Enrichment: Supervolcanoes

Read the passage below. Then use a separate sheet of paper to answer the questions that
follow.

Volcanoes that are extremely large and dangerous are sometimes called “supervolcanoes.”
These volcanoes have enormous calderas, or craters, and vast stores of magma beneath them.
Most of the supervolcanoes around the world lie on or close to a plate boundary. They do not
erupt very often, but when they do, the eruption is extremely explosive. The eruption of a
supervolcano is thousands of times larger than a regular volcanic eruption!

If a supervolcano were to erupt, there would be so much lava and ash released that the
temperature on Earth could drop. The explosive material from the volcano could be spread for
thousands of kilometers. It could even cause damage to the ozone layer by releasing large
amounts of poisonous gases into the atmosphere.

There are several supervolcanoes on Earth that have the possibility to erupt and some that may
never erupt again. Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming sits atop a supervolcano that last
erupted about 640,000 years ago. Nothing can be done to prevent an eruption, but scientists
are studying these volcanoes very closely. They monitor earthquake activity in the area and look
for changes in temperature and pressure that can indicate that an eruption may soon happen.

Analyze and Interpret Data

1. Identify Patterns Although supervolcanoes are found all around the world, what
characteristic do most of them share?

2. Using Models Why would plotting volcanoes on maps be helpful to scientists who are
studying supervolcanoes?

3. Cause and Effect How might a volcanic eruption affect temperatures on Earth?

Enrichment
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