positives about this article there were things that could be improved. One thing that was done poorly was the lack of detail on the future of the research. Another thing done poorly was a description of how these eruptions occur. Although there were negatives about the article she could have improved it by adding more details about the eruption and descriptions on plans for a future. Overall this article did have room for improvement but was written well.