American geologists have discovered that Mount Cleveland in Alaska (USA) may be part of a dangerous new supervolcano, which also includes the Four Mountain Islands, reports Science Alert.
Researchers claim that the volcanoes Cleveland, Carlisle, Herbert, Cagamil, Tana and Uliaga are the summits of one giant magma chamber. The hidden caldera is indicated by features such as the composition of the gases emitted by Mount Cleveland and the location of the outlets. If the hypothesis of scientists turns out to be true, then the entire Aleutian island arc, stretching from Alaska to Kamchatka, may be evidence of the existence of a supervolcano in size comparable to the Yellowstone caldera.
Mount Cleveland has erupted more than 20 times in the past two centuries. Some eruptions were large-scale: for example, in 1944, the volcano ranked third in terms of VEI activity (an eruption of six points can cause a global cooling). According to scientists, the eruption of the entire supervolcano will reach a force of eight points, which will change the global climate for many years.