Washington and Oregon: Ancient Homes of Monster Volcanoes?

On October 11th, researchers at Washington State University uncovered an extraordinary fact about the Pacific Southwest, also known as Washington State and Oregon.

Millions of years ago, these big states were home to several volcanoes, which broke the record for largest eruptions known to mankind.

These eruptions began millions of years ago, ejecting boiling sulfuric acid, blocking the sun and lowering the temperatures of the earth. Unsurprisingly, they caused drastic changes in the weather, contributing to various storms of acid rains and other defects such as global warming.

Researchers from Washington State University have put the aftermath of these eruptions into context:

“The floods put out between 242 and 305 billion tons of sulfur dioxide. That’s more than 4,000 times the output of the 1815 Mount Tambora eruption in present-day Indonesia. And the volume of gas emitted from the Wapshilla Ridge lavas is equivalent to a Tambora eruption every day for 11 to 16 years.”

Not only are we being informed about the location of the largest eruptions ever documented, we are also becoming aware of the possible epidemic that sulfur dioxide continues to have on our environment. Let’s not forget that sulfur dioxide is still formed by burning fossil fuels such as coal, crude oils, and natural gases. We continuously burn fossil fuels everyday with just a turn of a key and the push of a gas pedal. The earth’s global, average temperature is rising as we speak, and humans are the only ones who can turn that harsh reality around.

Today’s society would not be able to withstand an eruption of the scale of those that used to ravage Washington and Oregon, so we should start thinking about how to prevent these chemicals from entering our atmosphere. If this much sulfur dioxide is accumulating throughout our world, how long do we have until the earth repays us for our careless actions? All we know is that it is only a matter of time: our Earth can only withstand so much shameless exploitation.