If Yellowstone Erupted, How Boned Would North Dakota Be?

With the recent hydrothermal explosion in Yellowstone National Park that damaged a boardwalk and sent debris several stories into the air Tuesday morning in the Biscuit Basin area northwest of Old Faithful, we thought we would revisit our article that poses an interesting yet frightful question.

North Dakota itself has no volcanoes that it can claim, not even extinct ones.  However, our neighbors to the west claim a sleeping monster is waiting to blow.

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According to How Stuff Works: the molten rock beneath the surface of the earth would melt if the Yellowstone supervolcano erupted. This process would be initiated by heat coming from the planet's core. A mixture of rocks, vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases would result from that.

Over thousands of years, as the mixture accumulated and climbed, the pressure finally forced the earth upward into the shape of a dome and produced fissures around the edges. The dissolved gases would burst as the pressure was released via the fractures, quickly emptying the magma across the park.

Up to 90,000 people might be killed instantly by the eruption, which would involve more than just hazardous lava flows and spread a 10-foot coating of molten ash up to 1,000 miles away.

That is enough to cover all of North Dakota and about 80% of Minnesota as well.

It would undoubtedly be difficult for rescuers to enter. Much like when a much smaller volcano erupted in Iceland in 2010, the ash would seal off all points of entry from the ground, and the spread of ash and gases into the atmosphere would stop most aviation movement.

The "nuclear winter" that some experts claim could engulf the United States and other parts of the planet in the event that Yellowstone blew is equally terrifying. The volcano would spew sulfurous gases into the sky, which would then combine with the planet's water vapor.

So in summary, nothing good.