Question

If a super volcano erupted such as the one in the United States, would the human race survive?

Yes humanity would certainly survive. A “supervolcano” eruption from the Yellowstone Caldera would do great physical and economic damage to the United States and Canada (perhaps killing tens of millions of people, primarily from ash fall), but it would not have much direct effect in the rest of the world. Yellowstone has erupted twice in the past 2 million years, and there is no indication of a mass extinction, even in North America. The fictional TV film “Supervolcano” presents a reasonably accurate picture of what might happen — much better than most films involving science. Roughly speaking, a supervolcano eruption would have consequences similar to the impact of a mile-wide asteroid. These are probably the most severe natural disasters that we might expect to be faced with sometime in the next million years.

David Morrison
NAI Senior Scientist
April 3, 2009