Saturday Science: Boy, When This One Blows. . . !

We all knew, of course, that Yellowstone National Park is sitting on a huge pool or magma, which is probably going to explode some day. Well, it turns out it's much bigger than we thought:

The supervolcano that lies beneath Yellowstone National Park in the US is far larger than was previously thought, scientists report.

A study shows that the magma chamber is about 2.5 times bigger than earlier estimates suggested.

A team found the cavern stretches for more than 90km (55 miles) and contains 200-600 cubic km of molten rock.

And what if it blows tomorrow? Well, forget global warming:

If the Yellowstone supervolcano were to blow today, the consequences would be catastrophic.

The last major eruption, which occurred 640,000 years ago, sent ash across the whole of North America, affecting the planet’s climate.

Think "nuclear winter." The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 led to the northern hemisphere suffering the "year without a summer" -- global temperatures fell on average 1.2 degrees C (2.2 Farenheit) and took five years to return to normal.