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There's Something MUCH Bigger Than Yellowstone. And It Will Happen Again.
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- Published on Feb 16, 2026
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Yellowstone was massive. Roughly a thousand times larger than the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the biggest eruption in the history of the continental United States. And if Yellowstone erupted again, the consequences for the U.S. and the world would be devastating. But there’s something far bigger than Yellowstone. Something so powerful it’s been linked to nearly every mass extinction in Earth’s history. And astonishingly, most people have never heard of it.
In this episode of Weathered, we explore the true giants of Earth’s volcanic past: the Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs). These vast flood basalt events dwarf supervolcanoes, pouring out millions of cubic kilometers of lava, filling entire regions thousands of feet thick, and unleashing pulses of greenhouse gases that have repeatedly driven abrupt climate change and global die-offs.
Along the way, we investigate what a modern Yellowstone eruption would actually look like, how ash, cooling, and atmospheric disruption would cascade across the world, and what ancient climate catastrophes can teach us about the rapid warming we’re causing now.
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Lol people forget we are living on a lava ball with a cooled off crust floating in space
🍄
You severely overestimate how intelligent or informed the average person is.
@mindoftheoldone1743 yeah. sometimes I don't understand how 1/2 the population knows how to tie their damn shoes when listening to the bullshiet spewing outta them.
Yeah, people don't think about it because it's too terrifying to imagine.
@Meatsweats_o_O I'm surprised they have enough neural function to breathe while walking.
Pinatubo erupted when I was a kid. The ash? It's not soft----it's abrasive and coarse, like you mixed gravel and crushed glass. A typhoon hit at the same time and the ash came down over Luzon like someone sprayed wet cement from the sky. If it falls on your windshield, your wiper is useless---it just scratches your glass into uselessness. It turned the sky completely black in the afternoon. To this day the ash filled river basin is basically a desert.
Glad you survived. I was in Portland Oregon when Mt. Saint Helens blew. Ash was everywhere, but more like fine sand and dust. Nothing like what you describe. I remember news film of the Pinatubo eruption and feeling sad and scared for the people trying to escape. There’s a famous shot of that little girl holding a large bowl or pan over her head. Broke my heart.
I can’t imagine how much the animals suffered.
Omg. I'm so sorry, thank you for sharing!
But you're talking about one of Earth's pimples, a tiny event.
Wow
I live near St. Helens. When I first moved here I was told that no one went anywhere for a week because there was 6 inches of ash everywhere. The trees looked like they were covered in cement and it was only because enough rain came to keep the ash from stirring back up after the week was over that life somehow started back up again. I’ve been up to the park and there are signs everywhere telling about the event and it’s astonishing how bare the land still is up there.
Fascinating ! My sis owned an old house in Scappoose, near Portland Or & I was amazed at the damage that was done to the foundation that far away frm Mt St Helen.
There was far more than six inches of volcanic ash near St. Helen's.
Nice to know thank you for sharing 😢
We have that ash in our lungs.
And when Rainier erupts, people will WISH it was like St Helens! Millions of people will die in minutes as the mudflows completely bury the entire Rainier valley.
I’m so happy that you guys are doing more videos despite the defunding
It will be hard to keep truth, education, and freedom down with a wannabe Authoritarian in office. We've donated and I suggest you do the same, if you can afford it.
@ryanreedgibson Democrats and republicans are authoritarians at the end of the day. Capitalism at its finest
@axelven8080 This isn't really the place for this debate, but this is inaccurate and deserves to be called out. Democrats are endlessly disappointing (see: the shutdown) but they are not authoritarian. They want standards, norms, and global cooperation, unfortunately for corporate stability and not human interest, but they are not actively undermining democracy. They are passively making your life worse. Republicans meanwhile are the party of oligarchs and authoritarian impulses. They are actively making your life worth. It is reductive to fall into "both sides bad" thinking, because it ignores how genuinely awful one of the two sides is.
It's worse, they are getting replaced by PragerU, the pro slavery guys who are trying to indoctrinate kids. Twisting reality for political agendas of Republican billionaires.
@axelven8080 Democrats never tried to make cannabis illegal again. It didn't even take a year of power for republicans to make it illegal so they can go raid all the state legal shops for their cash.
Everyone who voted republican voted for every bad thing happens under trump. It was all easily preventable by voting against all republicans at all levels of government.
My husband and I were fishing north of Yellowstone when Mount St Helens went off. The ash was so bad over there from Mount St Helens it was stopping up car filters
The dust from it was on my windshield on the front range of Colorado for three days in a row.
I was 7 years old when that happened, and on vacation with my grandparents to Seattle. Still remember all of the ash on our car.
Ok you can never go fishing by Mount St. Helens we can’t risk it… 😅🤞
And yet north of MSH, Seattle didn't get a speck of ash.
@just_kos99The tariffs made them prohibitively expensive.
I was at the eruption of Mt.St.Helens. It was a scary event. Darkness at 9:00 am, the pyroclastic flow was deadly. I will never forget it.
One of the bright spots of 2025 for me has been PBS's ongoing ability to put out outstanding, educational science videos, particularly on PBS Terra and PBS Eons. If anyone at PBS happens to read this comment, please know that I am profoundly grateful for everything you have taught me and for your commitment to science and truth-telling.
Couldn't agree more. Defunding hasn't slowed PBS down, plus all of the donations show how much people love PBS.
Most propaganda
@zurcsamje4463How is it propaganda?
One of th bright spots was funding being cut for PBS. Leave it to them to insist that global warming is absolutely caused by man.
@jlozano281See my post above.
