The Cascadia subduction zone, a 600-mile fault stretching from northern California to Canada, has experienced at least 10 megaquakes over thousands of years, with the last major event around 1700. Scientists have detected recent movement along this fault, which remains locked and building pressure. When the plates finally break, it could trigger a magnitude 9.0 earthquake causing the coastline to drop 6-8 feet vertically in minutes, displacing massive amounts of water and generating tsunamis that could reach the coast in 15-30 minutes. The USGS estimates a 10-15% chance of the largest possible earthquake occurring in the next 50 years.
Install our extension to search inside any video instantly.
The Fault Line That Could Destroy California Just Moved
Added:7,500 years ago the Pacific floor collapsed.
Massive landslides buried the seabed in seconds.
>> [music] >> Fast forward to today. Robot subs have examined the place. Scans have revealed proof of at least 10 distinct cyclical megaquakes. Now researchers warn the plates are still locked and building pressure even today. If they start moving that could trigger new red alert earthquakes and send disastrous tsunamis toward the coast.
Let's look at the map. The fault here is like a giant zipper. It's over 600 miles stretching from northern California to Canada. It's called [music] the Cascadia subduction zone and it's a part of the Ring of Fire.
You know, the famous giant horseshoe around the Pacific [music] that can serve as your where to go reminder if you're into volcanic and earthquake tourism. One of Cascadia's [music] biggest events happened around the year 1700. There are no local written records of it, but there is a story.
A well-known indigenous legend tells of an epic battle between a Thunderbird [music] and a whale.
In the story, the Thunderbird's wing beats make the ground shake. The whale's thrashing sends seawater flooding inland. The Thunderbird wins by finally [music] grabbing the whale and slamming it back down, shaking the land itself.
Many researchers believe that this legend originated from the real earthquake of 1700. But we don't just have cool myths to give us the full picture. In the early 1700s, samurai officials recorded waves flooding villages and rice fields, but nobody [music] felt the earthquake that must come first. That's why they nicknamed this event the orphan [music] tsunami.
But it did have a parent and it took scientists 300 years to finally connect it back to Cascadia.
To see Cascadia's past, researchers sent robot subs to scan the bottom in crazy detail.
They expected to see a simple crack, but what they found looked more like giant underwater steps.
Some of those steps are about 33 ft tall, like a three-story building. That only happens when a big piece of the seafloor snaps off, breaks loose, and slides all at once, not slowly.
When that happens, it kicks up a mud avalanche.
Picture a jar of dirt and water. Shake it hard, and a fresh layer settles at the bottom.
Each layer is basically a timestamp from a huge quake.
When scientists counted and dated them, they [music] found 10 separate megaquakes that hit one after the other over thousands of years.
That means [music] that Cascadia doesn't let pressure out little by little. It stays stuck for a long time, then suddenly breaks out violently.
>> [music] >> That pattern is why the Cascadia subduction zone is considered one of the scariest fault systems in North America today.
So, what's actually happening down there?
>> [music] >> The plates aren't sliding smoothly.
They're stuck. And while they're stuck, the coastline is getting quietly bent out of shape, like a ruler you're flexing in your hands.
It doesn't look dramatic day-to-day, but it's been loading up for centuries.
When that tension finally snaps, the [music] coast will instantly drop.
Geologists call this coseismic subsidence.
>> [music] >> We're talking about the ground plunging 6 to 8 ft vertically in a matter of minutes. Imagine standing on a beach.
The shaking stops, and you realize the ocean is rushing in, not just because of a wave, but because the land you're standing on has physically sunk below sea level.
That one move is enough to shove the seafloor out of position and force the ocean above it to react.
>> [music] >> Cascadia can produce a magnitude 9.0.
That's top-tier, categorized as the most destructive natural event that can happen.
It can shake the ground for minutes, pushing and pulling everything back and forth until buildings and bridges start falling down.
>> [music] >> A 9.0 class quake also means the seafloor is vibrating and shifting, lifting in some spots, dropping in others, all in one sudden motion.
A tsunami starts when the seafloor moves and pushes a huge amount of water out of the way.
If the bottom suddenly lifts or drops, the water above it gets displaced [music] instantly.
That water has to go somewhere, so it races outward in every direction.
Out in deep water, that wave is rarely tall. It spreads out across a long distance, so it can pass under ships without anyone noticing.
The danger is speed. In the open ocean, tsunamis can travel around 500 to 600 mph.
That's like traveling from New York to Detroit in 60 minutes.
Eventually, [music] the ocean starts to pile up, getting taller by the second.
Near shore, it can stack up to tens of feet, and in extreme cases, it can run up to 100 ft on land.
It swallows [music] the coast, then drags everything back to sea with a violent tug before the next hit arrives.
But that's not all. When the fault snaps, it often triggers massive underwater landslides. When a huge chunk of seafloor collapses, it can shove water locally, like dropping a boulder into a tub.
In the Cascadia subduction zone, you aren't just [music] dealing with the earthquake's kick. You're getting a one-two punch from the shifting crust [music] and the crumbling slopes combined.
On parts of the Oregon coast, [music] emergency experts say the shaking could last 5 to 7 minutes. Long enough to realize what's happening and still [music] won't be over.
Then comes the scariest part.
In some places, a tsunami can hit in 15 to 30 minutes.
Remember, the earthquake [music] is a warning. If you're on the coast and you feel strong, long shaking, you do not need to wait for a text alert or a siren or someone on the news to yell tsunami.
During the tremors, the basic recommendation is to literally drop to the ground, [music] cover, and hold on.
Staying away from windows and chandeliers that can fall on you.
As tempting as it is, we shouldn't stop to make a reel out of the situation.
Before anything happens, make one decision while your brain is calm. Pick the closest high ground and go for it.
Not somewhere uphill, an actual spot.
If you ever needed a reason to learn your neighborhood, this is it.
Your instinct might say get into the car and drive, but don't. Roads are probably jammed and bridges could be damaged.
People who live on the coast already know to keep it practical with shoes on the bed and a go bag prepared just in case.
The danger doesn't end with the first impact because of tsunami waves, well, they come in waves. [music] The initial hit is rarely the largest and the ocean can continue to pulse in and out for hours.
This creates a violent tug-of-war. The receding water acts like a massive vacuum dragging anything caught in the backwash out to sea.
Japan's 2011 disaster is the most recent vivid example of what a magnitude 9.1 can do.
>> [music] >> The seafloor shifted in a single massive heave. And minutes later, the ocean literally rearranged the coast.
A huge wall of water crashed inland, reaching over 100 ft high in some spots, [music] and turning the coastline into a conveyor belt of debris.
It was like water turned cars into giant bowling balls and shipping containers into massive metal bricks, smashing ports and drowning low-lying airports and electrical substations. [music] Finally, what do officials say about the timeline for the possible next disaster hitting Cascadia?
Well, they can't [music] give us precise dates, but they did announce some odds.
For the biggest, scariest earthquake possible, the United States Geological Survey says there is about a 10% [music] to 15% chance it'll happen in the next 50 years.
Chances [music] for a quake that isn't the mega version are one in three in the next five decades. Those odds are actually pretty high.
But here [music] is why it isn't all that grim.
Scientists know this isn't random.
Cascadia has a pattern, and patterns are what preparation runs on.
We already know how to build for big [music] shaking, and we're getting better at spotting where stress is building.
It doesn't mean we can stop the earthquake, but it means [music] we're getting way better at knowing what to expect.
In the meantime, just keep a go bag by the door, and maybe take a walk around your neighborhood every once in a while.
>> Consider South America and Africa. Don't they kind of look like they fit together, you know, like puzzle pieces?
Well, they actually did. But about 130 million years ago, South America was like, "Bye!" and slowly started drifting away.
These days, it's around 1,800 mi from Africa, and it's still on the move.
