Super volcanoes ´ticking time bomb´

Super volcanoes ´ticking time bomb´
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HUGE volcanoes with the potential to kill millions and trigger catastrophic effects for life on earth are well overdue for an eruption, a scientist says.

Monash University Professor Ray Cas warned today it was only a matter of time before "super volcanoes", which he said were the greatest threat to the planet, could cause disasters on a magnitude greater than anything modern humankind had ever encountered.

"A super volcano will definitely erupt," Prof Cas said.

"It could be in a few, 50 or another 1000 years but sooner or later one is going to go off."

Prof Cas, of the university´s School of Geosciences, said super volcanoes were the largest on Earth and could be found in Italy, New Zealand, Indonesia, South America and the United States.

The largest was Indonesia´s Lake Toba, which had a crater diameter of 90km.

Prof Cas said the 2000-year eruption cycle of many of these volcanoes had passed and vulcanologists around the globe were simply watching and waiting for an imminent disaster.

"Naples alone supports a population of three million people so the potential for destruction and death is huge," he said.

"These super-volcanoes are potentially the greatest hazard on earth, the only threat greater being an asteroid impact from space."

Prof Cas said the last significant eruption from a super volcano, known scientifically as a caldera, occurred 2000 years ago in New Zealand.

He said eruptions could be so powerful that huge amounts of rock and ash could be flung into the atmosphere and there was a risk of tsunamis from volcanic flows hitting the ocean.

"The potential death toll could reach the hundreds of thousands to millions and there are serious implications on climate, weather and viability of food production," Prof Cas said.

Despite the imminent threat, governments were unprepared, he said.

"The big problem is a lot of the volcanoes that potentially could erupt are perhaps not monitored to the degree that they should be, and of course we learnt that lesson from the Boxing Day tsunami disaster," Prof Cas said.