 Heat rises from under Yellowstone Park |
By environment correspondent Alex Kirby
The threat of climate change caused by human activity could turn out to be a minor problem by comparison with a scarcely acknowledged natural hazard.
Geologists say there is a real risk that sooner or later a supervolcano will erupt with devastating force, sending temperatures plunging on a hemispheric or even global scale.
A report by the BBC Two programme Horizon on one supervolcano, at Yellowstone national park in the US, says it is overdue for an eruption.
Yellowstone has gone off roughly once every 600,000 years. Its last eruption was 640,000 years ago.
Professor Bill McGuire, of the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre at University College, London, told BBC News Online: "We're getting ready for another eruption, unless the system has blown itself out.
"But the ground surface deformation and other signs measured by satellite suggest it's still active, and on the move."
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