Researchers informed that an eruption of the volcano beneath Yellowstone National Park might not happen in centuries to come. However, they have created an interesting computer simulation to estimate the damage from the eruption, in case it happens.

Larry Mastin, geologist with the United States Geological Survey and the lead author, said the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano will spew at least a meter of ash, covering most of the Rocky Mountains. Besides, the West and East coasts of the United States would be covered by at least a few millimeters of ash.

An eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera is unlikely to take place, but if it happens it would produce ash in a large quantity and would cause massive disruptions on Earth, especially North America. Changes in global climate would also be caused in addition to ash. Researchers recently tried to understand the consequences of the eruption at the 1,500 square mile area with the help of a modeling technique called Ash3D.

According to Larry Mastin, a USGS hydrologist, any eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera would mean two or three orders of magnitude more ash than what has been observed till date.

It was 26,500 years ago when the most recent super volcano eruption took place on the North Island in New Zealand. The most recent eruption in Yellowstone, though a mild one, happened 70,000 years ago and the ones that were more massive occurred 640,000, 1.3 million and 2.1 million years ago.

Mastin and his colleague, Alexa Van Eaton, also deciphered how the heat and particles from a big eruption would create wind. They found that such winds would rise miles above the Earth to the edge of the stratosphere and spread evenly as an umbrella cloud after negating the prevailing winds of the jet stream.