We all should be extra cautious regarding the Yellowstone Supervolcano from Yellowstone National Park (Western United States). The caldera seems to be hiding much more magma than researchers initially knew, as a new study that ABC News speaks about reveals.
Researchers used the seismic tomography technique to map the seismic wave speed that exists under the Yellowstone volcano. Thus, scientists were able to measure the volume of the melt and predict how the melt could be spread in the subsurface of the magma reservoir of the supervolcano.
Yellowstone is not expected to erupt anytime soon
The new measurements indicate that the excess of molten rock in the upper magma reservoir of the supervolcano is higher than initially thought – 16 to 20 percent of it is liquid, while older estimations indicated only 10 percent.
We can all remain calm, as the new discovery is not an indication that the Yellowstone supervolcano is about to erupt. Nobody can guarantee that it won’t happen at some point in the future, but at least we know that it won’t happen in our lifetime. Kari M. Cooper, who’s a professor and chair at the department of earth and planetary sciences from the University of California Davis, explained, as ABC News quotes:
This really does not change the hazard assessment at all, because we already knew that. We already knew this was the recent activity,
We already knew that was the most likely sort of activity to happen next.
Brandon Schmandt, who’s a geophysicist at the University of New Mexico and also one of the new study’s authors, explained. as The New York Times quotes:
There’s been a really big magmatic system there for two million years,
It does not look like it’s going away, that’s for sure.
If Yellowstone ever erupts, it would result in catastrophic consequences for our planet.
The new study was published in Science.