I live downwind of Altadena CA. The other day I was getting something out of my backyard shed, and on top of my sleeping bag was some ash from the January fires. I was like "Oh yeah. That actually happened". It was less than a year ago, but I'd already nearly forgotten about it. I say this to make the point that we humans have a very human attention span for actual disaster awareness, let alone abstract extinction threats that might happen twenty generations in the future.
My wife and I used to walk the Eaton Canyon trail often. We live downwind from Altadena as well, about a mile from Figueroa and Colorado Blvd, in the foothills where Eagle Rock and Highland Park meet. The whistle and roar of the gusting winds the night of January 7th was terrifying, and then the thick smoke started enveloping us at around midnight. I haven’t forgotten and I never will.
We had ash in Austin from Mt Saint Helen's.
why even worry about something you have no control over?
we were just in LA the week before Christmas staying in Monterey Park, it was so surreal seeing everything on fire
@danielzhang1916 Even more surreal having your neighbor come & knock on your door and say "Hey, they're saying we might have to evacuate" when you'd heard nothing about it because the power had been off all day and there was no wifi, tv or anything. At first it was a replay of the Kinneloa fire that burnt out my uncle in the Pasadena Glen back in '93, w/ the winds blowing the fire east; then around midnight or so the wind shifted to the west, and that was that; got the truck loaded w/ what I could and evac'd. around 4am.
It's so strange driving through the area, now, all these burnt out lots, and then here & there in the middle of the block, a house completely unscathed by the fire.
Immediate aftermath, there needed to be a big arch over the road as you drove into the area saying "Welcome to Mordor," but nobody had any humour left to do it...
I was living in Portland during the Mt St Helens event; my boyfriend scooped me up, we grabbed some sandwiches and we headed for Rocky Butte which is one of the highest points in the PDX Metro area where we watched St Helens erupt for a full 8 hours. It was ASTONISHING! … I credit that eruption for me becoming a CERT Emergency Responder … it made a believer out of me!
Pics or it didn't happen..
That’s cool, thanks for sharing
@nowandrew4442 This was 30 years ago though.
Thank you for your dedication!
@Key_4002it did erupt 20 years later to the day, but nothing like the first one. I was in Portland outside when it erupted the second time and it was super cool
In Yakima Washington when St Helens blew it street lights where on at noon . I was there and it was dark
I don't remember it, because I was very young, but we had ash raining down in Calgary from Mt. St. Helens.
I was a Hotel Chef in Spokane during the eruption. We had over 300 women bowlers in the Hotel from Yakima. Eruption happened on Sunday and the ladies were stuck in our Hotel for 5 days.
I prepared low cost specials for them as they were running low on funds. We had friendly card games for them in the Lounge.
When they could finally leave I hosed off their vehicles with a Hotel fire hose.
With no Internet or Cell phones we did not hear of the Eruption until 3:40 when the ash began to fall.
You could still see ash on the sides of Interstate 90 for decades.
Fantastic women in Yakima.
Boy Scout Jamboree, east of Enumclaw, Wa when St. Helen's blew.
That was an interesting day. We packed up quick and drove back in ash, that was like a fog.
My grandfather was living in Yakima. Seeing the pictures of ash piled up in parking lots over there, like massive snow piles was rather amazing.
I recall when it blew again that summer. I had my 110 camera and took a photo of it, looking south from Kent, Wa. It was impressive!
I was near Cashmere. I remember.
Me to in southern Oregon
Thanks for another great video. As always the Weathered team does a fantastic job presenting the facts, while still keeping the tone hopeful. We need more climate journalism that focuses on what we CAN do and the power we still have, instead of getting stuck in all the doom and gloom!
Great to see that the Siberian Traps were mentioned. The Lena Pillars on the Lena River are a remnant of these pyroclastic flows that lasted, if I remember correctly, 4 million years of hightened volcanic activity.
If Yellowstone goes tomorrow or 800 million tomorrows from now, it will do what it's going to do. I am not going to change my routine or even worry if I am in the blast radius - if it goes, I would much rather be the first to go than the last. I live most of my year on a ranch that borders Yellowstone for many miles. We are blessed to experience the same stunning views and wildlife without the lines to see a moose. I have learned not to worry about the things that I have no control over. Yellowstone volcano is something that none of us can control. I can control my greenhouse emissions, I can control how much waste I produce that ends up in a landfill, how much I recycle, or how I leave our land for the next generation and the animals we share our ranch with. So those are the things that I focus on because they are things I alone can affect.
0/10 comment, not enough ranting and name calling and arguing over obscure stellar cycles. Just joking, I didn't think level headed people existed anymore, you're doing it right.
You are way too smart😉😉
if you are in the blast radius you can wear a bacon made suit and survive, i was told by a dude on internet.
But isn’t learning factual information one of the greatest things about life?
I wouldn’t stick my head too deep in the sand
The reality is it’s incredibly unlikely to have a supervolcano erupt without many months to years with signs indicating increased activity. As long as you get far away when that time comes it’s unlikely you’ll die as a direct result of the eruption. The follow on effects and how humanity responds to the planet scale climate changes is a different story. The best estimate is Yellowstone will not be erupting anytime within next 100 years and is likely to not occur on again for hundreds of thousands of years.
Not only are we heading to a mass extinction event, we're already in one. The number of species who have already gone extinct makes that quite clear.
😢
They spray the skies incessantly with poisons. They spray the crops, cities, yards, with poisons, noone knows how many trillions of tons of plastic are dumped in the oceans rivers city storm drains. Everything IS dying (species wise.). From poisons.
Humanity IS an extinction event. I wouldn't blame the planet for wiping us out.
1/3 of humanity will die in the coming years durong the great tribulation
Mother is awake and scratching at her fleas...
Science, reporting on good science, believing and acting accordingly is how we save ourselves and our beautiful, amazing planet. I am grateful for programs like yours. Thank you
Fun Fact: it is physically impossible for yellowstone to erupt right now, the percentage of melt in it's magma chamber is way too low, and it would likely take thousands of years for that to change.