Every year, the continent shifts a little more toward the Pacific Ocean.
So, how's that even happening?
Tectonic plates [music] are constantly moving. That's what makes the Earth's surface shift over time, going from this [music] to what we see today. But, those movements happen so slowly that you and I can't see them go. So, no, Brazilians or Chileans aren't out there feeling their continent [music] inching westward. But, the numbers don't lie.
South America is moving, and apparently all it wants is to get as far away as possible from this massive underwater mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
But, when exactly is pushing the land toward the Pacific Ocean? It is the heat inside our planet. Way, way down beneath the ocean, there are cracks in the Earth's crust, and magma, super-hot melted rock, rises up through those [music] cracks. When that happens, the magma cools and hardens into solid rock.
Over time, this process might build underwater mountains, like the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
>> [music] >> And, as more new crust forms, it begins to push the older crust out of the way.
In the process, tectonic plates and the continents riding on top of them get pushed along.
Now, on the other side of South America, over by the Pacific, there [music] is the Nazca Plate. It's heavier, and it's moving eastward. Since it is denser, it is sliding underneath the South American Plate. This entire process is called subduction, and it's happening at a rate 3 in per year. By the way, the collision between these two plates is what's behind all those breathtaking volcanoes scattered throughout the Andes, and it's also making the continent move. So, if everything goes according to plan, projections show that South America will end up more centered in the Pacific Ocean in the future. But, some models suggest something way crazier. Before we get into that, though, >> [music] >> we need to clear something up. Why on Earth is an Africa following in South America's footsteps? [music] I mean, shouldn't it be drifting west, too? Well, not quite.
Africa is doing its own thing because it sits on the African [music] plate. So, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is located between those two continents, and just like it pushes the South American plate, it also pushes the African plate, but in the opposite direction. It's like this ridge is trying to split up two ex-besties, [music] you know?
But, there's more. Africa is also being influenced by the East African Rift.
It's one of those massive cracks we talked about earlier, but it's happening on land, which makes it extra dramatic.
This is what's causing the continent [music] to slowly split apart. It's a long story, but let's just say the rift is pulling Africa in more directions [music] than South America ever had to deal with.
Okay, now it is finally time to talk about that crazier thing that might happen [music] to South America and everything around it in the future.
Theory number one, >> [music] >> it could break away from North America.
I know, super dramatic, but don't panic.
We're talking hundreds of millions of years from now, and I won't be around.
You see, both continents are moving [music] in the same general direction, but at different speeds. The North American [music] plate is cruising along at about 1 in per year, while South America [music] is moving a bit faster.
So, even though they're heading the same way, they are not keeping pace. Over time, as the Atlantic Ocean continues to widen [music] and the Pacific keeps shrinking, all this tectonic movement could eventually pull the Americas apart.
Theory number two, marine life could go through some major changes. Right now, the Americas [music] act as kind of a giant wall between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Because of that, sea animals have evolved differently on each side. Take the green sea turtle, for example. [music] The ones living in the Atlantic tend to be bigger and lighter in color. Meanwhile, their Pacific cousins are usually smaller and darker.
But if one day there is no land blocking these two populations from mixing, they would end up with brand new migration routes, [music] new nesting spots, and a lot more overlap in their territories.
Now, multiply that scenario by hundreds of other [music] species and things could really get shaken up. We're talking about new interactions, unexpected [music] competition, and maybe even the rise of entirely new species. All right, theory number three.
America might meet Africa again.
Right now, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is busy creating a new seafloor, and because of that, the Atlantic Ocean is slowly getting wider. But in about 125 million years, scientists believe that process could come to a stop. Instead of the seafloor spreading apart, the ocean floor might start getting pulled under the continents. When that happens, the Atlantic will stop growing [music] and start shrinking. And the water section between South America and Africa is likely to be the first part pulled beneath the land.
That means the Americas and Africa could meet again. And when that happens, border countries could turn into super [music] shaky places with earthquakes happening all the time and brand new volcanoes popping up left and right. The eastern United States would no longer be known for the peaceful green slopes of the Appalachians, but for snow-covered [music] giants that occasionally spew lava and ash, more like the Cascade Range out west.
Countries would end up with totally new neighbors. Brazil might [music] line up with Nigeria and Cameroon. Uruguay could be sitting right next to Angola. And Argentina might be sharing a border with South [music] Africa.
So, if these two continents really do merge, how intense would that be?
Well, for starters, this new supercontinent would instantly become [music] the biggest one on Earth, about 1 and 1/2 times the size of Asia. And chances are, a brand new mountain range would form right [music] where the continents meet, creating a natural border between nations.
Being part of the same massive continent could make a lot of things way easier.
For one, tourism [music] could totally take off. People traveling between countries by land without needing pricey plane tickets could be a game-changer. But, it wouldn't stop there. Other types [music] of economic activity could get a major boost, too.
Now, on one side, [music] we have South America, which already produces and sells a wide variety of foods, from wheat to bananas, beef, cocoa, soybeans, hey, you name it. On the other side, there is Africa, exporting things like textiles and clothing. That alone would make them a superpowerful block when it comes to trading raw goods.
But, can you name another important thing these two continents have in common? Yep, petroleum. Countries in South America, like Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia, are major oil exporters.
And over in Africa, you've got Nigeria, Algeria, and Libya [music] doing the same. Now, can you see just how powerful that kind of union could be?
Meanwhile, let's talk about animals.
These two massive lands coming together could lead us to wild meetups, like a capybara sharing space [music] with a Nile crocodile, or a sloth seeing a hyena from the top of a tree.
This could even lead to new animal hybrids showing up, like a cabby crocodile, or a sloth hyena.
Okay, those weren't the cleverest names, and honestly, these animals wouldn't be able to mate, or even wouldn't want to.
But, [music] you get the point, right?
It's not all positive, unfortunately.
New species showing up could become predators, competitors, [music] or even parasites to the native plants and animals. It would take a long time for things to [music] settle into a new balance in those border regions. But, honestly, no one really knows how long it would take. The only thing I do know is neither of us will be around to see it, which is okay.
Do you know that our planet has scars?
One of them is located in North America.
This scar can tell us many cool things about the history of Earth, but the most interesting thing is that it could change the appearance of our continents and break our world. But, for some reason, this scar hasn't done it yet.
And that's not even the most interesting part. The coolest thing about this scar is that it might hold a giant source of clean, cheap energy. So, let's go to Kansas to find out what it is.
So, 1.1 billion years ago, >> [music] >> a giant rift formed in the crust of our planet on the territory of the modern US Midwest. It's called [music] Broken Heart. This giant crevice is filled with solidified magma, and from afar, it looks like a real scar.
But, how did it show up? Broken Heart was an ancient rift valley, a huge geological fault forming in longated hollows in the Earth's crust.
It occurred because tectonic plates had moved apart. It's like the details of a jigsaw [music] puzzle that suddenly started to separate. At that moment, thousands and even millions of tons of magma spilled out from the depths of our planet.
That event looked like a real apocalypse, lasting about 100,000 years.
[music] But then, it stopped, and scientists don't know why. If the rifting process had lasted longer, then most likely, the continent [music] of North America would look different today, or it wouldn't even exist at all.
Right now, this fault looks like a giant horseshoe that stretches from Kansas north to Lake Superior and south to Michigan.
But, some studies indicate that the fault may be larger and extend even further south. And the width of the fault might equal the width of the Red Sea.
After the rifting stopped, the entire valley got covered with hills and trees.
The fault itself is covered with a thick layer of sedimentary rocks, so [music] it's quite difficult to track.
The most noticeable parts of the rift are in the Lake Superior [music] area.
Now, everything looks calm and beautiful, but in the past, there were fountains and rivers of lava, earthquakes, a boiling pot on a planetary scale.
All that remains of it are deposits of basalt, a dark, dense rock that forms from cooled lava. There was so much basalt that its weight pushed the valley deeper and deeper into the Earth's crust.
