Could Earth’s next massive volcanic eruption happen closer to home than you might think? Yellowstone National Park sits on top of a reservoir of hot magma known as the Yellowstone hotspot and is home to a supervolcano that last erupted 664,000 years ago. While scientists see no indication that we’re due for an eruption of this supervolcano anytime soon, there is no guarantee — and they do have some ideas about what might happen if an eruption were to transpire.
In this animated short, Madison Lloyd explores how Yellowstone’s calderas form — as well as the potential impacts of such an eruption to life as we know it.
Madison Lloyd ’23 is a journalism student in the Reynolds School of Journalism and produced this explainer as part of the Motion Graphics class taught by Jordan Buxton.
