The Largest Volcanic Eruption to Ever Occur; The VEI 9 Toba Eruption
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- Опубликовано: 22 июл 2024
- The largest volcanic eruption known to science cataclysmically began 75,000 years ago. Every 6 seconds, it erupted more material than produced during the entire 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens. This eruption did not originate from the Yellow supervolcano but rather a separate supervolcano known as Toba. This video will discuss the largest explosive volcanic eruption currently known to science, which registered in on the volcanic explosivity index as a 9.
Thumbnail Photo Credit: Tytgat, G. C., Alaska Volcano Observatory / University of Alaska Fairbanks, Geophysical Institute, avo.alaska.edu/images/image.p.... Image was then overlayed with text & GeologyHub overlay material.
Note: Information on the magnitude of Toba's Youngest Toba Tuff eruption in this video's description was sourced from the LaMEVE database: British Geological Survey © UKRI, www2.bgs.ac.uk/vogripa/view/c..., Used with Permission.
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Source of Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) methodology and criteria: Newhall, C. G., and Self, S. (1982), The volcanic explosivity index (VEI) an estimate of explosive magnitude for historical volcanism, J. Geophys. Res., 87(C2), 1231-1238, doi:10.1029/JC087iC02p01231. Accessed / Read by / geologyhub on Oct 5th, 2022.
Google Earth imagery used in this video: ©Google & Data Providers
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Sources/Citations:
[1] Information on the magnitudes (VEI) and dates and tephra volume of Toba's various VEI 4 or larger explosive eruptions, in addition to the date of the Yellowstone volcano's Lava Creek Eruption and the details about Toba's VEI in this video's description was sourced from the LaMEVE database: British Geological Survey © UKRI, www2.bgs.ac.uk/vogripa/view/c..., Used with Permission.
[2] Costa Antonio, Smith Victoria C., Macedonio Giovanni, Matthews Naomi E., The magnitude and impact of the Youngest Toba Tuff super-eruption, Frontiers in Earth Science, Volume 2, 2014, www.frontiersin.org/articles/..., DOI: 10.3389/feart.2014.00016, ISSN: 2296-6463, CC BY 3.0.
[3] de Silva Shanaka L., Mucek Adonara E., Gregg Patricia M., Pratomo Indyo, Resurgent Toba-field, chronologic, and model constraints on time scales and mechanisms of resurgence at large calderas, Frontiers in Earth Science, Volume 3, 2015, www.frontiersin.org/articles/..., DOI: 10.3389/feart.2015.00025, ISSN: 2296-6463, CC BY 4.0.
[4] Greg R. Vaughn, U.S. Geological Survey, Public Domain, www.usgs.gov/media/images/map.... This diagram was traced onto Google Earth imagery to provide an outline of the caldera formed by the Lava Creek Eruption.
[5] U.S. Geological Survey
[6] Yellowstone Volcano Observatory
0:00 Yellowstone Supervolcano
0:45 Toba Supervolcano
1:36 Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI)
2:45 VEI 9 Eruption Effects
4:09 Other Large Eruptions
4:29 Conclusion
What are your thoughts as to whether Toba's VEI 9 eruption was the largest to ever occur on Earth? I am leaning towards no because many older supervolcano deposits have likely been lost to time (or long ago buried under 1000s of ft thick of rock).
Very intresting. Thank you.
@Auschwitz Soccer Ref. Yet scientific consensus says your wrong. They are universally considered the largest volcanic eruptions on the planet
I thought it was the Flat Landing Brook Formation?
And no, I don’t think either are the biggest, there’s been billions more years of volcanic eruptions, one would definitely have been larger at some point, along with earth being more warm
Seems unlikely to have been the biggest. 75k years ago is just a blink in the geological time of earth unless by the earth slowly cooling, it has made explosive types of eruptions more likely now, than in the deep past when the mantle was hotter.
considering flood basalt events happened I would go with no. I would think that the only way to answer yes would require narrowing down the criteria to select for that answer.
The scale of that eruption is absolutely mind shattering. Even with the strong visual imagery of 10,000 Mount Saint Helen eruptions in one square it's rather difficult to truly visualize the terrifying destructive force of such a blast.
@@vesuviussoloshumans Not necessarily scared, but it is something worth monitoring. I personally think Vesuvius is a more significant hazard to mitigate when it comes to population centers in Italy--if that one goes off, Naples could get buried.
@@vesuviussoloshumans Yes, it's a beautiful volcano.
@@venturelord3 the point is, campi flegri can be waaay more destructive if it blows... but vesuvius is the more active of the 2 (and i think it did create a vei 6)
@@draco4234 yeah my thoughts exactly.
I thought it was TEN not 10k. That’s a whole new level!
I've been there. It's a spectacular caldera lake, with the caldera's walls seemingly rising vertically out of the lake. Samosir Island is a large island in the center of the lake where native people live a quiet existence. At least they did back in 1989 when I spent a week there. I hiked to the top of the island and across it, before continuing my journey through northward through central Sumatra all the way to Banda Aceh, which was devasted by the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004. Interestingly, there are a couple of other very large crater lakes in the area. Further south is Lake Maninjau. I spent a few days there. It all seems like an amazing dream at this point . . .