Even when the eruptions and rifting stopped, the valley continued to sink because of the huge mass of the sediment.
Then, massive sections of the Earth's crust on both sides of the valley began to contract, and the pieces of the puzzle slowly started to come together.
This led to a large-scale ejection of volcanic material [music] upward, and along with basalt, deposits of copper rock appeared in the valley. People mined this copper for about 8,000 years until the end of the [music] 20th century. The copper mines were eventually shut down, but now it seems the industry is making [music] a comeback.
However, Broken Heart is not interesting to people just because of its copper [music] reserves. It holds something more valuable and useful for our civilization.
Scientists believe that this valley hides massive reserves of hydrogen.
And this substance can help us switch to a cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient [music] energy source.
If hydrogen fuel becomes widely available, everyone will switch to it, leaving behind the costly, noisy, and polluting process of oil production.
Now, I'll bet hydrogen [music] is a remarkably familiar word to you. It doesn't sound like the discovery of the century, and people have been using it for a long time. On one hand, you're right, but not quite. 90% of the hydrogen produced by humans is used as a raw material for the chemical industry. Hydrogen is used to [music] produce ammonia for fertilizers, methanol for fuel and solvents, and to purify crude oil.
Manufacturers of glass, cement, steel, and other metals are considering using hydrogen at their factories for more efficient production.
Hydrogen can become an alternative to fossil fuels, that [music] is oil and gasoline produced from them.
Cars, ships, trains, airplanes, and power plants, all of these may switch to hydrogen [music] soon. In this case, production can become cheaper and better for nature, but this will work only if we find open sources of hydrogen.
You see, about 95% of the hydrogen we use is produced from fossil fuels. We gasify coal, oxidize hydrocarbons, and extract hydrogen from methane.
All of these production methods [music] require energy. But the worst part is that they lead to large emissions of carbon dioxide [music] into the atmosphere.
But what if we find sources of pure hydrogen that don't require processing?
Then, we'll save energy for its production and make the planet cleaner.
But where can we find such sources?
Scientists say that there are many of them all over the planet. And one of the largest is located in the Rift Valley in the US Midwest. [music] But, what's the problem with going and mining it? Well, it's not that simple.
To extract pure hydrogen, you need three conditions. The first is the source of hydrogen itself, [music] which is quite logical. The second is a reservoir rocks, that is, natural containers where this hydrogen is stored. And the third is natural seals, which prevent the gas from escaping. In other words, these seals work like a cap on a bottle. They don't allow the substance to escape. So, in general, it's necessary to find where hydrogen is released, where it accumulates, and where it's stored.
When these conditions are met, natural resource extraction companies can start working.
But, how does hydrogen appear all together?
Well, let's go over the basics of chemistry. Hydrogen and oxygen compounds form water. This means you need to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen.
[music] This process often occurs in nature.
There are many places all over the planet where this happens. Scientists are confident that at least 30 US states have hydrogen reservoirs. And if people detect [music] them, we will accelerate the energy transition to safer and more efficient fuels.
Thousands of cars drive around using gasoline. Many of you know the smell of exhaust fumes, [music] that thick polluted air that's hard to breathe.
What about electric cars? They must be improving the situation, right?
>> [music] >> Well, here's another problem. Producing batteries for these vehicles harms nature.
The materials used to make batteries [music] are lithium, cobalt, and nickel.
Their extraction involves a large release of toxic materials, not only into the air, but also into the water.
Transporting these batteries also creates a large carbon footprint.
Producing a single electric car emits about 4 tons of carbon dioxide. To make up for that, the owner needs to drive it for at least 8 years. That's how long it takes to offset the emissions [music] a regular car would produce. What about reliability and convenience? What will you do if the battery runs out during the trip and there are no charging stations nearby? This problem will be solved in the future with the growing popularity of electric cars.
Now, scientists believe that over the past billion years, the Earth's crust [music] has split enough water into hydrogen and oxygen. Our planet keeps this gas in the ground waiting for us to start [music] using it. According to calculations, even considering all the technologies and production capacities of our civilization, the reserves of hydrogen in the bowels of the planet are enough to supply us with energy for 170,000 years.
That's why the giant [music] rift in Kansas attracts scientists from all over the world. Huge quantities of [music] basalt and other rocks can react with water to release hydrogen. And now scientists are looking for places where [music] this material accumulates and is stored.
>> Yellowstone is the internet's favorite doomsday volcano. Maybe you heard the prediction. One super eruption, then a continent dusted in ash, and temperatures going down. A perfect disaster movie scenario. Yet, geologists worry about a different kind of volcano.
One that won't explode only once. It could rip the ground open, flood the [music] entire continent with lava, and make the air unbreathable. And we know this because it happened before.
Right now, researchers think there might be around 20 super volcanoes scattered across the planet. Short story, [music] we fear those. Long story, a major super volcanic eruption could collapse modern society as we [music] know it.
A normal volcano can cause a local disaster.
It can wipe out a city and turn a region into a no-travel zone.
When Mount St. Helens exploded in 1980, it was huge.
The eruption blew the top off a mountain and flattened forests like knocking down [music] dominoes. It showed the world just how scary volcanoes can be. But in geological terms, it's nowhere near what a supervolcano could do.
Mount St. Helens threw out roughly a third [music] of a cubic mile of ash.
Enough to make a football field pile about 150 miles high.
For comparison, a supervolcano could bury the entire state of Texas 5 [music] ft deep. And Texas stretches about 800 miles.
Volcanoes like St. Helens are mountains that build up over time, layer after layer, like nature stacking spilled wax.
They erupt, they cool, they erupt again, and you end up with a cone that looks cool in photos.
A supervolcano is like a hidden pit.
[music] It resembles a giant underground tank of molten rock covered in a thick slab of crust.
Imagine the magma chamber like a huge underground room, and the ground above it is the ceiling.
During a super-eruption, cracks rip open across that ground, and magma forces its way up through them, >> [music] >> like steam blasting out of a pressure cooker. Ash and gas roar high into the sky. It can start in multiple spots across a wide area, not one neat hole.
The magma chamber underneath can empty so violently that the roof above [music] it collapses. The land drops, and what's left is a massive bowl-shaped scar called a caldera.
And Yellowstone [music] is the prime example.
About 631,000 years ago, Yellowstone had a massive [music] eruption, and it left behind a giant caldera about 30 by 45 miles across.
Now, it's [music] a national park, but it's also basically a footprint, like a warning.
If Yellowstone erupted again, the first super-hot clouds of ash and gas could blast outward and burn everything nearby.
Then, the ash would spread. And ash is not like the fireplace dust. It hurts to breathe. It wrecks engines, and it can shut down flights and machines.
Regular volcanoes mostly hit the area around them with lava.
A super-eruption turns the air itself into a real danger.
Ash spreads far and jams the things we depend on.
High up, sulfur can turn into a thin haze that will block some sunlight. That can cool things for a while and mess with growing seasons, even far from the eruption.
And winds can spread that effect well beyond the US.
However, geologists worry about something even worse. A kind of eruption that can keep going in waves and cover huge regions in lava. It's called a large igneous province.
It's not one volcano. It's a whole stretch of crust that starts leaking lava through long [music] cracks over and over for a long time. Instead of one giant explosion, it's more like Earth turning on a lava faucet that just keeps going.
Imagine a crack in the ground hundreds of miles long. Out of that crack comes a sea of lava. But this isn't the sticky, slow stuff you see in Hawaii.
This is hot, runny, fast-moving lava, and it doesn't stop.
It spreads, floods low spots, stacks into layers, and then does it again.
And that's what makes LIPs scarier than a supervolcano.
They drag on. They can erupt in repeated pulses over hundreds of thousands to a few million years.
We have scars to prove it right here in the US.
