All throughout history, people have associated volcanoes with Hell.
Or at least they’ve associated volcanoes with what we’d call “Hell” today — a fiery place of punishment and torment in afterlife.
In the 16th century, when the Spanish conquered modern-day Nicaragua, they first encountered the Masaya caldera. They looked inside the fiery pit and, staring down into the burning abyss, they nicknamed it “La Boca del Infierno,” or “The Mouth of Hell.”
Throughout the Middle Ages, the Icelandic people called Mount Hekla (one of Iceland’s most active volcanoes) the “Gateway to Hell.” That name is also applied to the Erta Ale caldera in northern Ethiopia.
According to Japanese tradition, Mount Osore — literally “Dread Mountain” — is the entrance to Hell.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
— Inscription above the gates of hell
Dante, The Inferno, Canto III
Of course, it’s easy to understand why volcanoes are so associated with hell: Inside the open mouth of a caldera is perhaps the most hostile environment on the planet. Nothing survives.
But over the centuries, we’ve learned much more about geology. And we know today that volcanoes are simply a matter of tectonic activity happening deep within the Earth.
We’ve also learned that volcanic activity is how valuable minerals (such as gold, silver, copper, aluminum, diamonds, nickel, lead, zinc, and many others) become available to us. And we know the biggest volcanoes typically produce the biggest and most profitable mineral deposits.
The Mother of All Volcanoes
Yellowstone is the shining crown jewel of America’s national parks.
But if you’ve seen many Hollywood disaster films, you know Yellowstone National Park is also the site of a recurring supervolcano.
A supervolcano is exactly as the name implies: a big ass volcano with unimaginably destructive power.
An eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano would kill 90% of humans in a 60-mile radius within one hour. Some would be killed by the initial blast. Most would suffocate from the heat.
But that would just be the beginning…
Blowing across the country would be a gigantic ash cloud — an aerial mountain of deadly particles and debris blown 15 miles into the atmosphere.
The fallout could cover half of the United States.
Volcanic ash is six times heavier than wet snow. It would cause roofs to collapse, shut down power stations, clog every filter there is, ground flights for months, halt transport of food and goods…
It would be a natural disaster worse than all hurricanes combined.
So, okay… maybe the Yellowstone supervolcano really is the Gateway to Hell.
But what are the odds Yellowstone is going to erupt in our lifetime?
Well, scientists say there have been 42 supervolcanic eruptions at Yellowstone in the past 36 million years.
That’s about once every 850,000 years.
The last major eruption occurred approximately 630,000 years ago.
So you might want to immediately think we’re still good for another 200,000 years.
But of course these things don’t happen on a timer. And there is a mountain of speculation and data all suggesting Yellowstone will erupt soon.
Still, it’s most likely we can rest easy.
According to 2013 analysis of earthquake data, the USGS said the magma chamber was 6% to 8% filled with molten rock. This was about 2.5 times bigger than scientists had previously imagined. However, the USGS says this is much too low to allow another supereruption in the near future.
There’s no doubt that the Yellowstone volcano will erupt one day in the future. But in the meantime, scientists have discovered something else while studying Yellowstone: lithium.
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Scientists Discover Lithium in Yellowstone’s Supervolcano
Researchers from Stanford University and the U.S. Geological Survey recently published a study that shows Yellowstone could be an economically feasible location to produce lithium.
The research team took samples from sites in Nevada, Wyoming, and Colorado and found significant amounts of lithium. Gail Mahood, professor of geological sciences at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, wrote:
If you have a lot of magma erupting, it doesn’t have to have as much lithium in it to produce something that is worthy of economic interest as we previously thought. You don’t need extraordinarily high concentrations of lithium in the magma to form lithium deposits and reserves.
A new American source of lithium could be game changing for investors. And that’s simply because the market is going to need all the lithium it can get its hands on to fuel the electric vehicle revolution.
EV sales in the U.S. have grown at a 32% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the past four years. Worldwide, growth has been even stronger. Since 2013, global EV sales have increased about 400%.
Going forward, the total EV market is forecast to grow at a CAGR of close to 23% through 2021.
But the EV market is not just a fast-growing sector; it’s also a replacement for the combustion engine.
The electric vehicle revolution is one that won’t be stopped. Soon fully electric motors will replace the combustion engine the same way the electric light bulb replaced the oil lantern. And today’s investors are going to be the major beneficiaries.
Fortunately, it’s not too late to invest…
My most recent lithium recommendation in my Secret Stock Files portfolio has returned a +75% gain in just four weeks. Have a look:
With the right research and the right timing, gains like these are still easily available.
The EV revolution was conceived long before it got started. But we’re out of that theoretical stage and now into the implementation stage.
Ten years ago the EV revolution was coming. Today, it’s happening.
Until next time,
Luke Burgess
As an editor at Energy and Capital, Luke’s analysis and market research reach hundreds of thousands of investors every day. Luke is also a contributing editor of Angel Publishing’s Bull and Bust Report newsletter. There, he helps investors in leveraging the future supply-demand imbalance that he believes could be key to a cyclical upswing in the hard asset markets. For more on Luke, go to his editor’s page.
