It’s not big news that the media likes to scare the world for its audience. We will not do this, but we will try to analyze what Michael Cassidy and Lara Money, two volcanologists who recently reproduced in a well-known specialized journal, tell us naturallyfixed on the mentioned topic, that is, the possibility of a volcano of large dimensions.

And these people are telling us that we should prepare for a volcanic eruption, a big one, because we haven’t really had anything like that. And the signs are not very good, as volcanic eruptions multiply everywhere. How to cook? This is no longer specified. And rightly so, because you don’t really have that much training. Hiding in the bathroom among tons of toilet paper boxes, cans, yeast packets and oil bottles? It’s not, so don’t run out to empty the supermarkets again! They meant governments and other authorities when they talked about preparation.

And this means the creation of international bodies that will deal with such things. Accordingly, counteract the devastating consequences as much as possible by creating stocks of food and other urgently needed products, by developing plans for international cooperation, investing in specialized research that could help prevent the population in the event of a disaster. I mean there would be a lot to do and nothing has been done yet.

They also say there is a 16.6% chance that a magnitude 7 volcano will erupt this century. Come on, it’s not that bad. It could have been worse. Based on data collected during drilling of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, it appears that a VEI7 volcano occurs approximately once every 625 years. The last one took place about two centuries ago, around 1815, in Indonesia, in Tambora. VEI8, the largest possible, occurs about once every 14,300. We’re not doing well here, because the last one happened about 26,500 years ago, around New Zealand.

By the way, let’s explain what happens with these VEIs. The Volcanic Explosivity Index is called a scale for a reason, and it measures the intensity of a volcano. VEI 7 is the most powerful volcanic eruption. When we talk about VEI 8, the last line in the mentioned scale, we are already talking about supervolcanoes. The difference between a volcano and a supervolcano is determined not only by intensity, but also by the amount of incandescent material that it emits. In a supervolcano, we are talking about at least 1000 cubic kilometers.

For comparison, the previously mentioned Tambora volcano threw out somewhere around 200 cubic kilometers. That’s it, in case you didn’t know.

A supervolcano manifests itself differently than a volcano

In the same vein, a supervolcano manifests itself differently than a volcano. That is, magma does not come out through the volcanic cone, a puff and that’s it! In such a situation, magma that accumulates at considerable depths for tens of thousands of years, or even millions, makes its way to the surface, so to speak, through several “mouths”. They begin to coalesce, and the cake of soil that remains in the middle either sinks, releasing huge amounts of magma and other stuff, or explodes in a colossal explosion. The huge crater that forms is called a caldera.

Also, as a dose of general culture, the most powerful supervolcano in the history of complex life on Earth occurred at the end of the Permian period, about 252 million years ago. It erupted continuously for somewhere between 200,000 and one million years, covered 7 million square kilometers and was the most destructive event in the last 500 million years. Almost 80% of life forms on Earth then disappeared, and the total extinction of life was more likely than ever before.

Don’t wait, it’s not like that now! In any case, if it comes, it comes and that’s it, there’s not much we can do. How many bottles of oil to take with you and how many boxes of toilet paper to last a million years? And one more thing: disasters of this kind happen extremely rarely. In this case, according to the authors of the Nature study, we should be wary of VEI type 7.

The year 1815 was called “the year without a summer”, the harvests suffered greatly, and this also resulted in famine, epidemics and other disasters.

For comparison, we have the Tambora case, which I have been mentioning all along. Then the global temperature dropped by one degree Celsius, the year 1815 was called “the year without a summer”, crops around the world were seriously affected, and this also led to famine, epidemics and other misfortunes. Today, even if much had changed since 1815, things would not be better, especially since there is no plan to counter the consequences of such a phenomenon. If only the war in Ukraine had affected the world’s population as we know it, there is no point in saying what the eruption of VEI 7 would mean.

The two authors also say that we missed the ball a bit earlier in the year with the eruption of the Tonga volcano, or rather the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haapai volcano. Fortunately, the eruption, classified as VEI 5, lasted only 11 hours. If it lasted longer, it would not be good at all. The consequences for the global climate and food resources would be extremely serious, and the consequences would be even greater.

Overall, as I mentioned, the statistics tell us that the chances are 16.6%. There’s no need to panic, but it’s good to be careful. Not us, because we have nothing to do, but those who have the authority to make decisions.