Fun fact: they're having an international powerboat race in the lake this year
Maninjau is also quite pretty. Formed in an ancient VEI 7 eruption (and caldera collapse) which was larger than 1815 Tambora. Ranau also produced an ancient VEI 7 eruption and caldera collapse.
@@farhanatashiga3721 Ugh! Gross fact, I'd say. Mankind treats Nature like his personal amusement park. Can't seemingly escape his pathologically juvenile behaviors.
@@GeologyHub It's gorgeous!! Have you been there? Yes, the geology of central and northern Sumatra is stunning. I also visited a fascinating area called the Harau Valley, in central Sumatra, with sheer cliffs rising vertically from the valley. Incredible landscapes...
@@stonew1927 why the apprehension? it's not like they're dumping fuel right onto the lake and it's been a tourist attractions for decades anyways
I think you should cover flood basalt eruptions, the sheer amount of erupted material in those is unbelievable and incredibly fascinating.
He has, he has covered the Siberian Traps
Nick Zentner from CWU has a great one-hour lecture on Columbia River flood basalts with comparisons to other eruptions, including ones that induced mass extinctions.
I've been fortunate enough to visit lake Toba. When you take ferries to cross the lake or spend a day and a half walking across Samosir island in the middle you get some sort of idea about just how big an eruption it must have been.
On a geologic timescale, this VE9 eruption was yesterday. When we have another eruption of this size, humans will understand what a disaster is.
no on a geologic timescale it was a few seconds ago. remember earth is over 6 billion years old.
The Cascadia earthquake and Tsunami will probably become humanity biggest disaster in the Moderna age.
@@Super-Godzilla99the solar system is only 4.5 billion years old
Interestingly this eruption happened when mordern humans (in body) were already present. There is evidence of a major population and genetic bottleneck around 70k years ago and also fully mordern humans humans (in both body and mind) show up. It's called intelligence explotion with complex behaviour like huge variety of tool, decorations and art. Also out of africa migrations for homo sapiens started right after. Some connect the dots with tonga volcano extreme climate causing rapid adaptablity and giving rise to mordern humans
That's just mind bogglingly enormous. 🤯
That sums it up
Toba has got to be one of the most impressive eruptions of the entire Cenozoic. Not only was it over 10000 cubic kilometers, but it erupted quite rapidly for such a large eruption. Considering that early humanity survived through this absolutely cataclysmic eruption, combined with a pretty nasty glacial period, I am quite confident that supereruptions are not a threat to humanity itself, though considering the more resilient nature of hunter gatherer societies back then I'm not sure if civilization would make it. Its quite satisfying that it left behind such a fantastic caldera as well, definitely one of the places on my bucket list to visit.
Humans as a species would survive, but our modern way of life would be very severely impacted. Civilisations that rely upon importing of foods and essential goods would disappear.
Thank goodness, there are still people living in their own Stone Age.
Some scientists have put forth a theory that this Toba eruption killed off most of the human population living at the time, leaving only about 10,000 people or less surviving it worldwide. But this theory is not universally accepted.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory
We came very close to being wiped out......All but a few families of humans survived this catastrophe. The humanity that you see everywhere are the descendants of these few families according to DNA analysis.
I read a theory about Toba, that this eruption was só powerful, it didnt blew off the top of the volcano, but the entire SIDE (kinda like St Helens, but much MUCH larger and more violent!), this caused the other, remaining half of the 5km+ high volcano to collapse ín to the Magmachamber. And that resulted in a magmatic overflow, causing lava-floods on the surface?
It wasnt just an immense eruption, it was a minor form of Flood Volcanism as well.
Its a theory, but it imho would explain the extraordinairily lárge fallout of this eruption.
And ps: whats left of the original Toba-volcano's collapsed side, is barely sticking out of the volcanic Lake Toba nowadays, as the center island? That wás the foot of the far side of the Volcano? The entire volcano exploded and collapsed, and only a small chuck of it remains on the surface: that island. The rest crashed into the magmachamber?
I am just at a loss trying to imagine a process that ejects 10.000+ km3 I am not doubting it, just fail to somehow visualise the scale and imagine how that incredible amount of pressure could even build up for so long over such a huge area. Just mind boggling.
The temperature in the core of the earth is thought to be 12.000 degrees which is hotter than the surface of the sun. The pressure is due to the weight fo thousands of miles deep of mantle and crust rock....
I was under the assumption that vei 8 had no upper limit, but vei 9 certainly sounds impressive, lol
VEI 8 doesn't have an upper limit, they just elected to add VEI 9 because technically a VEI 9 would be 10,000 cubic kilometers worth of ejecta
@@Baronstone exactly. Going by the scale and how each subsequent value is 10× the previous, it would be safe to say that a VEI8 stops at 9,999 CK and a VEI 9 starts at 10,000. Or, at least that's how the scale would work if it went that high, which, I think that it should go that high now in light of this new evidence.
