"Super volcano" could dwarf Indonesia's earthquake catastrophes:

"Super volcano" could dwarf Indonesia's earthquake catastrophes:
expert

Agence France-Presse
Sydney, Australia

As Indonesians struggled to recover from the second deadly
earthquake to strike them in three months, an Australian expert
warned on Friday that the country faced the prospect of a "super
volcano" eruption that would dwarf all previous catastrophes.

Professor Ray Cas of Monash University's School of Geosciences
said the world's biggest super volcano was Lake Toba, on
Indonesia's island of Sumatra, site of both the recent massive
earthquakes.

Cas told Australian media on Friday that Toba sits on a
faultline running down the middle of Sumatra -- just where some
seismologists say a third earthquake might strike following the
9.0 magnitude quake on December 26 and Monday's 8.7 temblor.

Those quakes occurred along faultlines running just off
Sumatra's west coast and created seismological stresses which
could hasten an eruption.

Cas said Toba last erupted 73,000 years ago in an event so
massive that it altered the entire world's climate.

"The eruption released 1,000 cubic kilometers of ash and rock
debris into the atmosphere, much of it as fine ash which blocked
out solar radiation, kicking the world back into an ice age," he
said.

The scientist said super volcanos represented the greatest
potential hazard on earth, "the only greater threat being an
asteroid impact from space".

"A super volcano will definitely erupt," he said.

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

Other super volcanoes are found in Italy, South America, the
United States and New Zealand -- where Mount Taupo could be ready
for eruption.

"It has a big eruption every 2,000 years, and it last erupted
about 2,000 years ago," Cas said.

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