Pexels
70,000 years ago, Yellowstone erupted.
The supervolcano cascaded a huge amount of lava to form what is now the Pitchstone Plateau to the southwest of Yellowstone National Park.
And though a future Yellowstone eruption would cause widespread damage and potentially loss of life in the region, it would also have a huge impact on our planet’s already vulnerable climate, ejecting massive plumes of ash into the atmosphere and triggering a temporary cooling event.
However, the good news is that the USGS suggest that a Yellowstone eruption is neither imminent nor overdue, with its average of one eruption every 725,000 years suggesting that we’re nowhere close to it blowing.
Pexels
The significant climatic event that a Yellowstone eruption would pose, however, is reason enough for the high levels of research and monitoring that go on at the volcano every day.
And thanks to a team of researchers from Rice University, University of New Mexico, University of Utah and the University of Texas at Dallas, we now have more insight than ever about not only what is going on under Yellowstone’s surface, but what might be preventing its future eruptions too.
Their findings, which were recently published in the journal Nature, used seismic imaging and computer modelling to prove that while Yellowstone is still actively releasing gas, it not any kind of eruption threat for now, as Rice University’s Professor Brandon Schmandt explained in a statement:
“For decades, we’ve known there’s magma beneath Yellowstone, but the exact depth and structure of its upper boundary has been a big question. What we’ve found is that this reservoir hasn’t shut down — it’s been sitting there for a couple million years, but it’s still dynamic.”
Even more fascinatingly, the team discovered that there is a magma cap residing 3.8 kilometers into the volcano, which traps pressure and heat inside.
Pexels
In order to truly understand Yellowstone’s seismic activity, the team used a vibrosis truck – a massive vehicle which generates small earthquakes. As these seismic waves travelled through the surface of the volcano that forms Yellowstone National Park, they were able to measure exactly where the top of the magma system lay.
But this was not a simple process. The team were not only working around the restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic, they also had to work through the night so as not to disrupt the day-to-day activities in the park.
Their findings, of the cap at 3.8 kilometers, helped to create the first images of the top of Yellowstone’s magma reservoir, as well as a deeper understanding of what is really lurking below the surface: all information that is vital in monitoring the supervolcano into the future.
Though gas is escaping from Yellowstone as a matter of course, the researchers explained and reassured the public that the volcano is effectively breathing steadily, and there is little to fear:
“Although we detected a volatile-rich layer, its bubble and melt contents are below the levels typically associated with imminent eruption. Instead, it looks like the system is efficiently venting gas through cracks and channels between mineral crystals, which makes sense to me given Yellowstone’s abundant hydrothermal features emitting magmatic gases.”
In fact, this venting system releases pressure from the magma chamber, making an imminent eruption even less likely.
If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about why we should be worried about the leak in the bottom of the ocean.