What do you think?
Rate this book
Supervolcano: The Catastrophic Event That Changed the Course of Human History Could Yellowstone Be Next?
Approximately 75,000 years ago, an event occurred that almost wiped out human life. According to a stunning new theory, this singular event may also have completely altered the genetic evolution of humankind. It was an event that released 3,000 times the energy of Mt. St. Helens.
The new book, Supervolcano , explores this eruption of the Toba supervolcano in Sumatra, Indonesia, its far-reaching impact, and the strong possibility of another supervolcano eruption in our lifetime.
Supervolcanoes are considered one of the five biggest threats to humankind, along with asteroids, nuclear war, disease, and global warming. But of those, supervolcanoes are the only threat that cannot be prevented.
And their effects are catastrophic. So devastating was the Toba eruption and the sheer amount of ash it released into the atmosphere, it altered the global climate for years, creating a mini Ice Age that obliterated massive amounts of plant, animal, and human life. A new theory claims this earth-shattering event also caused a severe "population bottleneck" in humans, leading to the eventual extinction of all other branches of our species with the exception of one...the branch that survived Toba and became modern humans.
Supervolcano will
-What supervolcanos are, where they are found, and why they are so deadly to life on earth.
-Toba, the largest of the known supervolcanoes in the past 27 million years, and how its catastrophic environmental aftermath brought humanity to the brink of extinction.
-How genetic, geological, and computer studies show that each human today is related to a survivor of Toba.
-How we can prepare for the next supervolcano, which many earth scientists believe could be right here in our own backyard--Yellowstone National Park. And why they believe an eruption at Yellowstone could be as catastrophic for humanity as Toba.
The new book, Supervolcano , explores this eruption of the Toba supervolcano in Sumatra, Indonesia, its far-reaching impact, and the strong possibility of another supervolcano eruption in our lifetime.
Supervolcanoes are considered one of the five biggest threats to humankind, along with asteroids, nuclear war, disease, and global warming. But of those, supervolcanoes are the only threat that cannot be prevented.
And their effects are catastrophic. So devastating was the Toba eruption and the sheer amount of ash it released into the atmosphere, it altered the global climate for years, creating a mini Ice Age that obliterated massive amounts of plant, animal, and human life. A new theory claims this earth-shattering event also caused a severe "population bottleneck" in humans, leading to the eventual extinction of all other branches of our species with the exception of one...the branch that survived Toba and became modern humans.
Supervolcano will
-What supervolcanos are, where they are found, and why they are so deadly to life on earth.
-Toba, the largest of the known supervolcanoes in the past 27 million years, and how its catastrophic environmental aftermath brought humanity to the brink of extinction.
-How genetic, geological, and computer studies show that each human today is related to a survivor of Toba.
-How we can prepare for the next supervolcano, which many earth scientists believe could be right here in our own backyard--Yellowstone National Park. And why they believe an eruption at Yellowstone could be as catastrophic for humanity as Toba.
- GenresNonfictionScience
287 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2007
31 people are currently reading
77 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 6, 2008
Piece o' shite.
This is supposed to be about science but one of the co-authors is an ordained New Age minister with no science background at all although she's very interested in paranormal phenomena. WTF? I gave up on the book shortly after I came upon the section devoted to the importance of volcanoes to Scientologists.
In addition, the book was either not copyedited at all or copyedited by the worst copy editor on the planet. Tons of typos and affect/effect used incorrectly every single time I ran across it.
This is supposed to be about science but one of the co-authors is an ordained New Age minister with no science background at all although she's very interested in paranormal phenomena. WTF? I gave up on the book shortly after I came upon the section devoted to the importance of volcanoes to Scientologists.
In addition, the book was either not copyedited at all or copyedited by the worst copy editor on the planet. Tons of typos and affect/effect used incorrectly every single time I ran across it.
December 29, 2025
A very interesting topic — but muddled by too many deviations, including a scenario of a possible supereruption in our days.
[REREAD]
[REREAD]
April 11, 2015
Less than scientific..
A lot of interesting information, a lot of conjecture.
There were some facts I was unaware of, but also a lot of psycho-babble. How the effects of the Toba eruption would effect the psychology of survivors, and be transmitted to people today by 'cellular memory'. No proof to back that up.
It's ok to present theories in a nonfiction book, but too many theories in one book tend to make it all seem wildly improbable.