And not only that - the hotspot is not in exactly the same place as it was when it last erupted. The tectonic plate carrying most of the country is still moving, with the result that when the hotspot next erupts, it will be to the northeast of the present-day Yellowstone caldera. Also the composition of the continental crust and its thickness influences the nature of eruptions. To the northeast of Yellowstone are high mountains, and the crust there is pretty thick. It would take longer for the hotspot to melt through the crust there. The models of the effects of a Yellowstone super-eruption always seem to assume that the volcano will erupt in the same place as it did 700,000 years ago (and they also seem to assume that the fallout would spread evenly, ignoring the high mountains all around and the prevailing weather and wind patterns). The next eruption of the hotspot will not be anything like the last one. And humans will likely not exist by then.
@Pipsqwak Extinct or morphed into another species?
Former Yellowstone Park Ranger here:
You are correct!
Also if an eruption occurs it will most likely be smaller and result in a lava flow at Norris Geyser Basin. That’s straight from the mouth of former Head Geologist, Hank Hessler.
Damn. I was waiting for that.
@infinitemonkey917
Evolve into crab...
Crab people. Tastes like crab. Talk like people.
Alexas models at 3:45 didnt take into account of the jet stream. Its the reason why the ash from all the other eruptions have never been found in the pacific northwest.
I’ve always wondered about the overlap of Yellowstone, Mount saying Helens/ Mount Baker and The Big One: it feels like they should have lots of overlapping (I also understand the geological time scale is massive… but it still feels like they are group threat)
I love how these videos end. "here's what all the scientists who have dedicated their lives to this think will happen, but what do you rando watching this video think will happen?" I know it is for engagement, but there is a comedic irony to it
Internet randos giving their opinions is why all the disinformation is thriving
The earth is flat and all the lava will flow over the edge. Nothing to worry about.
@Socrates-Irofl!!!! So well played my friend 👏
A teacher might ask students what they think would happen to get them to think and discuss. That’s another way to look at it. And engagement is a bonus.
@RaidenMK67 lots of bots out there.
Love to see a segment on regenerative agriculture
Corporate greed is killing us all!
My dad was part of the first scientific research team to extract and study deep core samples in the arctic. He spent decades working on climate research projects, and told me back in the early eighties of the runaway tipping point… which we have already surpassed by now.
Yup and my father did his PhD by computer - modeling climate models. Told me exactly the same thing when I was a toddler. Because that's the kind of thing toddlers can understand before they get indoctrinated with the religious faith that market capitalism can do no wrong. Back then it wasn't politicized yet.
I compare and contrast the world I came into 60 odd years ago with the one that exists now. I conclude we are in deep doo doo and anyone who cannot see that is blind, brainwashed, not very intelligent, or willfully blind.
Hopefully he was as wrong as that guy who estimated we would run out of food and space to live back in the 70s. But if not, /shrug. It was fun while it lasted (for some).
Why is the Antarctic growing by millions of metric tons? If we at the tipping point why is the earth healing? Are you God?
Yep, and all you need to do is answer this question: what were winters like back in the 1970s where you grew up, and what are they like there now?
Because it's not the same, anywhere. Hell, even 15 years ago, I used to go cross country skiing at this place to the northwest of me. The place hasn't been open once this decade. And you can find examples like that worldwide. Oh but let's just pick _one_ place where the change is "in the other direction" and fixate on that while claiming that everything happening everywhere else on the planet is just a mirage…
We are already in the early stages of a mass extinction event. It's not in the future, it's now
This program is the type of program I enjoy - educational & intelligent, but I would like to see longer more thorough coverage. Thank you
I'm not specifically a weather fan but I subbed for two reasons. #1) I love PBS and keep on keeping on but #2) This topic is of particular interest to me. Understanding what causes weather due to conditions on the ground is of particular fascination. Keep up the good content and the host was excellent at presenting it as well. Thank you, all involved.
Headed? I thought we were already IN a mass extinction.
Yep! Over the last 35,000 years we've lost MOST Mega-Fauna, and a Cretaceous Extinction amount of species.
We are the last man standing.
Me too
@DazieArt That isn't what people are talking about ...
The context is different. In this video they are referring to attributable extinctions for this potential volcanic event
Human-caused extinction is attributable to humans not Yellowstone but neither are insignificant
Thanks for the explanation. I do believe there may be things we can do to reduce and offset emissions. We are smart enough to figure it out
In 2010 I wsa living on the coast of South East England, about 70 miles from London, looking out to France. We often have morning dews and I use a rubber bladed device to dry the glass before starting my commute to work. Come one spring morning I wasn't aware until too late, the falling ash from the ongoing Icelandic volcanic eruption had covered my car, my actions caused many fine scratches that could not be removed. Now, if a small eruption causes such at this kind of distance I hate to think what a larger eruption will do.
Thanks Maiya and team for this great video....
Had family members flying into Portland as Mt St Helen started erupting. They were safe but it was scary. Air space was then closed for a while.
Ash from the eruption blanketed cities in the east. Chicago. Cleveland & more. It "rained" ashes & created "cloud" cover that blocked out the sun just as rain clocks do.
Natural catastrophies that happen in one part of the country or world impact other areas. The big forest fires in Canada 2 yrs ago made the skies over Ohio a dirty yellow for weeks.
Love PBS' "Weathered"! So thorough & always interesting. Love that episodes are available on RUclips too.
There's a good argument to be made that we are already in a mass extinction.
thanks to redpublicans
why's that
@manifestationnationbwahahaha. The leftist mind is a scarier place than Yellowstone
@manifestationnation Blame the oil companies, who paid politicians to ignore the issue or avoid any meaningful changes. Then blame capitalism which motivates the companies to prioritize their own profits over what’s good for the public.
