Name:   MAJ USA RET - Subject:   If Yellowstone did blow Date:   11/25/2018 7:25:30 PM

“If the worst-case scenario did happen, it wouldn’t be a pretty day – for decades – in the USA.

“The eruption of Mount St. Helens would be a small firecracker compared to one of the major caldera eruptions of Yellowstone.

“Millions of people would die, in the immediate explosion and in its aftereffects. Ash would fall over much of the country, grinding air traffic to a halt. Water would be contaminated, livestock would die, crops would fail and the country’s heartland would be unfarmable for years. The (global) climate would change because ash would filter out the sun’s powerful rays, and it would be several years or even decades before it could bounce back.

“During Yellowstone's supereruption about 631,000 years ago, ash covered North Dakota through most of Texas and from Southern California through most of Missouri and Arkansas.

“But a massive eruption at Yellowstone – or another from one of the other dozen or so supervolcanoes in the world – would still not be the mass-extinction-level event some fear. ‘Humanity would survive, but it would not be a fun time.’

“Humanity has actually done just that – we were around for two such eruptions in the past 100,000 years, both even larger than the last big one at Yellowstone.

“And we're obviously still here now. I'm not saying it would be easy, but there's some evidence to suggest that our cave people ancestors did OK,”

- Katharine Lackey, USA TODAY, Aug. 21, 2018