Well, it's possible that a supervolcano could erupt in my lifetime (which clearly most of my span has passed) or this century.
But either is really unlikely.
This Washington Post article breaks it down.
What are supervolcanoes and should we really be worried about them?
"Scientists can’t see what is stirring below the surface of Campi Flegrei with their naked eyes, but Kilburn said the recent activity could be underground molten rock and fluids readjusting themselves. Those movements appear as earthquakes on the surface.I thought that was quite informative. The summary of the threat is this: once a supervolcano has erupted, there's no reason to think that it's going to do it again.
“This, by itself, doesn’t mean there’s going to be an eruption,” Kilburn said. The volcano has shown land deformations and earthquakes in the past, but eruptions didn’t follow. But because the activity is stirring after a long time, “it’s natural just to be a little bit concerned that this might be happening.”
Out of more than 1,000 known volcanoes in the world, only about 20 are supposedly supervolcanoes. Technically, they are defined as those that register the highest on the volcanic explosivity index, which runs from V0 (nonexplosive) to V8 (colossal eruptions). Such a super eruption ejects a volume of around 1,000-cubic kilometers or more — about a thousand times bigger than Mount St. Helens (V5), which caused mudslides, fires, floods and more than 50 deaths in 1980."
It might. But the much higher probability is that it won't.
However, any eruption in the Campi Flegrei, or Vesuvius (and that WILL happen again, I'm sure) will make the news. And that could happen while I'm still alive.
CNN sure thinks it could.
And if Monte Nuovo is in your backyard, you have to be aware it could happen again. Feel free to pan around in the image below.
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