@@BackYardScience2000 It could go on infinitely to VEI infinity as you could multiply a number by 10 infinite times since there is an infinity amount of numbers
@@vesuviussoloshumans Vesuvius never erupted for a VEI 8 or 9 scale. Tbf, Vesuvius itself caused a VEI 6 once...but that one could actually be assigned to Vesuvius' predecessor; the Somma Volcano; It exploded violently, blew most of its structure up, and erupted violently. The foot of the Somma still stands, and the Vesuvius was shaped in the following eruptions to the threatening 'firespewer' we know nowadays.
@@vesuviussoloshumans Original post was about VEI-8's... and you add Vesuvius to the discussion... so what ARE you talking about then, wiseass?
For 13,200 km³ of material to be erupted in the space of less than a day is unimaginable. The violence of that eruption must be incomprehensible to the human mind.
What a spectacular eruption it would have been to look at. I dream with things likes this. If I could have a DeLorean the Toba eruption would be in my tier list with the sn1006 supernova, the impact of Vredefort, the Siberian traps, the Eltanin tsunami, the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, the 1958 Lituya Bay tsunami, the Nu'uanu landslide, the 1908 Tunguska event,...
You left out witnessing a stampede of angry, blue-haired Portland woolly gynoceros.
Not sure what the safe distance would be to observe these events
@@SevenPr1me Well he is probably saying if nothing could be damaged including humans.
But you probably wouldn't survive those.
Especially the owning of a DeLorean....
🙃😉😜🤣
@@SevenPr1me somewhere near orbit I'd say
I can't even wrap my head around an eruption like that....WOW
I had no idea the Toba Eruption was THAT massive. It's nearly beyond comprehension, and utterly fascinating to learn about!
@@vesuviussoloshumans I don't know much about it, just what's been shown on this channel.
Unbelievably huge. And extremely recent geologically. Wow
Wow. Absolutely fascinating. Thanks for your work sir!
This just boggles my mind. Im fascinated by super eruptions...I got into volcanoes and their history when I visited Yellowstone years ago as part of a school trip. It blew my mind even then that such raw power could be unleashed via eruptions. I grew up in Washington state so seeing volcanoes whenever I would visit family was commonplace. I've been to Baker, Rainier, and St. Helens. Seeing the devastation left behind by Mt. St. Helens really impacted me (even though much of the area has regrowth!), so when I consider even larger eruptions than hers, I think about how truly powerful the eruptions must have been to be stronger than St. Helens. To think that this Toba eruption was ejecting St. Helens sized eruptions worth of material in six seconds repeatedly just...breaks my brain. And humanity survived through that. There is NO way that is the only "VEI 9" sized eruption that has happened in Earth's long history. much is lost through time, and I think we have such a good idea about the size of Toba's younger eruption because of how recent it was in geologic time. And if it can happen then, it can happen in the future. Humans might be extinct by that point but hey, one never truly knows!
Thanks for uploading. Maybe do a video on Large Igneous Provinces?
VEI 9!!! Holy Crap! I've never heard of that.
That's because the scale technically stops at 8. Each scale increase is an increase of 10x, so a vei 8 x 10 would equal 10,000km³ which is where a VEI 9 could be added.
@@mpk6664 I know that, I just didn't think that there was anything past a VEI 8. That's almost like a Category 6 hurricane or an EF 6 tornado.
@@darkknightdelta2880 well.. if hurricane is classified after the speed of its winds, then the huricanes on some of the planets in our solar system could potentially reach category 6, or 7 or even up to 10... imagine a category 10 hurricane... those winds would be super sonic... wich does happen on planets like neptune...
@@bogdanferu1160 That would be crazy
Check some research on Jupiter's moon, Io. VEI 9-10, even 11 and even VEI 12's occur there on a regular basis. Volcanos that spew lava-fountains, 250km upwards with unimaginable powers at work there. Ofcourse Jupiter's gravitational pull is a huge factor too.
Io is a highly volcanic moon.
That said, also look up on the theories around Olympus Mons on Mars: a 26km high, 650km diameter SHIELD-volcano that is theorized to have caused súch a massive eruption, it actually killed the planet.
I've also read theories that the Olympus Mons was caused by a uge Meteor-impact that crashed through the tectonic surface of Mars, straight down into the lower fepths, leaving a massive crater, that kept spewiing magma, for years, decades even, creating the massive shieldvolcano as we know it now...
Ofcourse its still being researched and many theories have passed, but its very interesting material..
Makes you realize, that no matter how advanced the human race is... there are a great many things that we know nothing about!
Cosmic powers that go far beyond the comprehension of even our greatest minds.
Another great video!!! Thanks!
Quite impressive. As if 2800km3, which was previously thought, were already an insane figure, 13,200km3 is totally out of sight
@@vesuviussoloshumans well, Geology Hub is probably the best channel for volcano videos, but I'd also recommend Nick Zentner. There's also a guys who made a series on Campu Flegrei mega eruptions which is really cool, but I don't remember his name
Ps Geology Hub Rocks! Keep up the Excellent work. Love watching clips!