@trevinbeattie4888 stupid people are the real problem, aka repubs. Sorry you're just finding this out now.
We could slow it down, but unless doing so somehow makes someone money, we won't.
dang I just depressed myself
No worries. Earth can do very well without us.
Of course instead of someone to make that happen, we get the guy that bankrupted his casino, and is still proud of the tax deduction he got for it.
The impact we have if infinitesimal. There's a shift and we're not a major part of that happening. You can rabblerouse all you want but it's not going to matter what we do ultimately. Look into the magnetic shift that's overdue and you will realize this. The climate movement is a political tool to get certain people rich eating off the feelings of people who think they're accomplishing something.
@wufwugyy You are an utter fool, climate change is 100% human caused
@wufwugyy The magnetic shift hey? When is it happening? You sound like you have a firm date. Usually when someone starts pulling out the climate change is a scam line, its pretty much a guarantee of a climate denier/pro fossil fuel influencer or just some weirdo troll who is full of it.
I love all these videos. Thank you PBS Terra!
One need only look at the insects and the corals to know we are already in a mass extinction.
That is objectively untrue. We are certainly in an extinction event, but mass extinction events necessarily take place over thousands of years at least. All we can say for now is that a mass extinction event is probable without human intervention.
@TheExalaber It's human intervention that's causing the current extinction. You really think we're smart enough to dig our own way out of the hole we already dug? (I don't)
@Chris-hx3om I think we will, be have the rest of our lives to fix it.
@cyclonekittenplayz4302the problem is that old greedy rich people are in charge and keep preventing most environmental progress because they don't care what happens after they are gone
@TheExalaber Quick nitpick. We can't be said to be in a mass extinction because they "necessarily take place over thousands of years", but because we haven't hit the 75% threshold generally accepted as the definition for a mass extinction. 75% of species going extinct in a short geologic time period is the broadly accepted definition. With "short geologic time period" variably defined as less than 3 million years, (the Natural History Museum of London gives 2.8 million years, Wikipedia gives 2 million years, etc). I haven't seen anything suggesting that number within the next century, but if it did, it would still obviously count as a mass extinction, even if it didn't take place over thousands of years.
I've been watching PBS since I was a baby girl. I have distinct memories of watching Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers and other show whose names I can't remember. I was astounded and dismayed when Congress defunded PBS 😢😢 If it were financially possible, I would most definitely do my best to support PBS. Unfortunately, because I'm not currently able to work due to multiple chronic pain conditions. I have always and will always value PBS for the wonderful programs that you guys do on a regular basis. Thank you!!! 😊😊❤❤
So donate... I seem to recall funding drives...hmm, I didn't even think about that until now. Even with federal funding, there still wasn't enough cash. There will never be enough money anywhere ever, and if all you can do to contribute is to separate your plastic and paper, be happy you did anything at all...
You did see the part where they said they cant work due to chronic pain conditions, yes? Than how do you expect them to donate? @kathypriest95
If we keep watching subscribing (lots of different PBS stations have channels here) and commenting on RUclips won’t they make money? I can’t donate now but I can get the views up and hope they get a few cents per view! Every bit helps right.
Just cut to the point and say "feel sorry for me".
I seem to remember a time when TV was free ? but maybe that was just a movie. ✌️
Thank you from Alaska.
It's time to get it over with.
I am glad someone is spending some time talking about mantle plume eruptions. The eruption that formed the Siberian Traps continued for over a million years, and ejected enough matter to cover the United States from West Coast to East Coast 300 ft deep.
Ahh, the End-Permian extinction, my archeological beloved... It gave rise to the short-lived age of Lystrosaurus, my favorite Not-Dinosaur 😭💕
I had only watched part of your video before I made my comment and then to see you actually talk about the Columbia river basalts. Amazing. I used to think the NW was a very tame place until I learned about our geologic history. Very violent.
Check out the Wah Wah springs supervolcano. 1000's of times bigger than Yellowstone and no one talks about it
Ooh girllll, take a look at the Cascadia Subduction zone if you haven't already!
Nick Zentner has a large number of videos on RUclips on the geology of the Pacific Northwest, including a number on the geology of the Columbia River flood basalts; I highly recommend all of his videos.
Thank you for the amazing videos. Love the content.
Thank you for doing what you do, PBS. We need you now more than ever.
A mass extinction event is the universe pressing the "reset" button. The cosmos thinking, "Hope to get it right the next time."
😂
Bruh
Extinction is the rule not the exception. In the big picture, life is brief. Life is the anomaly.
Those of us in the red and blue zone around Mt St Helens received 12 to 18 inches of ash. Our gardens were mostly smothered. The plants that made it through the ash were amazing! Turns out, it was full of nitrogen and trace minerals - fertilizer!
Volcanic soil can be very rich. But don’t breathe in the falling ash. It’s full of jagged glass crystals that destroys the lungs of any living creature.
My having spent the first two decades of my life on the flanks of the mini-Yellowstone, i.e. the Jemez calderas, keeps me quite interested in volcanic phenomena. I really appreciate this sort of content.
We're already seeing the disappearance of many species of birds and many more kinds of insects in southwestern Indiana. In the past 10 years insects have continuously declined here and the birds began declining in the past 5 years. I always thought I'd love it if we had less bugs, until I had to start hand pollination in my vegetable garden! Deer, Raccoons, Opossums and other animals I've observed my entire life seem to be declining in the past 3 to 5 years as well. We have lots of forested land, it makes no sense and no one in the area is talking about it.😢
Lots of people are talking about it. It is too late for the insects, and eventually us. We have been in a feeding frenzy for about 400 years (longer?). Our poisons are killing everything, and eventually us. So many people do not understand that if all the insects die, our food sources will take a massive hit. I once had someone ask why I was upset to lose insects as they thought this was a good thing. I replied, “No insects, no food.” And the horror on their face was quick. It is an overstatement, of course, but famine will be the result.
