According to a geologist in Poland, if the supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park erupted, the effects would lead to the death of up to five billion people. The eruption would cover most of North America with debris and ash a meter deep. The massive amount of particles in the air would cool the climate of the entire world.
He predicts starvation would be the cause of death outside the area covered by debris.
The United States Geological Survey doesn’t believe it would ever happen. There’s evidence that the supervolcano is becoming less powerful. Instead, their findings suggest the pressure inside Yellowstone would lead to hydrothermal explosions a few hundred meters wide.
It would be easy to create a disaster story around this news. It would be similar to the movie “2012” starring John Cusack. The story would be told from multiple viewpoints and deal with how different people and cultures deal with the unfolding events around the world.
The first book would have to include the view from a prominent geologist who discovers the supervolcano is about to blow. It could be a prologue that ends with the eruption, after which a scientist doing anthropological research on a remote jungle tribe confronts the challenge of leading their family to safety. The end of the first book could be when they finally settle down in a stable location, but with known threats on the horizon, the focus of book two.
Book two would cover the time it took to defeat the local threat, with hints that there is a more significant effort to bring together the remaining civilization in the area least affected by the debris.
Book three would cover how the new society deals with the acceptance of foreigners and figures out how to feed and clothe everyone.
There could be multiple spin-offs of this disaster novel, with different characters viewpoints shown from various parts of the world. There could be a lot of “research” travel that goes into these novels, which could be an excellent reason to spend some time abroad.
