00:00Our planet's biggest and meanest supervolcanoes are waking up.
00:05When they erupt, you'll surely notice it, even if you live thousands of miles away from the epicenter.
00:10Scientists are worried we might not have enough time to prepare and deal with the consequences of a supereruption.
00:18There's some volcanic activity close to the Italian city of Naples.
00:22And no, it has nothing to do with the famous Mount Vesuvius, but with another volcano.
00:27This one is harder to see, as it doesn't have a tall peak like Vesuvius.
00:32But don't let this bad guy trick you.
00:34It could be way more dangerous than its giant neighbor.
00:37It does have a huge crater that's about 8 miles wide.
00:41This volcano is called Campi Flegre, and it's actually one of the largest volcanoes in Europe, sitting under the town of Pozwoli.
00:49So, Campi Flegre erupted 39,000 years ago, with a bang so massive it spread ash across the whole Mediterranean region.
00:56It also caused the temperature to drop by over 16 degrees Fahrenheit across Eastern Europe.
01:02It was the biggest volcanic eruption in Europe in 200,000 years.
01:07Since then, Campi Flegre has had smaller eruptions, and the last one happened in 1538.
01:13Now the area is full of small craters, hot springs, and bubbling pools.
01:18And they're all proof that this volcano is still very much alive and brewing something.
01:23Since the early 2000s, the ground in the giant crater and the town nearby have been slowly rising by about 1 to 1.5 inches every year.
01:32There were at least 150 earthquakes that shook this supervolcano lately.
01:38In May 2024, there was a 4.4 magnitude in the area, the biggest in the last 40 years.
01:44Residents had to leave their homes and camp outside, fearing there would be more earthquakes.
01:48No one knows how Campi Flegre is going to behave in the following months or years.
01:53But the authorities are organizing evacuation exercises to prepare the population just in case.
01:59The Italian volcano looks like an innocent kitten compared to the real giants, like Yellowstone.
02:07For a volcano to deserve the title of a super one, it must be able to produce catastrophic-scale eruptions
02:13and eject huge amounts of magma, ash, and volcanic gases.
02:17The Yellowstone giant meets these criteria.
02:21Even though it moves from time to time, the Yellowstone supervolcano hasn't erupted for 640,000 years.
02:27But when it does wake up, it might erupt with incredible power.
02:32About the same amount as 10 huge nuclear power stations can produce.
02:37Under the ground, beneath Yellowstone, there's a superhot area full of molten rock called magma.
02:43As more magma moves into a big space called a magma chamber, the ground above starts to swell or rise.
02:50When the magma cools down, the ground falls.
02:52Between 2004 and 2009, the ground at Yellowstone rose by almost 10 inches, but then it started to slowly go back down in 2010.
03:04Scientists aren't sure if it's going to erupt anytime soon.
03:07There's also another big volcano called Long Valley in California that has been active since 1980, and it can be a really big threat.
03:16Scientists studying this supervolcano found out that before its biggest eruption, 760,000 years ago, the buildup may have taken less than a year.
03:26Now, that's bad news, because a supervolcano eruption can have a huge effect on the world, like the eruption of the Toba volcano in Sumatra around 74,000 years ago.
03:38It became the biggest volcanic eruption the Earth had seen in 28 million years.
03:43It covered parts of Indonesia, India, and the Indian Ocean with a thick layer of volcanic debris, almost like a 6-inch blanket.
03:52The amount of rock it spewed out was like stacking nearly 3 million Empire State Buildings.
03:57The giant crater it left behind can still be seen from space.
04:01All the ash and gases shot up into the air and blocked some of the sunlight.
04:05It caused a volcanic winter that lasted about 6 to 10 years.
04:09Some scientists think this eruption might have even affected early humans.
04:14Around the time Toba erupted, the human population took a sharp dip, and there were far fewer people.
04:20Some say this is why all modern humans come from a small group of survivors.
04:24According to the Toba Catastrophe Theory, most early humans in Europe and Asia didn't survive the cold and harsh climate after the eruption.
04:32But a lucky group lived through all that in Africa.
04:35Not all scientists agree with this idea, and some archaeological and climate records show a different story.
04:43Another volcano that changed the world in a big way was Mount Tambora in 1815.
04:49The next year went down in history as the year without a summer.
04:53It was cold and rainy, and there was snow and frost even in the middle of summer, especially in Europe and North America.
05:00This happened because the volcano sent out a lot of sulfur dioxide into the sky, which spread all over the world and made the planet colder.
05:09When Tambora erupted, it caused huge tsunamis that smashed homes and took the lives of around 10,000 people.
05:16Afterward, about 80,000 more people passed away because of the consequences the eruption it caused in the world.
05:22The cold weather ruined crops, so food became really expensive.
05:26And because horses were the main way people traveled, the cost of oats that they ate went way up, too.
05:33Some people even think this led to the invention of the bicycle in 1817 as a new way to get around.
05:39The eruption made the earth colder for about three years.
05:42Now, even though the Tambora eruption was so powerful, Krakatoa, another volcano in Indonesia, stole the show when it erupted in 1883.
05:53It was just easier to spread information about it through telegrams and photos.
05:57Its final blast was the loudest recorded sound in history, and people could hear it on 10% of the entire earth's surface.
06:04The eruption started a tsunami, with waves about half as tall as the Statue of Liberty.
06:10Now, if we only had 12 months to prepare for a supervolcano eruption, it would be really hard to store enough food and get ready.
06:19But don't panic just yet.
06:21Supervolcano eruptions are very rare, and the last one happened 26,500 years ago in New Zealand.
06:29Scientists think that a supereruption happens once every 100,000 years on average.
06:34But the sad part here is that the earth doesn't follow a perfect timeline.
06:38There could be clusters of supereruptions with shorter gaps between them and then longer quiet periods.
06:45Since there have already been two supereruptions in the last 100,000 years, there's always a chance one could happen again sooner than we expect.
06:53Plus, although there are places like Yellowstone and Long Valley, where we expect volcanoes to erupt, there are less obvious possible hotspots.
07:04In Chile, there's a volcano called Laguna del Maule that has erupted in the past and left behind a huge crater.
07:11Over the last 20 years, the ground there has been swelling really fast, rising up to almost 1 foot a year.
07:17Some people are worried that this could be a sign of a big eruption coming.
07:22But scientists say there's not enough magma yet to cause a supereruption.
07:26In Bolivia, the Juturanku volcano is also acting up.
07:31It's part of a group of volcanoes that have caused supereruptions in the past.
07:35Since the 1960s, the ground around Juturanku has been lifting.
07:39But the last eruption was 250,000 years ago.
07:43Even though the magma might be rising, it's not enough to worry about just yet.
07:48The chances of a supereruption happening during our lifetime are 1 in 1,400, which is pretty low, so you don't need to worry too much.
07:58But just like someone wins the lottery every week with very small chances, a supereruption could happen sometime in the future.
08:05And when it does, we'll need to be prepared.
08:08That's it for today.
08:10So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
08:15Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side!
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