How Long You'd Last at Every Yellowstone Eruption

Yellowstone has blown itself apart three times, and it never stopped moving. Drop yourself in at six stops: a steam blast in a geyser basin, the 1959 earthquake night, the last lava flows, the Lava Creek and Huckleberry Ridge super-eruptions, and a watering hole 900 miles away in Nebraska. At each one we give a verdict: how long would you last? Seconds, minutes, days, hours… or weeks. Which stop would get you first? Tell us in the comments. 0:00 Intro 0:47 Stop 1 — The Steam 3:15 Stop 2 — The Shaking 5:22 Stop 3 — The Lava 7:36 Stop 4 — Lava Creek 9:35 Stop 5 — Huckleberry Ridge 11:36 Stop 6 — Ashfall #yellowstone #supervolcano #volcano #eruption #ashfall #geology #survival #documentary #usgs #nationalpark Sources: USGS Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (eruption ages and volumes, Biscuit Basin 2024 explosion, 1959 Hebgen Lake M7.3 earthquake, yearly odds of a super-eruption); Maguire et al., Science (2022), magma reservoir melt fraction; National Park Service (Yellowstone, Ashfall Fossil Beds history); University of Nebraska State Museum (Ashfall Fossil Beds). Note: Some eruption scenes use footage of other volcanoes (Mount St. Helens 1980, Kīlauea in Hawaii, Cordón Caulle in Chile, Redoubt in Alaska, Pinatubo 1991, Mayon 1984, Sinabung, Hunga Tonga) for illustration, because no one has ever filmed a Yellowstone eruption. Each of these shots is labeled on screen. Image and footage credits: USGS (Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Hawaiian Volcano Observatory) — public domain National Park Service (Yellowstone, Old Faithful, caldera and geologic maps; Lava Creek Tuff photos by Jim Peaco and Jacob W. Frank) — public domain USGS / C.G. Newhall (Mayon pyroclastic flows, 1984) — public domain USDA Forest Service ("A Force of Nature", Earthquake Lake Visitor Center; archival footage UCLA Film & TV Archive, LIFE) NASA / Operation IceBridge (NASA SVS), NASA Goddard (Hunga Tonga), NASA Blue Marble maps — public domain USGS Alaska Volcano Observatory (Redoubt) — public domain; Tonga Ministry of Lands, Survey & Natural Resources footage via NASA BBC News (Cordón Caulle eruption, Chile) British Pathé / Telenews (1959 earthquake newsreel) GovPH, Philippine Government (Pinatubo 1991) William Henry Jackson (1871), F. Jay Haynes (1886, Rijksmuseum), Charles R. Knight (Teleoceras) — public domain Ammodramus, Metrodyne (Wikimedia Commons) — CC0 / public domain James St. John, Carl Malamud, Larry Koester — CC BY 2.0 Acroterion, Dschwen, Betty Wills — CC BY-SA 4.0 Daniel Mayer — CC BY-SA 3.0 Height comparison photo: Tudor Washington Collins, Auckland Museum — CC BY 4.0 Music (YouTube Audio Library): "The Road To Mordor" — Ezra Lipp; "Deified" — The Grey Room & Density & Time; "Apocalyptic Echoes" and "Cinematic Symphony of Steel" — Jimena Contreras; "Horizons" and "Fire In The Sky" — Alex Jones & Xander Jones; "Realization" — Hanu Dixit