Toba did erupt, and there does seem to be proof of a subsequent evolutionary bottleneck, but there was too much....fluff, for lack of a better word, to make this book into something I could take as fact. I like to use nonfiction as reference books, because I am interested in everything. This book does not meet my criteria.
Results: if you want to know all about supervolcanoes, read a different book.
A lot of interesting information, a lot of conjecture.
There were some facts I was unaware of, but also a lot of psycho-babble. How the effects of the Toba eruption would effect the psychology of survivors, and be transmitted to people today by 'cellular memory'. No proof to back that up.
It's ok to present theories in a nonfiction book, but too many theories in one book tend to make it all seem wildly improbable.
Toba did erupt, and there does seem to be proof of a subsequent evolutionary bottleneck, but there was too much....fluff, for lack of a better word, to make this book into something I could take as fact. I like to use nonfiction as reference books, because I am interested in everything. This book does not meet my criteria.
Results: if you want to know all about supervolcanoes, read a different book.
dnf-did-not-finish
January 14, 2017My rationale - errors in data reported for volumes, used linear measurements instead rather consistently over a large number of pages.
A rarity for me to publicly say, "I did not finish a book," but this is one instance in which I feel obligated to do so. There are many, clear instances where factual data are reported incorrectly. Specifically, volumes are cited using distance names rather than the appropriate, cubic ones. I suspect that the difference of having or not having a superscripted 3 is of no consequence, as the intended audience is general readership rather than scientifically or mathematically tuned readership.
If I have time to read a book rather write and edit them, I will try to come back and finish this work, but right now I am too busy to be distracted by loose scholarship that these consistent errors point to.
A rarity for me to publicly say, "I did not finish a book," but this is one instance in which I feel obligated to do so. There are many, clear instances where factual data are reported incorrectly. Specifically, volumes are cited using distance names rather than the appropriate, cubic ones. I suspect that the difference of having or not having a superscripted 3 is of no consequence, as the intended audience is general readership rather than scientifically or mathematically tuned readership.
If I have time to read a book rather write and edit them, I will try to come back and finish this work, but right now I am too busy to be distracted by loose scholarship that these consistent errors point to.
September 7, 2019
Lots of theories and psychobabble and badly formatted. It was a meh book, kind of boring, and with fonts that were distracting as well as things like a graph paper design around pictures that made the captions harder to read. Each chapter had a cheap fractured text effect that was just annoying.
Might be worth reading once if you're bored.
Might be worth reading once if you're bored.
April 30, 2023
well that was frightening
well… I’ll be honest, I can’t see any trips to America in my future after reading this. San Andreas fault is ‘locked and loaded’ eh? and could trigger a bloody big volcano eh? Think I’ll stay in England where we don’t have weather, earthquakes, volcanos, tectonic plates etc and the ground doesn’t want to kill you.
well… I’ll be honest, I can’t see any trips to America in my future after reading this. San Andreas fault is ‘locked and loaded’ eh? and could trigger a bloody big volcano eh? Think I’ll stay in England where we don’t have weather, earthquakes, volcanos, tectonic plates etc and the ground doesn’t want to kill you.
June 21, 2021
Not as exciting as the title might suggest. Most of it reads like a PhD thesis. Somewhat interesting if you're into vulcanology.
March 25, 2012
Pretty scary to think of these huge calderas right here in North America. The Toba one devestated the early human population and almost made us go extinct but we were resiliant enough to live through it. Pretty amazing that all humans at today are descended from the 3-5000 individuals to survive the Toba supervolcano. Wonder what would happen to us today should the Yellowstone or Long Valley Calderas erupt? They are technically overdue...
February 25, 2016
Excellent book on a human population bottleneck 70000+ years ago
This book explores in detail the history of the Toba supervolcano eruption about 74,000 years ago and it's effect on human evolution in the aftermath of the volcanic winter that followed the catastrophic eruption. Very thought provoking book. Highly recommended.
This book explores in detail the history of the Toba supervolcano eruption about 74,000 years ago and it's effect on human evolution in the aftermath of the volcanic winter that followed the catastrophic eruption. Very thought provoking book. Highly recommended.
July 5, 2008
It started off interesting enough, but went completely off the rails when it started getting into genetic trauma.
May 18, 2012
The geologic information on volcano's was good. I skipped the last chapter.
July 26, 2013
A well written book that doesnt require any specialist knowledge as the author explains the science well.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews