• Question: whats the most powerful volcano in the world ?

    Asked by super Au to Kate on 17 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by #supercalafragerlisticexpealidoshous.
    • Photo: Kate Dobson

      Kate Dobson answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      Volcanoes are ranked on their explosivity, and the Volcanic Explosivity Index scale goes from 0 up, with each number on the scale being roughly 10 x larger than the one before. The largest eruptions ever occurred at about 25 million years ago, and both erupted about 5000 cubic kilometers (that’s 5000 x 1km cubes) 1,250,000,000,000 x the volume of Wembley Stadium in a single eruption. Super volcanoes have volumes greater than 1000 cubic km.

      The last Yellowstone eruption at about 640,000 years ago had a VEI index of 8) and erupted over 1000 cubic kilometers. It has estimated that this eruption probably had the equivalent force of 1,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs exploding every second it was going.

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