Brigham Young researchers analyzed evidence of a recently discovered super volcano in Utah that erupted 25-30 million years ago and preserved a host of species not usually associated with the northwest United States, including camels, rhinoceroses, and palm trees, Science World News reported.
The eruption -- more than 5,000 times as powerful as Mt. Saint Helen's in 1980 -- expelled 5,500 cubic kilometers of magma over the course of one prehistoric week, according to the press release.
"In southern Utah, deposits from this single eruption are 13,000 feet thick," said Eric Christiansen, the lead author for the BYU study (there were several studies). "Imagine the devastation - it would have been catastrophic to anything living within hundreds of miles."
Though super volcanoes are capable of the most powerful, far-reaching eruptions (thus the adjective, "super"), they are much less physically conspicuous than more traditionally-sculpted volcanoes and their "high cones," according to Christiansen.
"Supervolcanoes as we've seen are some of earth's largest volcanic edifices, and yet they don't stand as high cones," said Christiansen. "At the heart of a supervolcano instead, is a large collapse."
The aftermath of Christiansen's super volcano extended from the Wah Wah Valley in central Utah north to Central Nevada and south towards Cedar City. Parts of the explosing even reached Nebraska. Few living things survived in its wake.
The volcano's geographical reach and eventual degradation were the primary reasons researchers took several years to analyze its eruptive course.
"The ravages of erosion and later deformation have largely erased them from the landscape, but our careful work has revealed their details," said Christiansen. "The sheer magnitude of this required years of work and involvement of dozens of students in putting this story together."
A super volcano approximately the size of Wah Wah Valley's exists in Yellowstone National Park, according to the press release.
