Originally posted by Freddie2006Not even close to one of the biggest. In terms of ejected volume Yellowstone has twice had explosions at least 100 times bigger.
The eruption at Krakatoa was one of the biggest ever as well as one of the most spectacular and most interesting to study. Here are two websites that might help, the first is very good for info on the the eruption.
http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/frequent_questions/grp7/asia/question879.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa
Hope this helps.
You might argue that those ones don't count because they were 2.2 million and 640 thousand years ago. Then how about Mount Tambora in 1815 or Lake Taupo (it was a mountain back then but not anymore) in 181 AD? Both of those were around ten times bigger.