Interesting and informative video, so thanks for sharing this. It's hard to imagine the scale of an eruption of that scale. I noticed that at 2.06 mins the video showed Lake Taupo, in New Zealand Aotearoa, but then went straight on to comment on Yellowstone VEI 8.
Especially fascinating vid. More on this event, please!
Holy moly! I think that tops the list. I knew Toba would not disappoint.
@@vesuviussoloshumans yes. Very much.
Another excellent video!
Wow! This is astounding to say the absolute least. Could it be plausible to conclude that there may even be VEI10 eruptions when gauging throughout history in its entirety? 100,000 Cubic Km doesn't actually sound beyond the realms of impossible when you consider how unstable our Earth's interior actually is, especially in some parts of the tectonic converging areas of the world we reside within.
I'm leaning towards this eruption not being the largest also, but can anything truly be confirmed when looking back so far in geological time? Taking into account the earth was once a ball of lava itself, eruptions would have been constant in a sense with so many asphyxiating gases and toxic multi-layers of volcanic compositions.
Like an EF5 Tornado, it's unlimited after VEI 8. Scales not broken. We in the field have not officially changed the VEI scale.
That was cool. Do they have a method of identifying more "fossilized" or degraded ash that could be much older in the fossil record to identify older super eruptions?
I did wish you mentioned that the figure of 13, 200km3 is not the only one and it's mostly accepted Toba erupted around 2, 800km3. It is a very good point that the caldera it left IS SOOO LARGE like ain't no way that thing only pulled out around 2, 800km3 of material, the Huckleberry Ridge tuff from Yellowstone is estimated to have pulled out around 2, 400km3 of eruptive material, ain't no way Toba is that big if it was JUST a mere 400km3 bigger in eruptive material. Both Wah Wah Springs and La Garita calderas are smaller than Toba's caldera and both are generally estimated to be over 5, 000km3 of eruptive material.
I don't buy neither the lowest or highest figures, but i do feel Toba erupted at least 8, 000km3 of material to be way larger than any of the other calderas.
Great video, by the way. We can safely say that the aforementioned Toba eruption is the largest currently known and well documented super eruption to have ever occurred, with 'currently known' being the key words here. Did I hear him say that the eruption was thought to be only 15 hours long? If so, that had to produce an eruptive column of truly titanic violence. Can you imagine?
hope you make a video about the Semilir eruption on the island of Java...which is more or less the same as the Toba eruption.
Thanks for this interesting video!
Unrelated question: Do you think the three recent earthquakes in Georgia habe something to do with the big quakes in Turkey?
I don’t think it would erupt anytime soon, But if it does, it was nice knowing you 👍
Otter and Boon said it best. When things are that grim and it's "gonna nail us no matter what we do, we might as well have a good time. You know what we gotta do? Toba Party. Toba, Toba Toba, Toba!"
my mind is blows by how powerful nature is, thanks
I wonder how far away you could hear the explosions from this? Minding my business, chilling, then I hear large repeated explosions in the sky.
Dukono sounds like a rocket, due to gasses exiting the volcano at supersonic speeds. I guess that it might sound like that, but the levels are cranked up to crazy stupid. A loud sound of a rocket being heard everywhere on the planet, along with even larger explosions. The closer you get to the eruption site, the louder it gets. I am sure people would die from the sound alone.
Almost guaranteed you’d hear that everywhere on earth
Krakatoa broke my great grandmothers glasses so this one probably instantly vaporized the entire globes eardrums
@@brownie3454 How exactly did it break her glasses?
@@xaviersavedra711 she was watering the cows in new zealand and the shockwave made one of the cows fart in her face and she was so disgusted she ran straight to the well to rinse off. she placed her glasses on the wall while she soaked her face and shortly after a pesky bird flew off with them into a nearby tree. apparently it attempted to make it apart of its nest. She spent 3 hours trying to get them down by herself cause pops was off in town to get him some hooch as he did every weekend. when she finally got them down she was so exhausted she lay asleep right at the base of the tree. when she woke up they were broken so no one really knows what happened. mamaw always suspected it was one of them dastardly neighbor kids goofin around with their slingys, but she could never say for sure.
No matter how bad your day is today, at least you didn't wake up next to a supervolcano delivering a VEI9 eruption!
@@vesuviussoloshumans Fr
@@vesuviussoloshumans Campi Flegrei is not a super volcano and you absolutely should be afraid of it. They hid all of the monitoring data years ago
No one did. Those are the types of things you don't wake up from.
Hi, do you think volcanos in Taiwan would reach vei 5 like mt.st.helens if erupt?
I would love to see a computer simulation of this cataclysmic eruption because I simply cannot imagine it.
First of all your videos are awesome. Next, as for what you said at the end another RUclipsr made a video about other possible mega eruptions in earths history with a timeline so you are right. And interestingly recently I listened to some songs by an old obscure rock band that wrote songs about bizarre topics. I was listening to this band to practice singing with vibrato in my voice like their weird singer but anyway the next time I went on RUclips a suggested video came up. "Rasputina - the year without a summer." So, when I was a teenager I had this band's cds but this wasn't on any cd I had. I vaguely remember hearing it. It's not their best song musically but isn't it cool a band recorded a song about the so-called year without a summer?
To give people an idea of how much _stuff_ 13500 cubic km is, it's about as much water that flows over Niagara Falls in almost 408 years.
Toba ejected that in approximately 15 hours.
One thing I'm wondering is what caused the changes in size estimates? I'm old enough to remember when the size estimate pegged the 74,000 BC supereruption at about 2700 cubic kilometers. Was there a difference in how the ejecta volume was calculated? Any other pieces of evidence that were recently uncovered?
The papers are linked in description, but TLDR someone wants to get famous and so through out a crazy idea that has no supporting evidence, ie none of the ash deposits fall in line with such crazy estimates but do fall in line with the original estimates
This video sensationalizes the information in the paper by presenting a theoretical upper limit presented in the paper as fact.
Nope, the old theory the estimated size of Largest Eruption of toba is 3,500km³ or 3,100km³ but that power would not match to it's caldera size 100 km and diameters impossible that 100 km caldera eject only 3,500km³ toba is even way bigger than La garita and slightly bigger than Wah wah spring.
@@dralord1307 i do apologise if I misunderstood and am wrong but what I got from the papers is that the Youngest Toba tuff eruption was bigger than the commonly used minimum figure but still a VEI 8.
The paper concludes that the toba eruption was around 3800km3 DRE which means that it's still smaller than the Lund and La Garita eruptions but could have been as big as the mid tertiary eruptions at a maximum possible of 5300km3 DRE which is where the 13,000 figure translates to!?.
@@bobbyspongka375 As far as I am aware there is no "hard evidence" of it. The deposits dont seem to fall in line with such a big eruption. It will be interesting to see if they can find some hard evidence. But that would probably take quite a while yet.
Have you done one on the Taupo super eruption?
Thanks!
The 1991 Pinatubo eruption caused the North American following summer to be cooler. The light from the sun was always filtered and it looked strange.
Thank You.
Geologyhub, i am quite puzzled about this video you uploaded. You uploaded the same video about toba supervolcano a few years back, and you said that the same eruption there is only VEI 8 which is about 3000+ km of tephra that is ejected. Can you give some clarification about that? Btw, im always watching you volcano uploads so i remembered about this toba supervolcano
That video was uploaded before this new evidence was found.
That is just INSANELY huge, I thought the Wah Wah Springs eruption was the largest when it erupted 5900 cubic kilometers of Tephra. But this one produced 13500? Wow!
But mind blowing Wah wah springs size was only 80km. Geology hub the same source.
@@HAIYANE9910 wahwah springs' 30 Mya eruption erupted 5,900 km3 of material
@@thatidiot346 that is total. 5900 km² but if you separate the younger caldera is 4400 km^³ and the older is 5500 km³ i believe. Source - geology hub Wah wah spring Discussion video.
@@HAIYANE9910 the total is 9,300 km3 for those 2 eruptions there were multiple smaller eruptions all about 2,500 - 500 km3
Also the first theory of Toba Largest Eruption that verified only 3,500km³ ejected or the power of that super Eruption, i cant imagine that 100km of the caldera size of toba, but it eject only 3,500km³ considering it size. Also 100km of size is even wat larger than La garita And wah wah springs 93km and 87km of size diameters
Your conclusion is the same as my initial estimation, that this is just the largest known, but definitely not the largest that has ever occured.
hey now, yellowstone had an excellent swarm this week lol, it often does this, just not consistently atleast from as long as ive watched. not a worry, but always fun to see :)
That’s like 12 Taupo eruptions at once. Dang! Omg! That’s just unfathomable.
More likely 10x Yellowstone Lava greek Eruption of 640,000 years ago.
Technically, flood basalt eruptions are generally far larger than Toba's was. However, no such eruption has occurred since humans appeared on this planet, so we can only speculate on how much more devastating they are based on the extinction rates surrounding said events (i.e. the Siberian Traps flood basalts and the Permian-Triassic Extinction [End-Permian Extinction, also referred to as "The Great Dying"]).
Well Flood basalt eruptions happens over the course of thousands of years. Supervolcanic eruptions lasts for anywhere between few hours and few days. It's basically long term effects vs short term effects.
I wouldn't really compare a flood basalt to a super volcano in terms of size simply due to the vast amount of time that it takes for flood basalts to form and the countless times they start up and stop, which would split the eruption up into multiple events. No comparison in my opinion.
Siberians Traps would come on at at least a VEI 11 on amount extruded but it's thought only a small proportion was explosive so wouldn't count. Not that that would be much consolation to anyone around to witness it.
Flood basalts are largely effusive eruptions, and occur over million year time spans. Toba was explosive and occured over a period of hours to days or weeks.
Siberian traps and Toba Supervolcano was completely different class
TOBA THE LEGEND
I can only imagine that bouts of flood volcanism from hundreds of millions of years ago would merely laugh at the VEI index and say "hold my beer". I can only wonder if there were volcanic eruptions so cataclysmic that they shifted the earth on its axis and caused it to remain at its new position every time.
