Scientists research on the Yellowstone supervolcano they find movement inside the crater, causing fears that the sleeping giant may explode.
A mountain range, located below Yellowstone National Park Wyomingthey can a devastating explosion 8.
And since the volcano hasn’t erupted in about 640,000 years, some experts and locals believe that the volcano was too late.
Researchers investigating the supervolcano’s lava, or caldera, discovered that the magma inside was moving northeast and changing the volume of the lava.
This means that if the volcano erupts, it will happen in this region compared to previous warnings in the western region.
Yellowstone Caldera is a 1,350 square kilometer valley located in the western part of the park that was created when the volcano erupted in a terrifying way hundreds of thousands of years ago.
The team found that most of the magma is stored underground, preventing it from moving too far to erupt.
Although an eruption could occur in the northeast as a result of the change, researchers said their findings suggest that the volcano may not erupt in our lifetime.
A new study has found that the flow of magma beneath the Yellowstone supervolcano is moving in a new direction. This image is the Grand Prismatic Spring that sits on top of an underground volcano
The Old Faithful Geyser has erupted in Yellowstone National Park. This natural wonder is driven by the eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera
“There are no volcanic areas in Yellowstone,” lead author Ninfa Bennington, a geophysicist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, said. Washington Post.
‘It has a lot of magma, but the magma hasn’t coalesced enough.’
Bennington and his colleagues conducted extensive magnetotelluric surveys across the Yellowstone Caldera.
This method works by listening to the Earth’s natural “signals”, such as radio waves and magnetic fields that come from the atmosphere or underground.
These signs change depending on the type of material – such as rock, water, or metal – that is underground.
This allowed the researchers to look into the crater and investigate what was going on underground.
They used the results to map the magma beneath the Caldera.
The results showed that there are at least seven areas of high magma between 2.5 and 30 miles below the surface, indicating that the reservoir is ‘not erupting.’
The researchers published their findings in the journal Nature on the third.
Previous research has said have shown that there are two types of magma under the Yellowstone Caldera.
One is basaltic magma, which is usually formed by direct melting of the earth’s crust, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
The Yellowstone Caldera is a large 1,350 square kilometer crater west of the center of the park that was created when the volcano erupted 640,000 years ago.
Beneath the caldera, the magma that fueled the eruption now appears to be moving northeast of the large crater, shifting the volume of the eruption.
Basaltic magma erupts easily due to its low water content. But this magma is dry and buried beneath the Yellowstone Caldera, which means it is unlikely to erupt there.
Another type is rhyolitic magma, which is thick and impermeable due to its high silica content.
Beneath Yellowstone, deep magma heats the surrounding rock, which helps form rhyolitic magma near the surface.
But it would take a significant increase for rhyolitic magma to emerge from Yellowstone.
This has already happened, however. In the past 2 million years, Yellowstone has produced three major caldera-forming eruptions, in total driven by rhyolitic magma reservoirs.
But this is unlikely to happen again, especially in our lifetime, according to researchers.
Based on the number of magma reservoirs located in the northeast of the Yellowstone Caldera, and the direct connection of this area to the source of heat in the lower crust, the researchers concluded that the volume of rhyolitic volcanism has shifted to the northeast.
This is a big change. For the past 160,000 years, the Yellowstone Caldera has been active in the northeast region of the mountain, the researchers wrote in their report.
Because of the amount of magma beneath the National Park, the area will remain eruptive, according to Bennington.
But his research suggests that tourists won’t be worried about a big explosion any time soon.
