The youngest volcano in the world is Parícutin in Mexico, famous for its dramatic birth in a farmer's cornfield in 1943, erupting for nine years and providing scientists and the public a rare chance to witness a volcano's formation and growth from its infancy. This cinder cone volcano is now dormant and a popular tourist attraction, featuring the ruins of a church partially buried by lava.
The eruption of Paricutín lasted for nine years and produced one of the world's youngest volcanoes. Ash and lava began spewing from an open field in 1943 in Michoacán state, Mexico, and buried nearby settlements and farmland and displaced local people.
Paricutin, in Mexico, is a volcanic cone that erupted from a corn field on 20 February 1943, and was volcanically active until 1952.
The volcanic activity coming from Axial Seamount in 2025 had scientists predicting an impending eruption.
Mt. Unzen on the island of Kyushu, Japan (see figure) is thought to be the oldest active volcano. It is estimated to be 2.5 million years old, yet it has erupted as recently as 1984. It was also the ancient source for sulfur used to make gun powder in Japan as far back as the early 1600s.
A volcano, erupting with smoke and lava.
When will Yellowstone erupt again? We do not know. Future volcanic eruptions could occur within or near Yellowstone National Park for the simple reason that the area has a long volcanic history and because there is hot and molten rock, or magma, beneath the caldera now.
Volcano field on Kruzof Island with Mt. Edgecumbe, Crater Ridge, and several smaller cones. After about 800 years of "dormancy" at Mount Edgecumbe, researchers observed hundreds of small earthquakes in April 2022.
Arthur's Seat is an extinct volcano, which erupted around 340 million years ago.
Ol Doinyo Lengai, located near the southern end of the East African Rift in Tanzania, is known for its unique, low temperature, carbonatitic lava.
Yellowstone Caldera activity remains at background levels, with 79 located earthquakes in December (largest = M2. 7). Deformation measurements indicate subtle uplift along the north caldera rim that appears to have started in July.
Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2300 years. Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed; people starved. The Irish chronicles record "a failure of bread from the years 536–539." Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt.
The Taftan volcano, located in Southeastern Iran, which has been classified as dormant for the last 700,000 years has begun to show signs of life. The 13,000 foot summit has risen around 3.5 inches from Jul. 2023 to May 2024.
Yellowstone's famous caldera, which last went off more than 640,000 years ago, can lay claim as North America's most well-known supervolcano. But it isn't the continent's largest — a more ancient one found near the small southwestern Utah town of Enterprise, was about 30 times bigger.
Taal Volcano is the smallest active volcano in the world, with an elevation of 1,020 feet at its highest point (311 meters). But the crater lake that has formed inside its caldera is the largest lake on an island in a lake on an island in the world.
The last supervolcanic eruption at Yellowstone occurred around 640,000 years ago. While some speculate on eruption intervals, scientists stress that supervolcanoes do not follow predictable schedules. Estimates suggest no such eruption is due for at least another 60,000 years.
Deep in the Central Andes lies Uturuncu, Bolivia's “zombie” volcano -so called because despite being technically dead (last erupting 250 thousand years ago), it still shows signs of unrest, including earthquakes and plumes of gases.
The story was inspired by the 1943 formation of the Parícutin volcano in Mexico. Volcano was released by 20th Century Fox in the United States on April 25, 1997.
Can we survive a Yellowstone eruption? A massive eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano would spread deadly ash for thousands of miles, killing plant life and affecting humans in its path. Humans who were in its path would surely die, but it would not mean the extinction of the entire human race.
The Ring of Fire is a string of volcanoes and sites of seismic activity, or earthquakes, around the edges of the Pacific Ocean. Roughly 90 percent of all earthquakes occur along the Ring of Fire, and the ring is dotted with 75 percent of all active volcanoes on Earth.
"Humans cannot stop or control an eruption," Babb writes in an email, "but [humans] have taken some actions to control products erupted from a volcano." Diverting lava flows, for instance. Babb points to Mount Etna and that 1983 eruption we mentioned earlier, which sent lava flowing into populated areas.
Yes. Encounters between aircraft and clouds of volcanic ash are a serious concern. Jet engines and other aircraft components are vulnerable to damage by fine, abrasive volcanic ash, which can drift in dangerous concentrations hundreds of miles downwind from an erupting volcano.
Prophetic passages in the Old Testament warn mankind of phenomena described very similarly to what we call volcanoes today. "You will be punished by the Lord of hosts with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with storm and tempest and the flame of devouring fire" (Isaiah 29:6).