That Blast is no longer theoretical. Now a VEI 9 is now possible.
i absolutely love the content you provide....thankyou......as the earth geys older and cooler are we less likely to see a super volcanic eruption as in it is no longer possible for a pre history style eruption such as yellowstone and now we will have just tonga and mount st helens eruptions
sorry about it being a vague question but i have a million of them but am not clever enough to work out how to structure and ask them lol
I truly wish to witness a VEI9 eruption in my lifetime. There's something about record breaking natural calamities that gets me so excited.
You have fun. I'll be hiding in Colombia on the exact opposite side of the world.
However, I would totally sell tickets to watch Yellowstone blow.
Well, it would likely collapse our fragile supply chains and thus much of human society. Hunter gatherer groups are quite resilient to such disasters, but civilizations have already been brought to their knees by much smaller volcanic eruptions in centuries past. Enjoy your volcanic winter, mass starvation, and lack of any modern comforts, but I'd prefer to just muse about such immense power and enjoy the pretty calderas left behind by such massive eruptions.
@@StuffandThings_ Nerd emoji moment
it will be entertaining for the first hours... but wherever you are in the world, you're not safe from it's consequences.
That eruption almost killed everyone throughout the world based on a theory
This isn't accurate. This study never said that it was a VEI 9, and clearly placing the DRE volume between 2000 and 6000 cubic kilometers, with 3,800 being considered the most reasonable, with an upper limit at 5,300 cubic kilometers(Dense-Rock Equivalent). The eruptions at Yellowstone for instace, do not include the bulk volumes of the eruptions because the ashfall volume is not well studied, and so the 1,000 km3 and 2,500 km3 estimates are based on ignimbrite sheets, and not the total deposit because the ashfall volume is not really known(according to USGS). Another example, the Grey's Landing eruption, is placed at 2,800 cubic kilometers, yet it may actually be as high as 6,700 cubic kilometers based on that study. It's also been put forth that super eruptions happen in phases, like at Yellowstone 2.06 million yers ago with roughly 2,200 cubic kilometers erupting within a couple months, and an extra 300 cubic kilometers erupting years later. While on a human time scale these would be seperate, geologically they're considered part of the same eruption(according to USGS). Toba is one of the very few eruptions that we have an ashfall volume on beause it was so recent. For example, the immense Fish Canyon Tuff at 5,000 km3 and Wah Wah Springs tuff at 6,000 km3(larger than the entire Youngest Toba Tuff volume in DRE) are only ignimbrite volumes and do not include ashfall volume at all.. It's likely that both of these are SIGNIFICANTLY larger than any of the Toba tuffs.
Study referenced: www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2014.00016/full
pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article/9/4/864/132667/The-36-18-Ma-Indian-Peak-Caliente-ignimbrite-field
nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/529132/1/934.pdf
pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp729g/pp729g.pdf
That volcano almost ended the human race. The size of that eruption is absolutely mind blowing
It caused a population bottleneck!
What about Tampomas volcano near buah Dua Sumedang? Can it to explode?
I would like to know more about formation of the Ngorongoro crater in Tanzania and the possibility of future eruptions.
AMAZING 👍🏻
Did you see the videos of the possible large landslide triggered by the earthquake in Turkey?
I read once that the Toba eruption almost caused the extinction of the human race back in the day. It happened about the time we were starting to leave Africa, so we were clearly not atop the food chain yet, and it must have caused such a weather upheaval and so much dying that just a few thousand humans survived. Dunno how likely this is, but there seems to be a genetic chokepoint in human diversity at about that time that hints at something that happened that killed most humans, so modern humans are all descendants of those who survived.
Campi flegrei need to a observe a Clip on its history. Has Geology Hub done a Special?
The scary part is that these VE9's could be hidden below the ocean. But i think scientists would notice such significant ash deposits on nearby landmasses'.
No wonder why at one time it was theorized that Toba's last supereruption caused the near-extinction of humans at approximately the same time period
This completely makes the Wah Wah Springs and La Garita eruptions look minuscule. And them both have been hypothesized VEI 9 eruptions. Dang!
@@vesuviussoloshumans La Garita is only registered as having erupted 5,000km^3, this vid showed that the Toba one was more than double the size of La Garita.
I have been waiting for this. Not for the eruption but for the video of course. 100 km pyroclastic flows are really a kind of it's own. I wonder how intense the cooling effect had been and how long the volcanic winter did last.
For me being a meteorologist this is an interesting question but I would not want to experience it.
Thank you for the video and have a nice day.
🖐👴
The paper linked in this video (Costa Antonio, Smith Victoria C., Macedonio Giovanni, Matthews Naomi E., The magnitude and impact of the Youngest Toba Tuff super-eruption, Frontiers in Earth Science, Volume 2, 2014, www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2014.00016, DOI: 10.3389/feart.2014.00016, ISSN: 2296-6463, CC BY 3.0) suggests 3.5 C cooling with a possible maximum (mid latitude?) region cooling 12 C. This according to the paper may have only lasted for 5-10 years.
@@GeologyHub
Thanks a lot for replying. I'll definitely read the paper
🖐😊👍
Being more used to small explosions (like firecrackers) where there's a bang and we're done these giant volcanic explosions go on and on. They look more like rocket engines. What's happening that they keep going so long? Or is it just that there's no place for more ash to go until the ash produced earlier gets out of the way.
