The Supervolcano in Arizona; The Silver Creek Caldera

Imagine 1,000 Mount Saint Helens volcanoes erupting simultaneously right next to each other, with each volcano erupting on the same order of magnitude as the famous 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens. Although this figure serves as a minimum, this is exactly what occurred 18.8 million years ago east of Kingman and Oatman Arizona 18.8 million years ago. This supervolcano formed the Silver Creek Caldera and deposited thick layers of volcanic ash and rock across a vast area of California, Nevada, and Arizona. Note: Much of the information in this video’s description such as the size of the eruption, when it occurred, source caldera, and area the eruption covered is sourced from a paper by: Roche, O. et al. Slow-moving and far-travelled dense pyroclastic flows during the Peach Spring super-eruption. Nat. Commun. 7:10890 doi: (2016). CC BY 4.0. Thumbnail Photo Credit: Central photo of a volcano erupting is a frame grab/screenshot from a video (Filmed by U.S. Geological Survey