University of Utah seismologists discovered and made images of a reservoir of hot, partly molten rock 12 to 28 miles beneath the Yellowstone supervolcano, and it is 4.4 times larger than the shallower, long-known magma chamber. Read more
Yellowstone National Park was established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, though it also extends into Montana and Idaho.
Ancient eruptions in the Pacific Northwest may have been caused by the tearing of a titanic slab of rock.
Ancient giant eruptions in the Pacific Northwest may actually have been caused by the tearing of a titanic slab of rock and not the supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park, scientists now suggest. Volcanism at Yellowstone is thought to have started with the Steens-Columbia River flood basalts. A flood basalt is the result of a large volcanic eruption that covers vast areas with lava, and the Steens-Columbia River flood basalts erupted more than 230,000 cubic kilometres of molten rock over approximately 2 million years, spewing out more than 1 million times the notorious Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980. Read more
Lava Formations in Western U.S. Linked to Rip in Giant Slab of Earth
Like a stream of air shooting out of an airplane's broken window to relieve cabin pressure, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego say lava formations in eastern Oregon are the result of an outpouring of magma forced out of a breach in a massive slab of Earth. Their new mechanism explaining how such a large volume of magma was generated is published in the Feb. 16 issue of the journal Nature. Read more
A look at Yellowstone National Park and the caldera super volcano beneath it that is pushing up the land and long overdue for what could be a titanic eruption.
Old Faithful is a cone geyser located in Wyoming, in Yellowstone National Park in the United States. On the afternoon of September 18, 1870, the members of the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition travelled down the Firehole River from the Kepler Cascades and entered the Upper Geyser Basin. The first geyser they saw was Old Faithful. Read more
Old Faithful Geyser Erupts, Yellowstone National Park
A day in the life of Old Faithful, through time-lapse video
The underground volcanic plume at Yellowstone in the US may be bigger than previously thought, according to a new study by geologists. The volcanic hotspot below Yellowstone feeds the hot springs, mud pots and geysers that bring millions of visitors to the US national park each year. But the Yellowstone "supervolcano" has erupted violently in the distant past and could do so again at some point. Read more
University of Utah geophysicists made the first large-scale picture of the electrical conductivity of the gigantic underground plume of hot and partly molten rock that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano. The image suggests the plume is even bigger than it appears in earlier images made with earthquake waves. The new University of Utah study has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, which plans to publish it within the next few weeks. Read more
Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, though it also extends into Montana and Idaho. Read more
Super Volcano: The Ticking Time Bomb Beneath Yellowstone National Park
Despite growing evidence of geothermic activity under America's first and foremost national park, it took geologists a long time to realise that there was actually a volcano beneath Yellowstone. And then, why couldn't they find the caldera or crater? Because, as an aerial photograph finally revealed, the caldera is 45 miles wide, encompassing all of Yellowstone. What will happen, in human terms, when it erupts? Greg Breining explores the shocking answer to this question and others in a scientific yet accessible look at the enormous natural disaster brewing beneath the surface of the United States. Read more