Study: Cataclysmic super-eruptions give only a year's warning before they blow

A team of researchers that looked into volcanic super-eruptions and potential advance warnings discovered both good news and bad.

On the positive side, the mega explosions, which are powerful enough to lay an entire planet to waste, can be detected ahead of time.

On the downside, the telltale signs only appear about a year before the big blast comes.

The team, two scholars hailing from Vanderbilt University and the University of Chicago, focused their research efforts on eastern California's Bishop Tuff, where a super-eruption occurred roughly 750,000 years ago.

Of particular interest to them were the quartz crystals in the area.

By building upon previous studies that correlated the presence of a particular rim with the eruptions, they were able to determine the crystals develop the notable feature within the 12 months leading up to the event.

One of the researchers offered assurances that none will be occurring anywhere in the foreseeable future.

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