From the Solfatara crater
The Phlegraean Fields supervolcano near Naples, Italy, has recently sparked serious concern among scientists due to alarming increases in gas emissions. Experts from Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology have documented a significant surge in carbon dioxide release from the Solfatara crater, with daily emissions reaching between 4,000 and 5,000 tons. This troubling development has raised questions about whether magma is rising toward the surface, potentially signaling a catastrophic awakening of this geological giant that could have global consequences.
The Phlegraean Fields’ increasing activity has scientists on high alert as they monitor the dramatic rise in gas emissions. Research led by Gianmarco Buono reveals that up to 80% of the carbon dioxide currently escaping from Solfatara crater originates directly from magma beneath the surface. The remaining emissions result from interactions between hot underground fluids and calcite-rich rocks, creating a complex volcanic system that’s becoming increasingly unstable.
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What makes the Phlegraean Fields particularly concerning is its classification as a supervolcano—capable of eruptions exponentially more powerful than conventional volcanoes. The region’s violent history includes a devastating eruption approximately 40,000 years ago that released massive ash clouds and gases into the atmosphere, significantly altering global climate patterns.
If a major eruption were to occur today, the consequences would extend far beyond Italy’s borders. Ash clouds could envelope much of Europe, disrupting air travel, agriculture, and power generation. More critically, volcanic gases would likely trigger worldwide climate disruptions, potentially leading to years of cooler temperatures and altered weather patterns affecting food production globally.
Yes but how will this affect the trans communniny?
Home improvement?
Take that global warming! What do you mean energy needs would go up?
Back in 1980, during my last year of high school, I went on a trip with a number of classmates to the eastern Mediterranean organized and chaperoned by one of our teachers. One of the last stops on the trip was Naples. The original plan was to go to Pompeii, but having arrived on a Monday, the site was closed. Plan B took us to Solfatara, which smelled of rotten eggs and featured many pools of boiling mud. The paths we walked along were roped to keep us from straying off into areas where the thin crust of rock might not have supported our weight, with more boiling mud awaiting the foolish and unwary.
“Super” and “volcano” are not two words you want to see put together. They are a phenomenon best observed from a great distance (like on a planet other than the one you are currently standing on), or from a great time after the fact, (say, a millennium other than the one in which you are currently alive). Here’s why:
A Google search tells me that the last eruption of the “supervolcano” class was 27,000 years ago, in what is now New Zealand. This is more than 25,000 years before humans arrived in New Zealand, more than 22,000 years before humans wrote, 20,000 years before there were cities to evacuate, and more than 10,00 years before there were crops to fail. Something like this is completely unprecedented in the experience of human civilizations. Our closest parallels are the estimated effects of a “nuclear winter.”
A supervolcano erupting in Solfatara would mean the end of Naples (snd much of Italy along with it), and millions of immediate refugees (or victims, depending on the amount of lead time the eruption deigns to provide). Such an eruption would make the one that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum look like a Christmas cracker. This would be Bad.
It would be ironic if, instead of being laid low by the combined might of the cascading, multiple disasters we’re currently hurtling towards, human civilization were to be crippled or snuffed out by something like this, something we could not have possibly caused, or prevented. It wouldn’t be a frog in a pot of water being brought gradually to a boil, but a frog immolated in a pyroclastic cloud. Not karma, or retribution, but plain, dumb luck.
As destructive as this would be to life as a whole, I think it’s possible that this would, in the longish run, be less disruptive biologically than human induced global warming is likely to be. A supervolcano knocking out civilization before it destroys more than it already has (and more than it probably will) might be “better” for the biosphere than letting us continue on our current path. It might just forestall the continuance of the Anthropocene.* Think of it as The Great Reset, 2.0.
*The motion to officially rename our current geological Epoch the Anthropocene was defeated in 2024 at a vote of the International Union of Geological Sciences, but that doesn’t change the scope or degree of human impact on Earth systems. Unless we change our ways, it might not be too long (geologically speaking) before there is no International Union of Anything left to change this decision, assuming the Phlegraean Fields supervolcano doesn’t beat us to the punch.
Why do I find it hilariously/depressingly predictable that the story linked to in the OP contains (at least when I opened it) a further link to the following clickbait:
Do I laugh? Cry? Both? Neither? Who knows, this link could end up being vitally important information to future archaeologists as they try to reconstruct livingroom furnishings when, thousands of years from now, they excavate Naples.
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