>> [music] >> About 17 million years ago, the Pacific Northwest ripped open and created the Columbia River Basalt.
Lava did not just coat the land, it drowned it. The total amount that erupted was around 42,000 cubic miles.
That's enough to cover the whole US in lava about 58 feet deep.
But how can Earth produce enough lava to bury a mountain [music] range? It's because the planet is still churning inside.
Imagine Earth [music] like a pot of thick tomato soup sitting on a stove.
Earth's core is the stove and it's extremely hot.
The soup is the mantle, a thick layer of rock that moves slowly.
Now and then, >> [music] >> a massive blob of superheated rock rises from deep in the mantle, possibly [music] from the boundary above the core.
Scientists call this a mantle plume.
When it reaches the cooler crust, it spreads out, pushes upward, and when it breaks through, it does not build one neat mountain. It can open long cracks and feed eruptions in repeated bursts for a very long time.
However, while lava burns everything in its way, it's not what wrecks the planet. The gas does.
These eruptions release huge amounts of carbon dioxide and sulfur, and we can assume the consequences of that because it happened before and not just once.
About 252 million years ago, a massive LIP eruption began in what is now Siberia.
It lines up with the worst extinction event in Earth's history, the Great Dying.
Around 90% of species disappeared. Huge amounts of gas flooded the air and trapped heat. The oceans soaked up some of that gas and turned more acidic. Acid rain fell again and again. Life on Earth crashed.
>> [music] >> Scientists believe that in the last 500 million years, there have been 16 major extinctions like this, and that 15 [music] of them line up closely with LIP timing.
These geological [music] formations changed Earth so many times, and scientists now wonder what if Yellowstone and that [music] massive lava flood in Oregon are actually a part of the same system? Look at Idaho [music] from space and you see a long, flat track across the state, called the Snake River Plain.
It points from the old lava flood region toward Yellowstone like a trail.
That path exists because Earth's surface moves. The outer layer is split into giant plates that slowly slide.
Under Idaho and Yellowstone, a deep hot zone keeps feeding eruptions. As the plate moves, the eruption zone shifts with it, leaving a long trail behind.
That's why the rocks get older the farther you go from Yellowstone. It's the same heat source, just a moving target.
And if you roll the [music] plates' motion back far enough, that trail points closer to where the Columbia River basalts formed.
That's why some geologists think the Northwest lava flood and [music] Yellowstone could be connected parts of one long-lived system.
Finally, if it's all part of one big apocalyptic system, is it time to pack the bags and flee to Mars? Will it happen again soon?
Even if they share the same story, that does not mean the worst part is coming back soon. The lava flood chapter played out millions of years ago. Today, Yellowstone is simply where that [music] deep heat shows up at the moment.
And sure, it can erupt again, but the most likely eruption isn't some giant doomsday blast.
It's a steam explosion when superheated water flashes into steam and blows rock apart.
Lava flows and smaller eruptions can happen, too.
The caldera-making nightmare is a rare one.
If Yellowstone ever started building towards something big, it wouldn't be sneaky.
>> [music] >> You would see it coming.
A lot more earthquakes than normal and the ground lifting faster than usual.
The clearest right [music] before signs would likely show up in the days or weeks before it. We cannot stop a planet-scale eruption. We can only watch for the warning signs and plan.
But, hopefully, if the planet decides to get rid of us, by the time it starts sending warnings, we'll already finished turning Mars into our new home.
Mount St. Helens is exploding. A massive earthquake is ripping through the area, and a side of the volcano is giving way, crashing down in a deafening landslide.
A towering wall of rock, ash, and debris is roaring down the valley, flattening everything in its path. Then comes the blast, a sideways explosion of superheated gas and volcanic [music] debris.
Trees are snapping like matchsticks.
Homes are vanishing under an ash cloud so thick it blots out the sun. Ash fall rains down on towns hundreds of miles away.
People are scrambling for masks and fleeing roads blocked by mudflows, called lahars. Toxic rivers of volcanic mud. The air fills with dust. Emergency sirens scream. Airports shut down.
Hospitals [music] fill with people struggling to breathe. The sky glows eerie orange as lightning storms ignite within the ash cloud overhead.
This nightmarish scenario might play out very soon.
Mount St. Helens, the famous volcano that blew its top in 1980, is acting a bit restless lately.
According to the US Geological Survey, about 350 earthquakes occurred from February to June 2024, and 12 more from September 2024 to January [music] 2025.
It was like a bunch of tiny tremors throwing a party underground. Most were so tiny, you wouldn't even feel them.
But on May 31st, 2024, there was one [music] that hit magnitude 2.0. It's just strong enough that if you were nearby, you might have felt a little rumble.
Don't freak out yet, though. Over 95% of those quakes were super small with [music] a magnitude less than 1.0.
Scientists say this is the biggest burst of shaking since the volcano last erupted in 2008.
But the volcano has already done this before. In the late '80s and '90s, it didn't blow up. So, more earthquakes didn't mean an eruption is guaranteed.
What's really going on might be something called a recharge, [music] which is like the volcano's version of refueling.
Magma, the hot melted rock, [music] slowly climbs up from deep underground and fills a big underground magma chamber about 2.5 to 6 mi down.
When magma fills this tank, [music] it can cause a lot of stress underground, which makes the ground shake.
Right now, there's no other sign that the volcano is about to blow. No weird [music] ground bulges, no extra gas leaks, no heat spikes.
The USGS says this level of shaking can go on for years without [music] anything major happening.
The alert level is still at normal.
But it was very different back on May 18th, 1980.
Mount St. Helens unleashed one of the most explosive volcanic eruptions in history.
And it all started with a huge earthquake, bigger than magnitude five.
But this wasn't just any earthquake. It triggered a massive landslide that ripped off the top of the volcano and tore away the rock and ice that had been holding everything down like a giant lid.
Suddenly, the pressure that had been trapping superheated water underground vanished.
That water instantly turned to steam, and boom, it burst sideways in a powerful hydrothermal blast. And that was only the beginning.
With the top gone, the magma beneath the surface suddenly felt free. It started rising faster, forming bubbles, [music] and erupting with terrifying force.
For nine straight hours, Mount St. Helens was sending ash and gas miles into the sky.
This giant [music] blast didn't come out of nowhere. The warning signs started months before. On March 16th, 1980, tiny earthquakes shook the volcano for the first time in years.
By March 27th, after hundreds of quakes, Mount St. Helens had its first little steam eruption in over a century. It threw ash and rock into the air and blasted [music] a crater in the icy summit.
The volcano kept getting angrier. That crater grew fast and cracks [music] spread across the summit. At the same time, eruptions went from one every hour in March to one every day by April.
Then, things quieted down for a while.
Few people realized that the danger was just beneath [music] the surface.
By May, over 10,000 earthquakes had rattled the mountain.
The north side of the volcano swelled outward, growing about 450 [music] ft. It was a bulge so huge that it looked like the mountain was about to explode.
Scientists knew that magma was pushing up inside, creating a hidden cryptodome.
A giant underground pocket of molten rock.
And then, it blew. Shattering the mountain and changing the landscape.
On May 18, 1980, exactly at 8:32 a.m., a magnitude 5.1 earthquake hit Mount St. Helens.
Without any obvious warning signs, the entire north side of the volcano, the part that had been bulging out for weeks, suddenly broke loose and slid away in a massive landslide. This wasn't just any landslide. It was the largest debris avalanche ever recorded on Earth.
Imagine a giant mass of rock, dirt, and trees rushing downhill.
It was like dumping 1 million Olympic swimming pools full of stuff into the [music] valley.
When the cryptodome got ripped away, the pressure inside the volcano dropped incredibly fast. And this sudden pressure release triggered a huge sideways explosion that tore through the landslide debris.
This lateral blast was insanely fast, over 300 mph, and it ripped through everything in its path.
