Scientists model catastrophic Yellowstone eruption scenario with billions of deaths

Beneath the geysers and thermal pools of Yellowstone National Park lies a geological force that has reshaped the planet before and could again. Scientists have now translated that ancient power into modern human terms, modeling a hypothetical supervolcano eruption that would claim approximately 1.3 billion lives through ash, volcanic winter, and cascading agricultural collapse. The study is not a prophecy — no eruption is imminent — but a deliberate act of civilizational imagination, asking what it means to share a planet with forces that dwarf anything human systems were built to absorb.