Even If You Know, This Fact About Yellowstone National Park Is Surprising

Do you remember learning about volcanoes in school?

The first one I remember learning about was the volcano in the ancient Italian city of Pompeii. Because of how far away it was, and how long ago it had happened, I developed one of those false assumptions that you pick up by accident during school. For a (short) while I thought that volcanoes weren't something that happened in "modern times."

But then I went to Hawaii in the sixth grade and learned that volcanoes are still a thing. Even now I'm still learning facts about volcanoes that I somehow missed. Volcano science is a bit of a blind spot for me, I guess.

Mount Erebus, Antarctica

For example, I learned today that there's a volcano in Antarctica that spews gold. You read that right. Gold.

According to UPI, Mount Erebus in Antarctica sprays "tiny crystals of metallic gold...around 80 grams of gold a day--that's worth around $6,000."

But how does that fact compare to what we know about the "supervolcano" in Yellowstone National Park? Gold dust might be more entertaining, but the Yellowstone volcano, in my opinion, is more interesting.

READ MORE: Watch a Crazy Simulation on How Yellowstone Eruption Might Look

National Park Week - Yellowstone National Park

This Sunday will wrap up National Park Week and now is a great time to revisit one of the most interesting facts about this National Park.

Fox News shared a list of 15 surprising facts about America's National Parks and the fact they shared about Yellowstone never ceases to amaze me.

Three of the world's largest volcanic eruptions happened at Yellowstone National Park. - foxnews.com

Of course, these eruptions were hundreds of thousands of years ago in one case and millions of years ago for the other eruptions. But just knowing that the Yellowstone "supervolcano" is big enough to set records like this is fascinating and frightening.