Trees were uprooted, forests flattened, and a giant cloud of ash and hot rock shot straight up into the sky. In just 15 minutes, that eruption cloud soared more than 80,000 ft high, way higher than an altitude of 35,000 ft at which commercial airplanes fly.
The blast destroyed an area nearly 19 miles wide from west to east and stretched over 12 miles to the north.
In the zone closest to the volcano, almost no trees were left standing.
At the blast's [music] far edge, the remaining trees were scorched and burned.
A huge area, about 230 square miles, was covered [music] by a thick blanket of hot debris.
That sudden release of pressure also affected the volcano's plumbing system all the way to the underground magma chamber.
With less pressure holding it back, the superheated magma suddenly expanded and rushed upward toward the surface.
Starting just after noon, fast-moving pyroclastic flows, superheated clouds of gas, ash, and debris, raced out of the crater at speeds between 50 and 80 miles per hour.
Those flows formed what we now know as the pumice plain.
Scientists say the eruption hit its most powerful stage between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m.
When the violent phase finally ended, the summit revealed a brand new giant crater shaped like an amphitheater.
All day long, the winds carried over 540 million tons of volcanic ash east across the United States. The ash was so thick it caused total darkness in Spokane, Washington, about 250 miles away.
Ash also fell as far as central Montana and could even be spotted hundreds of miles farther east all the way to the Great Plains, which is over 900 miles from the volcano.
The massive ash cloud spread across [music] the entire US in just 3 days and then circled the entire planet in just 15 days.
But, there was one more problem. The hot gas and rocks were so wild and fast that they melted and ripped off a lot of the snow and ice sitting on top of Mount St. Helens. That sudden rush of melted ice and water mixed with loose dirt and rock, creating fast-moving, dangerous mudflows called lahars.
Those lahars tore down the mountain into the river valleys, and the biggest, nastiest lahar hit the North Fork Toutle River.
As this muddy, powerful flood barreled downstream, it picked up more dirt and debris, growing bigger and stronger. It smashed through bridges, crushed homes, and finally slammed into the Cowlitz River, reaching its peak size around midnight, about 50 mi away from the volcano.
The whole natural disaster took the lives of more than 50 people.
After the eruption, the mountain looked like a wasteland, and scientists wanted to see how [music] life could start fresh in such a harsh place.
So, their unusual [music] plan was to release a few gophers to dig around the barren soil.
Those busy burrowers churned up >> [music] >> ash and volcanic debris, digging deep enough to bring buried bacteria and fungi back to the surface.
Tiny microbes, especially [music] mycorrhizal fungi, are crucial because they help plants get water and nutrients. It's like hooking roots up to a nutrient highway.
Within 6 years, places where [music] gophers worked got covered with over 40,000 plants.
At the same time, nearby untouched [music] areas stayed mostly lifeless.
The fungi helped plants grow in the soil that was otherwise nutrient-poor and lifeless.
Even old-growth forests buried under [music] ash bounced back quickly, thanks to their own fungal networks.
But where forests [music] had been clear-cut before the eruption, no such comeback happened. No trees, no fungi, just burned soil even decades [music] later.
Stop for a second and look at the ground beneath your feet. Is it a quiet suburban street, a flat basketball court, or maybe a peaceful stretch [music] of farmland? You probably feel safe because there isn't a giant smoking mountain on the horizon, but that safety is an illusion.
Yeah, sure. Yellowstone, Vesuvius, or Mount Fuji, those are the celebrities of the geological world. Giants that dominate the skyline and sometimes blow their tops. [music] But what about a hidden threat? One that doesn't look like a volcano at all. It's invisible, it's [music] silent, and thousands of these traps are scattered across the planet, lurking right under the foundations of our biggest cities.
Scientists call them monogenetic volcanic [music] fields. To the untrained eye, they don't look like volcanoes at all. They disguise themselves as innocent [music] hills, flat plains, or just lovely lakes. For decades, they were mainly ignored because of their small size, but new data suggests [music] these hidden systems are far more dangerous than previously thought.
>> [music] >> And unlike the big giants that give weeks of warning rumbles, these invisible volcanoes specialize in surprise [music] attacks. Hold tight. To understand the danger, we have to look at the plumbing. A standard volcano acts like a simple chimney. There is a central magma chamber and a main [music] pipe leading to the surface.
Eruption after eruption, lava flows out the same vent, [music] building a massive cone over thousands of years.
Monogenetic fields [music] break all these rules. They don't build mountains.
They don't reuse the same pipe.
>> [music] >> Instead of a chimney, imagine a cracked windshield. Magma deep underground scans for any weakness in the crust over a massive area. It pushes up, cracks the surface, erupts once, usually violently, and then calms down forever. The next time magma [music] rises, it won't use that old vent. It will find a new crack 5 mi away or 10.
This means you can't just monitor [music] one specific mountain. The entire region is a danger zone. And because each volcano is a one-and-done event, the landscape is deceptive.
>> [music] >> You could drive past the site of a violent ancient explosion every day on your way to work and simply see a grassy knoll. The scary part is the speed. In these fields, magma [music] can rocket from 30 mi down to the surface in less than 24 hours. It moves at a speed of up to 4 [music] mph. That sounds slow for a car, but for melting rocks, that is the speed of an elevator.
This isn't just a theoretical problem for empty deserts. Take Auckland, New Zealand. It's a stunning [music] modern city with beautiful harbors and over a million residents.
But Auckland is built directly on top of a geological [music] minefield. Sounds a bit crazy, right? Beneath rugby stadiums, parks, and busy intersections [music] lies the Auckland volcanic field.
Those scenic green hills scattered [music] across the city aren't just landscaping. They're the remains of over 53 separate volcanic eruptions.
Rangitoto Island, [music] which sits just offshore, emerged from the ocean only 600 years ago.
>> [music] >> In geological time, that was 5 minutes ago. For years, this field was considered sleepy, but recently, scientists have started noticing subtle changes. The terrifying reality of a field like this [music] isn't that a volcano we already know will erupt again. It's that a new one can pop up and go from zero to a disaster in the blink of an eye. A bubble of magma could rise silently [music] beneath a factory, a highway interchange, or a residential neighborhood. There is no designated safe zone because the threat is spread across the entire city map. History gives us a brutal example of how fast this happens.
In 1943, [music] a farmer named Dionisio Pulido was plowing his cornfield in Mexico on the outskirts of Mexico City. It was a normal Tuesday. Suddenly, the ground cracked open right in front of him.
Smoke hissed out smelling [music] of rotten eggs. Within 24 hours, that small crack in a flat field had transformed into a raging volcano 160 ft tall.
Within a week, it stood 500 ft [music] high. This was the birth of Paricutin.
It wiped out two entire towns leaving only the stone steeple of a church poking out of [music] the hardened lava.
A haunting monument that still stands today.
This geological nightmare [music] started in a simple cornfield and it wasn't an isolated incident.
Look at the Harrat Rahat field in Saudi Arabia. In 1256, a massive fissure [music] opened up near the city of Medina. It spewed lava for 52 days creating a river of fire 14 miles long.
Today, that [music] same volcanic field is still there and modern Medina has expanded right on top of the ancient lava [music] flows.
Now, apply that same story to a suburb of Los Angeles, a district in Tokyo, or a neighborhood in Europe.
In a matter of days, [music] an entire city can be buried under ash.
The risk is global ranging from over 1,800 [music] vents in the American Southwest to the Eifel region in Germany and similar fields in [music] China.
Experts warn that the real risk here isn't size, but frequency and location.
[music] These volcanoes tend to be explosive.
When magma rises [music] rapidly and hits groundwater, which is common under cities and fertile farmland, it flashes into steam. This creates a phreatomagmatic explosion. Instead of a slow oozing river of lava that people can walk away from, the ground acts like a shotgun blast. It sends a massive column of ash and rock shooting into the atmosphere.