@MaryKeane-n8fsorry, I didn't make it clear, I meant no one in my area is talking about it. I've never seen any local news stories about the wildlife disappearing in our area.🙂
It is happening all over the world, at least everywhere I have been....
@MaryKeane-n8f It's this oversensationalism that turns people off from people crying about environmental changes. Last I checked people don't hunt for their food. Cows are fed food supplied by humans. They don't go around eating bugs. Bugs have always been the bane of farmers, so you're not gonna get them to feel sorry for their reduction. You're not gonna find many people eating pigeons either. They're literally flying rats.
@Wheres_my_Dragonator wind pollinated grains will be with us, and the animals that feed on them, but foods that require insects to pollinate them are already suffering. Stone fruits, apples, vegetables…they will become very expensive if humans have to pollinate with paintbrushes.
I've been watching you from the beginning (as I have been following this issue for a long time). This was your best show yet. That very last point of a 4 to 6 degree change during the extinction event, and knowing what our trajectory is now, while acknowledging we (the world) are not really responding as needed. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
Still, excellent video.
Well, we're not holding our breath, and the hype over Yellowstone is *WAY* overblown! The "hype" makes big bucks for those suggesting "the sky is falling"!! Worry more about potential tsunami on the coasts of OR and WA, or that volcanoes!!
Pretty much everything west of I-5 in oregon and washington was an island chain called Siletzia that came out of the same Yellowstone hotspot and crashed into the North American plate about 20 million years ago.
I can't get over that we are causing change 4 to 10 x faster than the largest volcanic activity in our history. I do not think we are prepared for the changes already headed our way.
Alot of the early changes are here already! Compare the difference in the amount of bugs on your windshield today vs in the 50's after car trip, for example.
We honestly are not... i mean, air pollution wise, 1 moderate volcanic eruption causes more air pollution than all humans cause in 1 year.
With a daily average of around 40 known volcanoes erupting, you can do the math on whats more influential.
Our planet also has way more active and much more potentially destructive and higher threat super volcanoes than Yellowstone.
@triax7218 You don't just get to say "nut uh!" at what is literally in our face. We have the data. YOU JUST WATCHED SOME OF IT. Don't come here being a denier just because it feels right in your heart or whatever bs you're huffing.
@triax7218 Done the math, so have climate scientists. Your wrong and quoting the same misinformation that gas companies are saying while paying for politicians and making insane profits off the damage.
@loganskiwyse7823 Please provide references of calculations. That would greatly help the analysis and be persuasive.
Really think you should have lingered a little on that second curve in the graph at 13:37
Is the gradient even correct? It’s not 4 times, could it be 10 times?
Great show and I just love to hear how much lava was deposited in previous Yellowstone eruptions!
A giant volcano would do, but an astroid would be better theater.
Rogue One made death by single reactor ignition on the Death Star look pretty epic.
I opt for a giant solar flare that roasts the earth’s surface, when the sun rises in the east.
There is evidence, though not conclusive, that the primary asteroid behind the end of the dinosaurs also is responsible for the Decan Traps in India. If accurate, an asteroid big enough to cause a mass extinction would also cause a volcanic event on the other side of impact that would finish the job.
I want benevolent aliens to come down and make us all happy shiny people! So there!
Don't Look Up (2021)
Thank you.
Thank you, Maiya. Thank you, PBS Terra. Not only are your presentations enlightening, they are also enjoyable. Bravo! And bravo again!
It would help enormously if the human race fell OUT of love with populist authoritarian fantasy-lands and INTO an adult relationship with reality. Not much sign of that at the moment.
best if we join with our brothers into a world government that can equitably distribute our goods in common
it won't be authoritarian because we'll put the words "people" and "democratic" on the label
The reality is that sustainable population levels are less than 2 billion people. How do we reduce our population by 6 billion and not collapse?
Your comment is hilarious. Thanks for the belly laugh! I needed it.
A UFO lands on the White House lawn. An alien comes out: "Hi, we're from Reticuli Zeta, on a mission to find intelligent life in the galaxy."
"-Have you seen any?"
@StoneAgeBiz That's not the reality at all. If it was the reality we'd have had natural famines as Ehrlich predicted, but food costs plummeted over that time.
For approximately two decades, I've believed there will probably be few, if any, Homo sapiens alive by the year 2500, because of governments and selfish poeple in greedy industries working against the science and potential solutions to our human-caused problems with fossil fuels usage.
Thanks for doing this, one of the things I love about PBS is
I live in Colorado, Northern Colorado at that…I wouldn’t be in good shape.
Yep, I'm in West Central Colorado, and it would not be fun. Reminds me of the movie, Dante's Peak.
If you meant the map that had most of the western US glowing red, that's something that already happened.
And as was stated, the Yellowstone one won't happen soon if at all. Thicker crust is moving over the hotspot, so it may be many millions of years before it blows up big again.
Something else in the world might easily go before that.
@JustinMShaw I think they were referring to the ashfall plot where it showed the range of the ashfall across the continent. Also, I think they meant _IF_ Yellowstone erupted in the current day. They said nothing about believing that it _will_ erupt. Chances are, humanity won't even be around when Yellowstone blows its top again. I don't think we're in imminent danger of an eruption.
Dude shut up... I'm IN Wyoming!
