The end of humanity? What would happen if the Yellowstone supervolcano erupted now

Filed by Dr. Vera Quark

A Yellowstone super-eruption would begin not with a sudden surprise, but with weeks of increasingly alarming warning signs such as migrating earthquake swarms, rapid ground uplift, changing geysers, and rising volcanic gases. In a worst-case scenario, those signals could culminate in a VEI 8 eruption that blasts ash tens of kilometers into the atmosphere, unleashes deadly pyroclastic flows, buries parts of the western United States in ash, and cripples transportation, electricity, water systems,