Where would you place the La Gareta eruption? I had read sometime ago that this was considered to be the largest known eruption but with the new information in regard to Toba, this appears to have changed.
It would still be pretty high on the list of most explosive eruptions
Goddamn I didn't know the estimate for Toba had been increased that much.
this video feels like it was sped up, homie im in no hurry
Consider how we have changed in the time between the Toba, Tambura, Krakatoa and Mt. St. Helen's eruptions.
Toba was almost unmeasurable, and happened when some Neanderthals and Denisovans, walking around, probably hadn't met a modern human.
Tambura caused the Year without a Summer. But the world (only modern humans by then) was largely unaware of the eruption itself. It experienced the effects and correlated the eruption and its effects only after time. People rode horses then, and the steam engine was still 20+ years away
Krakatoa erupted, and most of newspapers of the world's great cities reported it the next day. Undersea cables sent messages around the world, but horses still pulled carriages, the transcontinental railroad was about 20 years old and the automobile was about 20 years away.
We watched Mt. St. Helen's give the signals of an eruption as the signals were given. The world was alerted to the eruption right away, and we were treated to video from different perspectives. It caused a change to the flight paths around SeaTac.
It is staggering to think just how monstorous these things are.
Yellowstones magma chamber has the capacity for 48,000 cu. km
Toba can hold over 50,000
Just curious, when showing maps like that which indicate ash fall, is continental drift taken into consideration? Because that man millions of years ago, places like Ethiopia, could’ve been much closer or much farther away than what is reflected in present day maps, theoretically changing the reach of eruptions
How does this event compare to the La Garita eruption (I think that was the old record holder but I can't remember off the top of my head)?
More than two times larger
And just think, this was 2-3 times BIGGER than the Wah Wah Springs super volcanoes biggest eruption, previously thought to be the biggest ever discovered! That's just insane to think about!
Not really, the paper he took this data from got the 13200 km^3 figure from an absolute maximal value of 8600 km^3 dense rock equivalent. If you actually read the paper, they say that the median size is much more likely, 5300 km^3 DRE. This makes it slightly smaller than wah wah springs whose eruption volume of 5900 km^3 is also DRE.
@@vesuviussoloshumans Wah Wah Springs is an old extinct Supervolcano in Utah that erupted 5,500 to 5,900km^3, though some do still hypothesize that La Garita was larger having erupted over that amount. Wah Wah Springs and La Garita and a few other now ancient super volcanoes were a part of the Mid Tertiary Ignimbrite Flair Up.
I bot Toba is larger than Wah wah springs. Imagine that 100km of size rather than 80km the size of wah wah wah springs caldera and 87km of La garita
@@vesuviussoloshumans You’re welcome
a other possible 10,000 cubic km eruption was from flat landing brook in Canada. (12,000 cubic km)
also for some reason i have herd Wah Wah Springs Caldera being a candidate for a VEI9, however it was 5,000-6,000 cubic km
the very disputed Guarapuava -Tamarana-Sarusas eruption , is a other candidate at 8,000+ cubic km
I read on Google, Semilir eruption on the island of Java during the Oligocene - Miocene era was bigger than the eruption of Mount Toba.
What Is YBP Mean,
I never even knew VEI 9 excisted. I'm awestruck! As far as I knew the scale went up to VEI 8. Let's hope this does not occur in our lifetime...
technically it doesnt, its a projection of IF the scale continued at its normal rate.
@@vesuviussoloshumans No we don’t actually, if that we’re to erupt. It’s base minimum it would erupt would be a VEI-5, it’s got power right now that if something in its system goes awry. It could go full on VEI-7 which would kill over 5,000,000 people in just the red zone immediately. You don’t want Campi to go.
Hi there
The Messum crator in Nambia should be interesting. Thanks.
The eruption of the Siberian Traps 250ish million years ago dwarfed the Toba eruption
What happened that produced the Siberian Traps wasn’t a single eruption.
Apparently 5 feet of ash was found in southern part of India and across all of India and todays Pakistan.
Surprisingly human artifacts were found below the layer and after the layer too.
Mind blowing that Indonesia is pretty far from India, But the scale is enormous !!!!
What is the likely hood that Toba still has an active magma chamber and can erupt again?
It does and will. Mt. Sinabung leaches off the same chamber, and has the same hyperactive characteristics as other stratovolcanoes actively venting from supermassive magma chambers.
Then, how tall is actually the Toba before it erupted on VEI 9 scales?
Fun fact: If a volcano were to, in 1 event, erupt the entire mass of earth it would only be a VEI 16. This is of course ridiculous by earth standards, but if some of Io's volcanoes have been permanent then this figure might have gotten to within a few orders of magnitude to that, as it is estimated that Io's volcanoes have turned the moon inside out at least 3 times since its formation around Jupiter.
That Toba system is just downright unreasonable.
I think the The Pagosa Peak Dacite, La Garita, might make for an interesting video -- seeing as it seems sort of intermediate between an effusive flow and a pyroclastic deposit.