Hey, on the bright side, it'd be the one thing that'd make Greeley stink less 😉
Mmmm slight technicality - Novarupta, or what is now Katmai National Park, located on the Alaskan Peninsula, was the largest eruption on the continental United States. I think the term you were looking for was contiguous :)
Alaska isn't contiguous with the lower 48 tho
But St. Helens IS, and the point is that its eruption was not the largest measured in the United States as a whole (which includes Alaska) but just in the contiguous 48.
In May 1980 when Mt. St Helens went off . I was a 18 year old kid living in Virginia. I remember about an inch of ash being deposited on the ground. Took about a week to make to Virginia.
9:18 So if I understand this correctly, the next Yellowstone eruption could possibly happen in southern Montana, rather than Yellowstone Park?
That’s what I heard.🤷🏽♀️
I live just downwind of Altadena, CA, and the other day, as I was grabbing something from my backyard shed, I noticed a bit of ash from the January fires sitting on my sleeping bag. In that moment, I thought, “Oh right… that actually happened.” It had been less than a year, yet I had almost forgotten. It really hit me how short our attention span is when it comes to disasters-and if we struggle to remember recent ones, how much harder is it to grasp long-term threats, like something that might affect humanity twenty generations from now?
Side note: this is one of my favorite channels on YT ❤
"Can we slow warming down enough"
We sure can, we won't, but we could
You're dreaming !
No we can't and any attempts to try will only result on trillion$ wasted and dead people
Covid was an example of slowing down when everyone was at home there were recorded reductions with the climate
@fuzzy_b75 Where did you get that nonsense from ? Reductions in what ? Explain !
@fuzzy_b75no there wasn't, and I defy you to prove even 1 example
PBS ranks among the brightest of American achievements. Long may you persevere.
I love weathered and Maiya May!! you rock , so smart and doing so much to open peoples minds to the world around us
Are we still allowed to say 'climate' and 'mass extinction' in the US? Crap, I'm probably on a list now too 'cause I said the words.
Yeah I'm probably on those lists right with you.
SAY it and SAY IT LOUD AND PROUD!!!! ENOUGH of that political correctness BS!!!!!
"LOOK AT ME AND HOW OPPRESSED I AM"
Science matters! My name will be right with yours because a particular body of water that I will always call the Gulf of MEXICO.
@onose10000 Bless your heart. I was born in a communist nation under the soviet block umbrella. No, we are not that bad off yet. Yes, this is the classic runway to get there. And absolutely, even at the height of the worst of it, we had people coming by to explain to us how we were not 'really oppressed, like those evil western countries!'. There's always someone there to explain why we should not believe our lying eyes.
If you're volunteering... well, you do you, but I can tell you when my former country overthrew the regime, we remembered everyone who'd tapped us on the shoulder to tell us to fall in line. I'm just gonna focus on my day to day, no worries. But just keep in mind your neighbors will be your neighbors long after your politicians stopped being your politicians.
I really mourn the end of the coral reefs. I think it is far too late for them. I hope some goodly number and companion organisms survive in some refugia and that after some future us deals with the CO2 they can again build reef ecosystems like we had. But I think it more likely that they will join tabulate and rugose corals in extinction.
utter garbage. Coral reef thrived in periods of far higher temperatures than now and with far higher co2 concentration as well as far lower temperatures than now. The truth is we have no idea what is happening with coral reefs and likely never will.
I'm thankful to have gone scuba diving in Bonaire in 1995, Palau in 1996, Great Barrier Reef in 2001, Costa Rica & Hawaiian islands in 2002...when ALL the coral varieties were thriving with beautiful vivid colors. Seeing them on videos now, dead & void of ALL color from the rising, ocean temperatures in recent years, makes us cry. And 47 repeatedly claims "there's no such thing as climate change on earth" 😡...grrrrr.
This happened right under my feel in Yakima ... mnt saint helens ash, Ice age mega flood lake lewis.. even a flood basalt eruption....BRING IN NATURE!!
Oh wow I have hiked in those exact places and wondered how they were made so this was extra fascinating! There was a flash of one of my favorite hikes on hot days - the waterfall there makes that little bowl at least 10 degrees cooler on a hot day and you don’t even have to get wet lol
When it comes to climate change and claiming the planet back, it will take more than one person with a vision. It will have to be a World-wide effort. However with all the wars and conflicts taking up every ones time, the will is not there. That means we will continue blindly along the path to mass extinction. Sad.
There is absolutely nothing we can do about climate change
Daddy Trump says it's all a hoax and almost half our population think he was sent by God. So yeah, we are f'ed.
@winjoe100don't worry your antichrist boss will be along shortly to save y'all
Yeah I am born and raised in Washington every time I hear yellow stone brought up I just shake my head. Raineer is scary
8:49 "that's a lot of lava" he made me laugh there 😂
Yeah 4 kilometres is a big big lot
We are not heading for, we are living through a mass extinction event.
I grew up in seattle seeing pictures and hearing stories about the landslides after saint helens. I was terrified of the lehar, but I guess it's nice to know there's worse consequences!
I think we’re already in the midst of a mass extinction event and that’s not even including the effects of the warming climate. The earth and its life can adapt to so much, we just need to give it the space to do so.
Life needs time to adapt, which it isn’t given in the current climate change.
When you put a frog in a pan with cold water and heat it up you will just boil the frog, there is no time to adapt.
Evolution takes generations
Yes, life will find a way but there has to be something left
I disagree I don’t think we’re mass extinction levels (yet) species are dying off, but it’s more so an extinction event than a mass extinction.
@koekumcomplex life on earth survived Chixulub. Life will be fine, regardless of what we do. It will be ravaged and unrecognizable to us, but life will always go on.
I must be the village idiot believing the planet is much bigger than we small humans😅. Have humans had an impact? Sure, but that it changed the way the planet behaves? 😂😂😂😂. Every 12,000 or so years this ole globe experiences events and we are at that point again. Can we get over ourselves for just a second?
