Giant explosion rocks Yellowstone Park

Part of Yellowstone just exploded. The world-famous national park is renowned for its majestic geysers, steaming pools of slop, and supervolcano that will one day destroy us all, but today, it’s renowned for all three of those things at once. The delightfully named ‘Biscuit Basin’ geyser exploded to a greater extent than usual on Tuesday, forcing part of the park to close and terrifying local tourists, who must have feared nature itself had turned on them. The ‘localized hydrothermal explosion’ took out part of the park, including the boardwalks, and caused minor damage to the parking lot, although no injuries were reported.

Despite this, volcanic activity in the park remains normal, and there is apparently no indication that The Big One is coming to wipe out humanity. The ‘small’ explosion occurred where ‘shallow interconnected reservoirs of fluids with temperatures at or near the boiling point underlie thermal fields,’ according to the United States Geological Survey. ‘These fluids can rapidly transition to steam if the pressure suddenly drops.’ You know, like the inside of a pizza roll.