The Four Mountains Fire Islands in Alaska (USA) may be just part of a giant crater, the power of which exceeds the supervolcano St. Helens once covered 11 US states with ashes.
In an interview with National Geographic, Dr. John Power, a geophysicist at the US Geological Survey and the Alaska Volcano Observatory, called the new volcano a “giant”. In Alaska there is an archipelago named Aleutian , also known as “Four Mountains”. Long ago, this archipelago was thought to be formed by 4 independent volcanoes, including 6 peaks: Herert, Carlisle, Cleverland, Tana, Uliaga and Kagamil. But Dr. Power and his colleagues have found evidence that these are just … the vents of an incredibly large supervolcano.
Four Mountains Islands in Alaska – (Photo: NASA).
Archaeological results of the area around the archipelago using seismometers and chemical analysis tools have yielded evidence of an ancient giant eruption, a piece that matches the suspicious semicircular shape of the island. volcanic islands.
This crater must be at least 19.3km in diameter, located hundreds of meters below the surface of this icy sea. It was the crater’s ancient formation that created a series of faults through which magma leaked to the surface. Those are the small volcanoes we are seeing.
Contrasting with some gravity anomalies recorded from satellite data, strange survey results of depth discovered since World War II, they have reconstructed a map of the sea floor showing some curved ridge-like structure and a depression more than 100m deep may be part of a crater.
According to Sci-News, scientists encountered many difficulties when surveying the area because this ghostly supervolcano is located too deep on the seabed. But the evidence was enough to prove its existence. The worry is that the volcanoes that make up the Four Mountains are still active, meaning the supervolcano itself is not “dead”.
If it erupts, it will be the “volcanic king” of modern times, a force far beyond the 1980 St. Helens eruption that leveled hundreds of square kilometers of land, blanketing 11 states with ash in 11 US states. . However, in terms of Earth’s history, this new supervolcano is only 1/10 of the strength of the Yellowstones eruption 640,000 years ago.
“It has the potential to change the world, but it’s not the end of the world,” said volcanologist Adam Kent of Oregon State University (USA).