Flood Basalts are silent but deadly
Humans are bad at dealing with silent but deadly
I choose not to worry about Yellowstone because I live close enough to the point it will instantly kill me so, I wouldn't even know. I also think humanity's headed to a self caused extinction not from global warming but from nuclear war or just weapons of mass destruction in general
Yes, we're driving toward a cliff. Some of us are doing all we can to avoid disaster, while others claim the chasm doesn't exist, and counter our attempts to stop, or turn the car.
Most are stepping on the accelerator.
Denial is the most common response to emergencies, One can see it in everything from street fights to nations falling.
Humans are flawed, then other human manipulators step in to exploit the flaw.
your attempts are stupid and not reasonable come up with a decent solution the will talk
@vincenthammons-kd9duhow presumptious of you...are you say any attempt to deal with what's happening is stupid? I'm sensing maga cult thinking here.
@vincenthammons-kd9du oh yeah because with grammar like that, youre definitely a reliable source to listen to. imagine calling someone stupid while in the same sentence saying "the will talk" LMAO
Yes we are in the middle of extinction event.
Yes we can do something about it.
Too bad our leaders are weakest generation ever and can't claw their way out of wet paper bag and media landscape is so awfully full of missinformation and bullying that stupid ideas like "Stop oil" get all the headlines.
Luckily you can be active part of society and influence political change. Start today, be active.
The fault, dear @STUDIOTX, is not in our leaders, but in ourselves. We got rid of Trump- and then put him back in the White House. This is not the action of a people intelligent enough to live.
@RobertEWaters remember when trump said tht elon 'knows the vote counting computers'? Also when elon directly tried to bribe people to vote?
I still think they should have done a recount of the votes or something, because all of that is just the tiniest bit suspicious.
At Helens eruption was years before I was born but I remember finding ash in old farming equipment and just a few inches under the top soil all over Washington as a kid. I could still find ash from the St Helens eruption in the early 2000s when looking through a bunch of old cars and farming equipment my Grandpa had parked on his property.
WILL FOREVER SUPPORT PBS✮
The thing that amuses me about just about every volcanic documentary referencing Mt St Helens is that more than half of the potential audiences for the newer documentaries weren't even born when Mt St Helens erupted. We have no memory of Mt St Helens 1980 eruption other than what we've seen in documentaries. And I'm one of the older ppl in that group (born in 1986).
I get that they're trying to put it in terms that most Americans have a reference point for, but... I think that particular example might not be quite as relevant or helpful as it used to be.
I get your point and agree, but at least it is something younger people can look up with good evidence, and ask older people about.
I was working in a large town in the northwest at that time and we could not get to work for days. When I talk about this, younger folk react like it is a tall tale or Marvel movie. I don't know how to fix this denial.
@Reality_TM Although, given the Titanic movie's popularity, ppl do tend to have at least an idea how big that is.
Thanks for posting this! Appreciate what you do.
We need a futuristic tech to cool these caldera down while gathering energy from it
While it might be possible to gather energy, I doubt it would be enough to cool it down by much.
@Pur On a Massive sci-fi scale, a lot more energy, a lot more cooling
Man we need future tech period, I feel we’re so behind. Only thing we’ve even came up with is ai generated apps, like cmon
Like geothermal? Lets poke a lot of deep holes in it.
@JeffBilkins That's how I like it 😏
Thank you for your service preparing us for what's coming 🫡
The amount of money the ruling classes of Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and the USA make from oil and gas makes it very politically difficult to do the right thing about climate change.
What's important for us individually is, number one to cast our votes against the oiligarchs in "effective ways", number two to support each other, and third to make the changes in our own lives so we can sleep at night.
I mean, as long as you're doing your best, what else can you do?
I think #3 should be #1!! Without OUR use of such resources….
So many of us are so dependent on the fruits of what is destroying our world that it is hard for most people in these countries to change even on an individual basis.
I try to go by what David Attenborough says when asked what we can individually do. He says, "Don't waste."
That makes it simple and easy to remember. Turn the watter off when I'm washing dishes. Turn it back on to rinse. Don't buy more food than I can eat, put only on my plate what I will eat right now. Don't idle the car or run the AC when I can comfortably turn it off. Open my home's windows or door when the weather is nice outside. No need to artificially heat or cool when I can just let in nice air from outside.
Just some things that I think of when I remember Sir David's advice.
What do other people who read these comments do? I think it wpuld be cool to have a list going from lots of people about what all they do.
too much GREED--MONEY to slow down global warming!!! will NOT happen for several generations down the road!!!
I gave up that myth long ago.
@charlesmangum2100 Wow, so you're smarter than all the scientists who ever existed!!!!
Genius!!!
Have you ever been in an airplane?
lol.
Great information. Thank you. I am not confident humanity will adapt. We can hope.
The question isn't _can we_ do something about it. We already know we can. The question is _will we?_
and I think we all already know the answer to that.
I’m going to go against what this comment section is saying in that I think we are not in a mass extinction, yet. It is true that the background extinction rate is similar to a mass extinction but my argument is that we haven’t yet completely broken earth’s climate systems to the degree that is on par with say something like the Permian-Triassic extinction. We have not yet fundamentally altered the climates of the earth to such a stark difference that ecosystems and species are now basically living in complete different environments-this is where the conversation of tipping points comes in. Of course if we continue down our path then I would say we absolutely are headed for that unadaptable future.
I think the main culprit of the die back in species we see today is purely out of human activity/expansion and our extractive economy leveling ecosystems to exploit for resources and development.
