Scientists find it extremely challenging to try and predict when a supervolcano might erupt again due to the sheer diversity of events that have gone before.
A team writing in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment says there is not a single model which can describe how these catastrophic events play out, making it extremely difficult to determine how supervolcanoes may erupt in the future.
Supervolcanoes aer defined as a volcano that has had at least on eruption of magnitude 8, the highest-ranking on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, or VEI, meaning it has released more than 1000 cubic kilometers of material.
These supereruptions represent the most catastrophic of events caused by a natural hazard, resulting in widespread ash-fall blankets and ground-hugging pyroclastic flows, which can be hundreds of meters thick, covering thousands to tens of thousands of square kilometers.
These events leave huge craters in the ground called Calderas due to the collapse of the Earth’s surface through removal of such large volumes of magma.
These events are also extremely rare, occurring roughly every 100,000 years. To date, there are no unique explanations fo the timings, mechanisms and extreme volumes of supervolcanoes.
The team studied evidence from 13 supereruptions that occurred over the last two million years.
The events ranged from the most recent eruption at the Taupo volcano in New Zealand, over 24,000 years ago, to the oldest at Yellowstone roughly two million years ago.
Data analysis revealed no single, unified model that described how each of the 13 events played out and showed that the supereruptions could start mildly over weeks to months or go into vigorous activity immediately. Individual supereruptions could last periods of days to weeks, or be prolonged over decades.
https://scitechdaily.com/more-research-needed-to-determine-tipping-point-of-supervolcanoes/