Revealing the next catastrophic threat to our world

The Daily Mail newspaper, on the 23rd November 2008, has an article about a new TV program that looks at how the earth was formed through many different catastrophes how they are likely to return.

Earth has been subjected to some apocalyptic events in its 4.5billion-year history. Volcanoes, meteors, fire and ice have almost obliterated all life and threatened the very existence of the planet itself.

Now, a new Channel 4 programme, Catastrophe, looks at the science behind the destruction and reveals the threat our planet could still be under.

A TOXIC CLOUD OVER BRITAIN

In 1783 in Laki, Iceland, a volcanic eruption occurred, spewing out gas and lava for eight months and covering an area of 200sq miles in molten rock.

The eruption sent a huge toxic cloud across Western Europe - it was the greatest natural disaster to hit modern Britain, with acid rain, smog and extreme weather continuing over the country for months.

Laki’s killer cloud took the lives of an estimated 23,000 British men and women. And it could happen again - Iceland has 18 volcanoes that have been active in recent centuries, the greatest concentration anywhere on the planet.

A SUPERVOLCANO ERUPTION

Scientists believe the next most likely supervolcano eruption will be at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, US.

Underneath the park is a vast chamber of molten lava beneath the Earth’s crust - 25km wide by 50km long and 8km deep. That’s 500 times the size of the City of London.

The Yellowstone caldera - a cauldron-like volcanic feature formed by a collapse of land after a volcano has erupted - has been rising three inches every year since 2004. Scientists believe this is a sign of an impending eruption.

The last big eruption at Yellowstone was 640,000 years ago. Similar eruptions have happened on a fairly regular basis over the past 2million years, so it could be said that the next is overdue.