In our modern [music] world, this is a recipe for chaos.
We rely on delicate systems, air [music] travel, GPS signals, just-in-time supply chains.
You don't need a supervolcano to crash the global economy. A small eruption near a major logistics hub is enough.
Remember the 2010 eruption in Iceland?
That wasn't even a big explosion by historical standards. Yet, the ash cloud grounded over 100,000 flights and [music] 10 million passengers were stranded.
Volcanic ash melts inside jet engines, while toxic dust poisons crops and contaminates water reservoirs with heavy metals. It creates a domino effect. One small eruption in the wrong place triggers a cascading failure of global infrastructure. [music] And the most alarming part is that the signals are already there.
Recent geological studies have shown an uptick in activity in these distributed fields.
It isn't always violent earthquakes.
[music] Often, it's bradyseism, the slow rhythmic breathing of the ground.
We mentioned the Eifel region of Germany, where [music] GPS data shows the land is rising by about 0.04 inches per year. It sounds tiny, but for geologists, that is a proper red flag.
Scientists are detecting [music] slight swells in the Earth's crust and weird spikes in carbon dioxide emissions in places that should be quiet.
Magma is moving, but because these systems are so spread out, monitoring them is a nightmare.
We have sensors [music] all over Yellowstone. We watch Vesuvius 24/7, but almost no one [music] is watching a random patch of desert in Arizona or a forest floor in Germany.
These invisible volcanoes are poorly studied. We lack [music] the baseline data to know if a tremor is just a truck driving by or the start of a Parícutin style event.
This lack of data means that when an eruption starts, authorities might have almost zero warning.
In a polygenetic volcano, [music] the mountain swells for months. In a monogenetic field, magma can shoot from the deep mantle to the [music] surface in hours. By the time the evacuation order is written, the lava could already be breaking through the pavement.
It isn't that hard to imagine the logistical nightmare. [music] A city not known for volcanoes suddenly receives an alert. A vent is [music] forming downtown.
It sounds impossible.
People delay leaving.
>> [music] >> They grab their phones to film the smoke. Then, explosions start. The ash creates a blackout. Power [music] grids fail as wet ash shorts out transformers.
Roads gridlock instantly.
This scenario isn't science fiction.
[music] It's exactly what hazard models predict for places like the Auckland volcanic field or parts of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt. We are building denser and denser cities on top of geological landmines. This doesn't mean we need to start digging bunkers, but it does require a shift in perspective. We have spent so [music] much time worrying about the celebrity volcanoes that we forgot about the quiet ones. The Earth is a living, shifting engine that doesn't care about property lines or city limits. [music] Scientists are now pushing for better monitoring networks using satellites [music] to track even the tiniest ground deformation in these boring, flat fields. Because the only way to survive a surprise attack is to see it [music] coming before the ground cracks open.
Peace and quiet on the surface doesn't always mean peace and quiet underneath.
The Earth has plenty of secrets left, and some of them are just waiting for the right moment to surface.
The floor is lava.
Just kidding. But honestly, it's kind of falling apart. You might not feel it yet, but a huge part of North America has already lost 37 miles worth of rock from its foundation. And no, this isn't about earthquakes or giant sinkholes.
It's about the continent losing pieces of the very thing that keeps the ground from wobbling around like a bad carnival ride.
A team of researchers has just dropped a geological bombshell. Part of North America's ground is thinning out like a very sad, very slow ice cream drip. How do they know? They basically gave Earth a high-tech full body MRI and created 3D maps showing how rocks once considered indestructible are now melting away into the planet's guts. Like an upside down cheese pizza inside an oven.
But to really understand this mess, you first have to meet my old friends, cratons.
Cratons are like the roots of the continents. They're thick, tough, [music] and ancient. We're talking billions of years old.
These bad boys survived meteor impacts, super volcanoes, [music] and even the tectonic movement of plates.
If the plates got into fistfights, for example, you can bet [music] we would see mountain ranges being born. If they got a divorce, drifting apart from each other, then a whole new ocean would [music] be born.
All of these things leave scars on the surface of Earth, but the cratons seem to always remain unfazed. Like the cockroaches of geology.
And since a craton [music] can basically get punched in the face and feel nothing, scientists always assumed these things were nearly indestructible.
But then, a group of researchers took their fancy machines to the test and [music] realized that wait, the cratons are falling apart? How?
Enter the Farallon Plate, >> [music] >> a really ancient tectonic plate that started to slide under North America's major plate [music] over 100 million years ago.
This is a pretty normal process, actually. It's called subduction, [music] and it's how Earth recycles rocks and keeps itself from overheating.
This subduction thing [music] has been happening for so long that by now the Farallon is almost 400 miles away from the craton, sitting pretty chill [music] at the lower mantle, weirdly close to the outer core of our planet.
But the Farallon [music] has been causing trouble, like that one roommate who moved out but keeps leaving weird stuff in the fridge.
You see, as it sinks, it tugs on the bottom of North America's foundation, stretching it out and causing pieces to fall off into the deep mantle.
And if that wasn't enough drama, >> [music] >> the sinking Farallon has also leaked water and carbon dioxide into the surrounding rocks, making the craton even softer and easier to shred apart.
Thanks, Farallon. [music] Very cool of you.
By studying hundreds of earthquakes across thousands of monitoring stations, scientists [music] have confirmed the story. Big chunks of continental material are dripping downward, thinning the craton by as much [music] as 37 miles. That's more missing rocks than can fit into a milk carton.
Sounds dramatic, right? But don't worry.
This is happening at a snail's pace.
It'll take millions of years for anything noticeable to happen.
Your great-great-great-great few grandkids from the distant future might still be standing on solid ground.
But don't get too comfy. This thing may not be an urgent problem, but there's another type of sinking that's happening faster than you can say, "Help!"
Here's the thing. By 2050, at least 32 major cities in the US, including New York, Baltimore, and Charleston, [music] could be partially underwater. And guess what? This one is mostly our fault.
Scientists noticed that since 2007, >> [music] >> some cities have been sinking into the ground between.04 and.08 inches [music] every year.
Charleston, in South Carolina, is pulling ahead in the worst way possible, sinking.15 inches annually. [music] Sure, these numbers sound tiny and a bit ridiculous, >> [music] >> but Charleston is barely 9 ft above sea level. And a little sinking goes a long way when the ocean is breathing down your [music] neck. On really bad flood days, people there have to abandon their cars and basically swim [music] home.
This whole phenomenon is called land subsidence. And when you mix sinking land [music] with rising sea levels, you get a disaster cocktail of flooded streets, salty farmland, ghost forests, and a lot [music] of very cranky homeowners. And it doesn't stop with just homes. Infrastructure, like bridges, roads, airports, and power plants, all things we rely on daily, [music] are also at risk of serious damage. Flooded electrical grids and sunken highways could cause [music] billions more in economic losses and create major safety hazards for communities.
Now, let's be fair. [music] Not everything is humanity's fault. Some of this trouble dates all the way back to the ice [music] age. About 12,000 years ago, massive ice sheets covered the northern US. They were heavy, like seriously heavy.
The weight pushed the land down, and when [music] the ice melted, the ground didn't just pop back up like a trampoline. Instead, it started playing a weird game of geological seesaw.
The places that were squished started rising, and the [music] places that weren't got pulled down.
This whole process, called glacial isostatic adjustment, try to say that three times fast.
But, of course, humans [music] found a way to make it worse.
Groundwater extraction is a major culprit. Think of it like pulling the stuff out of the mattress. After a while, the whole thing just sags.
In places like California's Central Valley, the land is dropping by up to 8 in a [music] year because we keep pumping out water during droughts.
In cities like New York, the [music] problem isn't just water. Skyscrapers themselves are making it worse.
