During Paradise’s penultimate episode, “The Day”, the real reason behind the need for an underground community is revealed. On one fateful day, a supervolcano eruption sparked a chain of devastating events, wiping out the majority of humanity. The tense drama and ethical dilemmas that followed made for an engaging hour of television, but how likely is it that a supervolcano would cause an extinction-level event in reality?

What are Supervolcanoes?

Everybody likely has a vision of what makes a volcano in their head – a deafening explosion followed by a scattering of ash and lava. For aeons, these openings in the earth’s crust have captured our imaginations and stoked a healthy dose of fear; after all, we need not look too far into the past to see the levels of destruction they leave in their wake. Supervolcanoes, on the other hand, are of a magnitude all of their own.

Although nobody in living memory has witnessed the all-consuming power of these monstrosities, research has provided an outline of what we can expect. Their eruptions would be enormous, reaching the highest level on the Volcanic Explosivity Index and leaving behind calderas (a collapsed magma chamber) more than 50 kilometres wide.

Those within its path would face pyroclastic flows that could cover entire states, while those further afield would be met with a deluge of ash. Once within the atmosphere, the ash and sulphur would change the earth’s climate, causing mass famine and biodiversity loss.

Extinction Event: Fact or Fiction

Given the amount of damage a supervolcano could cause, it’s no wonder that those who see it as a possible extinction scenario have their backers. Paradise plays into this well by using a volcano in Antarctica, which has recently seen the discovery of 138 volcanoes and has been the subject of worrying research over the effect climate change could have on this region. On closer inspection, however, the series falls into hyperbole beyond this.

Starting with the supervolcano eruption, it would be devastating but not catastrophic. Experts within the geological field theorise that these events are “not capable of wiping out the entire human race” because they “happen too often”. Even the most cataclysmic of theories, the Toba Catastrophe Theory, agrees that these events act as a genetic bottleneck rather than an extinction scenario.

Paradise’s scenario continues, showing that the supervolcano eruption exacerbated other natural forces, causing a land collapse and mega-tsunami. On this front, as well, there seems to be more hyperbole and dramatic license.

Since the eruption of Cumbre Vieja in the Canaries, scientific research has come along leaps and bounds. We know that when land collapses as a result of volcanic activity, it occurs gradually. While this may cause a tsunami, it’ll be nowhere near as large as those fear-mongering a potential mega-tsunami.

With a solid grounding in the foundations of volcanology and a little dramatic license, Paradise succeeds in creating a tense and atmospheric episode with a believable scenario. Despite these vivid efforts, consensus would agree that there is less and less evidence that a supervolcano eruption would be enough to cause the extinction of the human race, even with exacerbating factors.

References:

British Geological Survey. Eruption Styles: Discovering Geology – Volcanoes. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.bgs.ac.uk/discovering-geology/earth-hazards/volcanoes/eruption-styles/

Coonin, A.N., Huber, C., Troch, J., Townsend, M., Scholz, K., Singer, B.S., (2024). Magma Chamber Response to Ice Unloading: Applications to Volcanism in the West Antarctic Rift System. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. 25(12). 

Geographical, (2024). Geo Explainer: Toba Supervolcano, The Biggest Eruption in Human History. [ONLINE] Available at:  https://geographical.co.uk/science-environment/explainer-the-toba-supervolcano-and-the-biggest-eruption-in-human-history

The Geological Society, (2009). UK ‘Perfectly Placed’ to Survive Super Eruption. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Geoscientist/Archive/September-2009/UK-perfectly-placed-to-survive-super-eruption 

Live Science, (2025). Antarctica Ice Melt Could Cause 100 Hidden Volcanoes to Erupt. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/antarctica/antarctica-ice-melt-could-cause-100-hidden-volcanoes-to-erupt

Natural History Museum. Supervolcanoes and Their Enormous Eruptions. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-a-supervolcano.html

USGS, (2021). Volcano Watch – The Canary Islands “Mega-Tsunami” Hypothesis, And Why it Doesn’t Carry Water. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/news/volcano-watch-canary-islands-mega-tsunami-hypothesis-and-why-it-doesnt-carry 

van Wyk de Vries, M., Bingham, R.G., Hein, A.S., (2017). A New Volcanic Province: An Inventory of Subglacial Volcanoes in West Antarctica. Geological Society, London, Special Publications. 461, 231-248.