Super volcanoes are a potential threat that would dwarf anything our civilization has ever faced. While the world frets over global warming, and movies are made about asteroids hitting the Earth, an eruption of a super volcano has barely been faced. But, then again, even if such were to occur there is likely nothing that we could do about it either in the way of prevention or preparation.

The difference between a super volcano and your common, everyday volcano is one of scale. Most commonly known volcanoes have magma chambers, underground pools of molten rock, around .01 cubic kilometers. Super volcanoes, on the other hand, can have magma chambers many times that amount, as much as 1 cubic kilometer or more. While the term super volcano has no scientific meaning at this time there are a number of regions of the Earth that have the characteristics to merit the use of the term, and geological and paleontological evidence of prehistoric eruptions justify it's use. The modern regions that may qualify as super volcanoes include Yellowstone in the Northwestern United States, Lake Taupo in New Zealand and Lake Toba in Indonesia.

The eruption of the Tambora Volcano in Indonesia, climaxing in 1815, was estimated to have caused as many as 82,000 deaths. Around 12,000 of those deaths were caused directly by the eruption while the majority were caused by climate change from the massive clouds of gas and dust introduced into the atmosphere. The year 1816 was known as the "Year Without Summer" resulting in extensive crop failures and starvation. The only worse death toll from a volcano in recorded history was due to the eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in Columbia in 1985. And the reason for that enormous death toll was due to the sudden destruction of a city of 28,000 people, not due to climate effects.

The eruption of Tambora ejected 100 cubic kilometers of lava and ash. When the magma chamber was emptied it resulted in a caldera, or collapse crater, about six kilometers in diameter. In comparison, the Yellowstone Caldera in the United States is approximately sixty kilometers in diameter.

With a magma chamber estimated to be 15,000 cubic kilometers, Yellowstone National Park is over an enormous super volcano. This could result in an eruption as much as one million times more devastating than the eruption of Tambora.

Geologic evidence indicates that Yellowstone last erupted six hundred thousand years ago and archaeological and anthropological evidence

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