I would also like to point out that because the current rise in temperature is more so based on human timescales, not geologic ones, then I would argue that the rate of change could happen just as quickly back to pre-industrial times if we get ourselves together and make the right choices. In geologic timescales it would be like getting a fever over the course of a weekend. In the video a point was made as to how adaptive our planet is-I would think, or maybe hope is a better word, that our earth could adapt to such a fast rise and fall in temperatures.
My two cents pls be nice to me
thank you for your thoughts. they give me hope.
The background extinction rate is accepted by paleontologists to be about 20%. That means at any give point in time, one in five species on Earth are going extinct, regardless of any human activity.
Mass extinctions, on the other hand, are events where at least 75% of all species go extinct. This means 3 out of 4 species are wiped out forever.
Syberian Traps, Deccan Traps, Ontong Java and the biggest ever volcanic eruption the Parana Etendeka Traps
10:46..........just being a picky old fart.......the impact point was off......Yucatan........not Florida........if our info is correct........or I'm not wearing my reading glasses........otherwise a great vid.
Yeah that bugged me too
Yes, though I have often wondered about the curiously round shape of the Gulf of Mexico - if that was an impact crater it would make the Yucatan one seem rather small.
@HuwRichards-e2z Now that's a thought.
@HuwRichards-e2zit was not an impact crater. It was formed when the ancient North American ocean started closing up. A time of mega sharks swims dinosaurs. I believe it was showed either on a pan channel or a podcast Hank Green was on
I had absolutely no clue that it hit off the Yucatán. Thanks, picky old fart! I specialize in Meteorology, not Geology, but I do know they are both similar in some ways.
7:26 unfortunate to hear a USGS scientist perpetuate this misconception to the public. It’s well understood by now that slab pull, the density-driven downward force exerted by subducting oceanic plates, is the dominant driver of plate tectonics by far. Upwelling at the mid ocean ridges is more or less a passive response to the primary driver of slab pull, since a descending slab displaces hotter mantle rock lower in the mantle as it descends, and the sinking slab naturally pulls the rest of the oceanic plate behind it, leaving a “gap” in its wake, which this passively upwelling mantle, the opposite end of the convection cycle, seeks to fill, resulting in mid ocean ridge volcanism. The second-order forces driving plate tectonics and convection are “ridge push” (from the gravitational potential energy that results from an oceanic plate being lifted up by the upwelling mantle below it, creating a tendency for the slab to want to “fall down” away from the mid ocean ridge). The slab pull force is an order of magnitude stronger than the ridge push force. There are also forces that oppose these two drivers of plate motion, such as viscous drag of the mantle against the undersurface of the slab, but this drag force is two to three orders of magnitude less than the slab pull force. Finally, it is true that plumes may be partially responsible for driving convection and plate tectonics, but the very existence of plumes is still theoretical, and on top of that, most models of plume formation involve some sort of disturbance from downgoing slabs in order to trigger the plume in the first place. And to further clarify the cause of the slab pull force, again the primary driver of plate tectonics by far, it is caused primarily by the density contrast of oceanic crust relative to mantle rock and continental crust. Because old, cold oceanic crust is denser than these, it can be subducted. Furthermore, as these oceanic slabs subduct and head deeper into the mantle, they encounter higher and higher pressures (due to increased lithostatic confining pressure with depth), and this causes the unique assemblage of minerals in oceanic crust to transform into even denser forms with depth, effectively creating a weight on the sinking end of the slab that only increases with depth and pulls the slab down.
Could be a Nepo baby that got to that position, even then, PBS isnt really known for their Scientific integrity
Could you Please add references to your statements, older references to what he's describing and the time when the general understanding changed?
Interesting hypothesis. Not sure it makes 100% sense but I would like to find out more. Any references?
We all live life on the edge. Your work helps us to appreciate what we have, and what we can do to make it last as long as possible. Thank you!
Four years ago, when my grandson was about 6, we were in the car and he had been quiet for a while watching the scenery, southern Alberta, close to the mountains. He matter of factly says, "I think there will be another mass extinction event soon". No fear in his voice, simply a statement of fact. I asked him to tell me more. He said it will be in his lifetime, but maybe not in mine. I asked him, how do you feel about that? He said, its a mass extinction, so it will be over quickly...like duh grandma... you should know this. Then he said, it has to happen so the earth can heal. Humans have made a mess. There is always a reason, he continued. Just think about the dinosaurs, they needed to go so we could come. I would not have wanted to be alive then. Seriously...the things this child thinks about, he's an old soul with far more wisdom than most.
Wise words from your grandson!
Who’s indoctrinating your grandson?
Lmao. Riiiiight
And he has someone willing to listen. What an experience.
@seriousseriosity4055who indoctrinated you? Fox and friends?
0:18 Jesus Christ
It’s only been 18 seconds 😭🥀
Made me lol
Dude fr
I'm pretty excited tbh, I'm on Team Giant Meteor 2026 but any epic, world-ending disaster will do really
@isocarboxazid At this point we genuinely need it.
Always wondered if this is linked to the Cascadia fault. Thanks! I’ll review the literature!
If a Yellowstone volcano happened in the next 3 years it'd be a positive thing here in America I think and it's got my vote.
Seems to stink of political implications...
The Yellowstone election rigged!
@dexaminer6047 no shit sherlock. the US is in a war against itself for god sake. every one of you needs to stop being so dramatic and just accept other people no matter how different they are. im talking about including the old conservative people as well as the young liberal people. everyone just needs to SHUT THE FUCK UP
Mass extinction assured. If we can't convince everyone in a small area, say a workplace for example, we aren't going to convince everyone. By the time we see enough that even they are convinced it will be too late- positive feedback loops/tipping points.
been saying that since 1996
Thank you, PBS! We love you! We would be lost without you!
Skip to 5:15 and stop worrying