World's largest volcano set to erupt in 600,000 years, wiping out two-thirds of the U.S.

Almaty. January 27. Kazakhstan Today - Millions of people in the U.S. are in danger if the world's largest volcano beneath Yellowstone National Park erupts. The experts worry this active volcano will erupt in the near future as it is showing signs of increased activity, the agency reports.

It would explode with a force a thousand times more powerful than the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980, Daily Mail reports.

Spewing lava far into the sky, a cloud of plant-killing ash would fan out and dump a layer 10ft deep up to 1,000 miles away.

Two-thirds of the U.S. could become uninhabitable as toxic air sweeps through it, grounding thousands of flights and forcing millions to leave their homes.

This is the nightmare that scientists are predicting could happen if the world's largest super-volcano erupts for the first time in 600,000 years, as it could do in the near future.

Yellowstone National Park's caldera has erupted three times in the last 2.1million years and researchers monitoring it say we could be in for another eruption.

They said that the super-volcano underneath the Wyoming park has been rising at a record rate since 2004 - its floor has gone up three inches per year for the last three years alone, the fastest rate since records began in 1923.

But hampered by a lack of data they have stopped short of an all-out warning and they are unable to put a date on when the next disaster might take place.

When the eruption finally happens it will dwarf the effect of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which erupted in April last year, causing travel chaos around the world.

The Yellowstone Caldera is one of nature's most awesome creations and sits atop North America's largest volcanic field.

Its name means 'cooking pot' or 'cauldron' and it is formed when land collapses following a volcanic explosion.

In Yellowstone, some 400 miles beneath the Earth's surface is a magma 'hotspot' which rises to 30 miles underground before spreading out over an area of 300 miles across.

'There is so much heat coming out of Yellowstone right now that if it wasn't being reheated by magma, the whole system would have gone stone cold since the time of the last eruption 70,000 years ago.'

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