Yep, turns out if you [music] stack millions of tons of concrete and steel onto soft ground, it tends to [music] flatten. And in case you're wondering, the total mass of New York City's buildings is around 1.68 [music] trillion pounds.
That's about the same as 3.5 million statues of liberty piled up.
With so much weight concentrated [music] over a relatively small area, the underlying soils have no choice but to compress [music] over time.
And if you thought it couldn't get messier, think again.
We've been building dams, which stop rivers from delivering fresh sediment to coastal areas.
That sediment is kind of like Mother Nature's way of fluffing the ground back up.
Without it, coastal lands are compacting like an old sponge.
Plus, when wetlands are drained for agriculture or construction, the peaty soil dries [music] out and collapses.
Honestly, it's like the ground just can't catch a break.
Scientists [music] also noticed that the areas that used to be lush wetlands are now among the fastest sinking [music] spots in the country, especially along the Gulf Coast.
>> [music] >> Louisiana, for example, is losing about a football field of land because of this mix of subsidence and rising seas.
So, what's the end game here for us regular people who just want to live above sea level?
Well, it's not looking great.
Ghost forests, [music] which are basically drowned woodlands, are popping up. Farmland is turning salty and unusable, and even sunny day flooding, where streets flood without any rain, is becoming [music] a thing. Yikes.
Meanwhile, over on the West Coast, California is not exactly winning, either. San Francisco and Los Angeles are both sinking, which means that rising sea levels could hit them twice as hard and twice as fast.
In some [music] places, like the Palos Verdes Peninsula, the ground has been sinking so fast, people over there might as well live like moles.
So, is [music] America turning into the next Atlantis?
Probably not next week, but without serious action, like cutting back [music] on groundwater pumping and planning smarter cities, at least 500,000 [music] people are in serious danger.
And the housing damage could easily rack up a jaw-dropping $109 billion by [music] 2050.
In the end, while North America isn't about to sink like a poorly made soufflé, it's definitely showing some cracks in the crust. So, maybe let's ease up on groundwater pumping, rethink how and where we build, and invest a little more in keeping our feet dry.
After all, if the floor really does become lava someday, we're going to wish we had at least fixed the leaks first.
>> According to the United Nations, [music] India became the most populous country in the world in 2023. Can you guess where the United States of America [music] stands in that rating? It's number three. And America is the fourth largest country [music] in terms of size.
It takes up some 6% of Earth's land mass. Plenty of space for 335 million people who live there, right?
No need to squeeze them into one region.
Well, not quite. The population of the US is distributed pretty unevenly.
Let's draw a line right through the middle of the country. It'll run from North Dakota in the north to Texas in the south.
Once you input census data and do some math, astounding figures appear. 80% of the US population lives east of the imaginary line. The remaining 20% live [music] to the west.
That's just one in five Americans.
We're talking about large metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, San Diego, [music] and San Francisco. You don't believe me?
Just look at a satellite map of the US at night. The right part is shining pretty bright, right?
But why? Why is there such a huge imbalance in population?
Simply put, history and geography.
[music] The East Coast is the place where the US became independent in 1776.
These are the original 13 colonies.
[music] Soon enough, settlers started spreading westward. One important milestone was the Louisiana Purchase. Today, this region is mostly what we call the Midwest. The area aligns nicely with the Mississippi watershed. Yep, this means plenty of fertile soil ideal for agriculture.
But does this automatically mean [music] a spike in population?
The demographics of the US reveal that a majority of its [music] citizens live either on the East or the West Coast.
This leaves a large patch of land in the middle of the country [music] virtually empty.
People know it as America's underpopulated belt. The area stretches from the Canadian border in the north to Mexico in the south.
The total surface area of this strip of land is 350,000 square miles. That's twice the size of California.
One massive piece of land. In fact, this narrow strip accounts for 12% of the contiguous United States. That's the US without Alaska and Hawaii.
The belt runs [music] north to south through seven states, but its population makes up only 1% of [music] the total number of people living in the United States.
Now, this doesn't mean that the area is completely empty. It's still home to just over 3 million people.
>> [music] >> That's roughly the population of the island country of Jamaica. But, there is room here for many more residents.
Let's take the example of Nigeria. Its total land area is slightly bigger than the sparsely inhabited belt in America.
But, Nigeria's population is a huge 206 million people. This makes it the seventh most populated country on the planet. Impressive, right?
But, why isn't the American Midwest living up to its potential?
Well, time for one last history lesson.
I've already mentioned how the United States expanded from the East Coast to the West Coast. This doesn't mean that the West was lagging too far behind.
Take for example the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles. They were incorporated in 1850. That's just 13 years after Chicago.
The following year, Portland, Oregon became incorporated. You get the picture.
And then, in 1869, the United States completed building its first transcontinental railroad. In terms of transport, the country was unified.
There is no historical reason strong enough to explain why so few people live in the center of the country.
>> [music] >> So, now it's time for some interesting geography.
If you look at the physical map of the United States, you'll notice that this belt lies in the Great Plains. As the name suggests, the area is flat, which should be ideal for large settlements.
Well, not really.
East of this region, there is a huge patch of the color brown. It's covered by mountains, but not just any mountains. These are the Rockies. The range is around 76 million years old. It has several peaks over 14,000 ft, and most of the Rockies are national parks, a vast nature reserve. But, most importantly, the range plays a vital role in the region's climate.
Ever heard of the rain shadow effect?
Let me explain. Wet weather systems form over the Pacific Ocean. Then, they travel east where they meet the Rockies.
Now, the air has to go up over the mountains. This is where it cools down and condenses. The final result? A lot of rain and snow for the people living on or west of the range.
And just a few drops east of it.
When air from the Pacific finally reaches the Great Plains, it doesn't contain much moisture anymore. In fact, the weather system starts taking up moisture from the surrounding landscape.
This creates an arid climate east of the Rocky Mountains. That's the exact location of the belt where so few Americans live. It's one of the driest parts of the country. So, when settlers came in the 19th century, they were like, "Nah, I'll just continue west."
Plus, there was the gold rush in California they were heading for.
The climate in this part of the plains isn't great for agriculture, and huge fluctuations in air temperature don't help either. In a single day, temperatures can drop from 70° to 30° F. These sudden changes in outside temperature are harmful to human health. It's like stepping inside an air-conditioned room on a sizzling summer day. Not a pleasant feeling.
Southern California has a similarly dry climate, yet close to 40 million people live there. This makes California the most populous US state. Their secret? A vast network of irrigation canals and aqueducts, plus a share of water from the Colorado River.
Summers in the Great Plains get very hot, while winters are extremely cold.
The reason behind these wild weather patterns are polar winds. They get a piggyback ride along the ridges of the Rockies and then rapidly descend into the plains.
A winter day in Wyoming, for example, can start pleasantly warm, but later in the afternoon, the temperature can easily drop below zero. You just wouldn't know how to dress, and you probably wouldn't want to relocate here.
That's what 99% of Americans think, too.
Humans like to feel comfortable, so we choose to live in temperate climate zones. Places that are either too cold or too hot don't have a large population.
Just look at the driest inhabited continent. You've guessed it correctly, it's Australia.
Nearly 70% of the country is either arid or semi-arid.
That's a subtle way of saying that it's a desert. That's why Australians are huddled in coastal areas. 90% of them live in big cities [music] such as Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth.
The only exception is the capital, Canberra. They built it inland close to a water source, but Australia's interior is sparsely populated. Just like in the States, there is only one major town in an area the size of 12 Lake Michigan's.
A huge shout-out to the residents of Alice Springs. They truly live in an oasis.
And what about places with a temperate climate like Europe? The population is evenly distributed here, right? Well, yes and no, depending on the country.
In Germany, 77% of people live in urban areas. They have plenty of major cities to choose from. Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne all have over a million residents. But let's look at neighboring France. How many cities with a population over a million can you name?