@@vesuviussoloshumans - It really depends on how much weight you give to likelihood of occurrence vs magnitude of the consequences for human life.
For example, Toba is capable of a _large_ VEI-8, which would be utterly disastrous, but such an eruption is almost certainly not going to happen in the next 100,000 years.
Mount Saint Helens in the state of Washington, in the USA, is very likely to erupt at a VEI-5 in the next couple hundred years, but the potential impact on human life is relatively minimal.
If you take into consideration magnitude of eruption, potential impact on population centers, and likelihood of an eruption in anyone's lifetime, then I would have to say that Iwo Jima is quite concerning -- a high-end VEI-6, or even a Mount Mazama (Crater Lake, Oregon, USA)-scale VEI-7 seems _possible_ in the lifetimes of people living today, based on a significant degree of uplift that has happened over the last 50 years ... now, it is quite far from major population centers, but there is the potential for a major tsunami that could cause major problems in the giant population centers of Tokyo and Shanghai.
Obviously a VEI-7 at Campi Flegrei would be devastating, but as far as I can tell that's considerably less likely to occur in anyone's lifetime than a big VEI-6+ at Iwo Jima.
Mt Ranier is a bit scary, because it would not take a major eruption to send terrible lahars down drainages where about 80k 0r 100k people are at severe risk. Ranier has more ice on it than all the rest of the volcanoes of the Cascades volcanic arc combined.
The only way I would add a number to the VEI scale is if there was proof that the _behaviour_ of the volcano changed, and Ultra-Plinian no longer suffices to describe what a volcano DOES. Because while tephra is the main proxy that has become conventional in defining the VEI (along with plume height), there is no rule that with each order of magnitude, we must go up one number on the VEI (as it is stated in this very video, the distance between 0 and 1, and 1 and 2 are not one order of magnitude of tephra volume). What plume height and tephra volume stand in for is far more important to me when defining this scale - the *energy* of an eruption (similar to how moment magnitude correlates to the energy released by an earthquake). There have been hypotheses floated around that postulate that with the most energetic eruptions on Earth, a volcano has enough energy stored up (which is released rapidly enough) to send material into low-Earth orbit (like what happens in a severe asteroid impact such as that which killed most of the dinosaurs and started the Cenozoic, allowing for mammals like us to come to dominate life on Earth), causing a lot of HEAVY material (which usually falls nearest to the volcano) to instead rain down on Earth extremely far away from its source. If this could be proven, then sure, put a 9 on that thing, maybe even a 10 too. Otherwise, I think VEI should max out at 8.
I’ve often wondered if there really was a biological bottleneck, but some studies show that many ‘pockets’ of humanoids and other animals were relatively unaffected by the effects of the Toba Tuff eruption.
What is your opinion of this theory?
And thank you for producing the most interesting and informative videos on the Web.
The Genome project has showed us that genetically there is basically an adam and eve. I suggest you look into it. Its quite interesting
Well, from what I'm aware of there is some debate about this, as early humanity seems to have a genetic bottleneck but this isn't conclusive and may or may not have related to Toba. Also of note is that this occurred during an already intense glacial cycle, so while it probably made things worse it wouldn't have had as dramatic of an affect (the colder, dryer atmosphere would also help to limit the sulfate production from all the sulfur released). Humanity has proved remarkably resilient to such disasters, though I must say I certainly wouldn't want to live through the aftermath of this.
@@dralord1307 Yes, but they lived tens of thousands of years apart.
Didn't modern humans leave Africa around 70, 000 or so years ago? If so, then perhaps the aftereffects of the Toba eruption could have had an influence on that. Makes one wonder.
@@vernicethompson4825 Aye thats what makes it interesting to look into.
Darn, truly an apocalyptic eruption, it would be surreal to see a land all covered in a thick layer of ash.
Now we are talking. Need a vei+ any day.
Yep, I'd like to know the latest science of the Taupo timeline, how many events and when. It keeps getting knocked around as the biggest or near biggest in the last 100,000 years.
I'm just completely shattered over Toba
La Garita: I guess I'm debunked
Toba: I guess you are
Every Volcano and Supervolcano: 🤯
Both la Garita and Wah Wah springs are both around 30 million years old so it'd be a reasonable assumption that a large percentage the rock that both eruptions ejected is likely eroded
'Toba is my little brother', says Mons Olympus.
One paper that is credible evidence of a Toba hypereruption (+superupruption) is "The magnitude and impact of the Youngest Toba Tuff super-eruption" By the authors, Antonio Costa, Victoria C.Smith, Giovanni Macedonio and Naomi E.Matthewis in year 2014.
This eruption almost took out the human species. We went from 25 types of Mitochondrial DNA to 5. It is estimated the human population dropped to 10000 breeding pairs.
just the fact that a global-extinction-event level eruption happened so recently in geologic time
Imagine how truley massive the largest eruption at Wah Wah springs was
If that was previously considered the largest eruption to ever occur and then toba was more accurately measured
I wouldnt be surprised if we underestimated the Wah Wah springs eruption by a very long shot