Far below the ground in Yellowstone National Park lurks a giant pool of magma. Geophysicists from the University of Utah have discovered a huge lake of lava and hot rocks inside of what is known as the Yellowstone Supervolcano. The results of the new study were recently published in the journal Science.
The reservoir of molten magma is located about 12 to 28 miles under the surface; it is thought to be about 11,000 cubic kilometers in size, holding enough lava to fill up the Grand Canyon over 11 times. This area, which includes sections of the supervolcano that have been seen before, as well as a lower area reservoir, has never been imaged. Thus, geologists had no way of knowing for certain about the “plumbing” that connects an upper area to the Yellowstone Supervolcano region.
Yellowstone Supervolcano Studied With Seismic Waves
Yellowstone is one of the biggest known volcanoes in the entire world and is also the biggest volcanic system in North America. The supervolcano, specifically, is located under an intra-plate hot spot, from which hot lava has traveled out of. A portable, temporary seismic network called the US Array used data from local and distant earthquakes to show the structures in the Earth’s crust, which assisted in the discovery of the giant lake of lava.
Details About Yellowstone Supervolcano Eruption
Even with this newest discovery, scientists say there is not a greater risk or an increased chance for the supervolcano under Yellowstone National Park to erupt. Instead, they report that it merely allows them to better understand the supervolcano’s total system of magma, according to the study’ co-author, Robert B. Smith, a geophysicist professor at the University of Utah.
The last time this supervolcano erupted was over 70,000 years ago, and at that time, the resulting lava was able to travel far enough to cover most of the area of North America in volcanic ash. If such an eruption were to happen today, it would be catastrophic, but according to research studies, the yearly chance for that to happen is very low at 1 in 700,000. With the new data available, scientists will also be able to study the inner workings of the supervolcano in further detail, including how it operates, what it consists of, and if there are any future risks of its eruption.
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