Okay, Paris, definitely.
It has over 12 million residents in the metropolitan [music] area. But now comes the staggering fact.
The next two cities on the list have a population of barely 2 million respectively.
Can you notice the huge imbalance?
This is the case in most large European countries.
In Greece, for example, 35% of the population lives in the capital, Athens.
So, the largely underpopulated center of the United States is not a unique example.
America is the land of opportunities, but chances of finding a better life are greater in large cities.
The country's top 100 metropolitan areas account for [music] at least 3/4 of the nation's GDP. And most of them are located on the East and the West Coast.
There are no cities with over a million residents in America's underpopulated belt.
>> This area might just be the most important spot in America right now, as it is worth over $1 trillion.
There's something incredibly valuable hidden right here at Thacker Pass, >> [music] >> and it is going to shake things up, not just in Nevada, but in the US economy and its global relations.
The McDermitt [music] Caldera is a massive area, about 28 mi long by 22 mi wide, stretching across northern Nevada and southern Oregon.
>> [music] >> It's in Humboldt County, a quiet rural place with just one main city that's going to change a lot in the next 5 to 10 years.
>> [music] >> That's because they found white gold there. We're talking about lithium. And to explain why this metal is so important, we need a scale. On one side, we place a chunk of lithium, and on the other, an apple.
What do think will happen? If both have the same volume, the scale is going to tip toward the apple.
That's because lithium is super light.
>> [music] >> Its density is about 0.3 oz per cubic inch, which makes it the lightest solid you can find at room temperature.
Lithium is also extremely reactive. That means it combines with other elements very easily, and it can catch fire just as easily.
Mix it with [music] water, fire. Expose it to air, yep, fire again.
But when you combine its lightness with its high reactivity, you get a material that's perfect for batteries, like the one powering your smartphone, laptop, [music] or even your electric car.
Nevada's been hiding this treasure for about 16 million years.
The McDermitt Caldera used to be a volcanic hotspot, spewing molten rock and creating a huge lake filled with mineral-rich waters.
Over time, that lake dried up, leaving behind thick layers of clay loaded with lithium.
Right now, [music] Thacker Pass Mine is sitting on one of the biggest untapped lithium reserves in the world, worth about 1 and 1/2 trillion dollars.
If everything goes as planned, they expect it to produce about [music] 40,000 tons of high-quality lithium a year.
And that's enough to make batteries [music] for up to 800,000 electric cars.
Like I mentioned earlier, this metal is the backbone [music] of modern batteries. And with the world racing toward green energy, the demand for lithium is skyrocketing.
Since 2020, its price [music] has gone up more than 10 times, making it the most expensive battery metal in the world. That means it's way more expensive than magnesium, nickel, cobalt, and other materials used in rechargeable batteries.
Right now, we're using about 1.16 million tons of lithium per year, and roughly 85% of it goes [music] into making batteries, mostly for cars.
Between 2030 and 2040, [music] experts think we will need to double the money we're putting into production, from $94 billion to [music] $188 billion.
At the same time, investment in batteries will jump [music] by over 200% reaching $686 billion.
Finally, by 2050, [music] the demand for lithium is expected to be more than 10 times higher than what we're producing [music] now.
Sorry, I know that's a lot of numbers, but I just want to show how important Thacker [music] Pass will be for the whole world. This mine is going to be key to keeping everything running. I mean, literally, since most of the future demand will be for things [music] like cars, electric bikes, scooters, and renewable energy storage.
Nevada could also be the epicenter of a global energy revolution. With the US aiming to cut pollution by 50% by 2030, a big part of that is replacing gas-powered vehicles with electric ones.
And to make that happen, America is going to need a whole lot more lithium than it's producing right now.
Nowadays, [music] most of the metal used in the United States come from countries like Chile and Argentina.
So, if America wants to be a leader in this market, it really needs to invest [music] more and more in projects like Thacker Pass. But, there's another challenge. [music] Finding lithium in a mine is one thing, but refining it is another story.
Just like diamonds are carefully [music] cut and shaped to bring out their sparkle and sold in rings and necklaces, something similar needs to be done with lithium.
The raw material that comes from the mines has to be refined into a pure form that can actually be used in things like batteries.
And China pretty much dominates this part of the market, and they're responsible for about 75% of global lithium-ion battery production.
>> [music] >> In other words, it doesn't matter if a country finds this powerful metal on its land, it will probably still need China to help refine [music] it.
So, the US is eager to strengthen its supply chain. In fact, they're so excited about this possibility that authorities have invested over $2 billion in loans into the Nevada project.
>> [music] >> Because of that, Thacker Pass could make the US a leader in lithium production worldwide.
If their estimates are right, the McDermitt Caldera could hold nearly half of the world's known lithium reserves.
It would almost [music] double the reserves found in Bolivia's salt flats, for example, which [music] used to hold the record for the world's largest deposit.
This discovery is [music] about to change Humboldt County for good. Those quiet streets surrounded by nature will never [music] feel the same again.
The mine will need about 2,000 workers who will probably move there from other cities.
Those workers will need houses, hospitals, schools for their kids, and all the necessary services.
Do you see how it's like a ripple effect? For every person [music] hired to work on the project during construction, six more people will get hired in the state to [music] support them.
Thacker Pass is also going to have a huge impact on the economy, not just in Nevada, but all across the country.
People expect the mine to be active for 35 years, and each year it's expected to generate over $2 billion.
But here's the thing. In Thacker Pass, they'll be extracting lithium from clay, and this process has never been done on such a huge scale before.
So, it's kind of a hit or miss, but if it works, it could completely change the industry.
Big question.
who's interested in all this?
Well, we've got three big companies eyeing the lithium market in the US.
First, there's ExxonMobil. The oil giant wants to start producing lithium by 2027, and they have plans to become the top supplier for electric vehicles by 2030.
Then there's General Motors, the company behind big car brands like Chevrolet and Cadillac. [music] They're so interested in this business that they agreed to pay $625 million for a 38% stake in Thacker [music] Pass.
And finally, Tesla.
In 2023, they started building a factory in [music] Texas to process lithium.
It's all part of their plan to handle more of their supply chain themselves.
Now that you know how important lithium is, you might be wondering, what if we run out? Well, that could happen, since it comes from mining and, just like gold, is a finite resource.
But that doesn't mean we'd have to give up smartphones [music] or electric cars.
If we ever run out of this metal, we'd probably find new ways to produce batteries.
In fact, some experts think thermal batteries could be the next big thing.
They store extra energy from renewable resources like wind or solar power, which are very cheap. So, they represent a new way of storing energy at a small fraction of the cost.
Nowadays, they're primarily used for powering the production of steel, cement, and chemicals.
Thermal batteries are also being used to heat and cool large buildings.
However, more and more projects are focusing on bringing this technology into private spaces, like houses and apartments.
Experts are optimistic that initiatives like these could make thermal batteries as well-known as electric batteries, and they might soon become [music] a regular part of our daily lives.
Related Videos
Monday evening forecast | June 15, 2026
WBNS
384 views•2026-06-15
Monday evening First Alert Weather with Darren Peck 6/15/2026
cbssf
662 views•2026-06-16
Clouds build up tonight as we track a storm threat for Thursday
NBC10Boston
2K views•2026-06-17
Just One magnetic field power, two light start with Armechar • Dc Armechar
DcArmechar7
14K views•2026-06-17
What a Massive Blue Iceberg Actually Looks Like?
QuickLearnGeography
100 views•2026-06-18
Chicago Morning News at 7 a.m. - Monday, Jun. 15, 2026
FOX32Chicago
942 views•2026-06-16
The Terrifying Physics of High Blood Pressure
fleshandwonder
1K views•2026-06-15
Strong And Severe Thunderstorms Surge Across Central Florida To Finish the Workweek | Stormy Week...
WESH
806 views•2026-06-19
