Is Yellowstone’s Supervolcano Waking Up? Geologists Think There Are Signs of Movement

The research study found at least seven zones under Yellowstone that hold massive amounts of magma.

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A tourist taking photos on Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. (Representative Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Elena Pueyo)

Yellowstone National Park has one of the largest volcanic systems on our planet. Its vast caldera stretches across much of the park's area and has given rise to some of the popular geysers, hot springs, and steaming vents. Scientists constantly keep a check on the region for any signs of danger. This is because even a small eruption here can have the potential to reshape the surrounding landscape entirely. Now, beneath the Yellowstone's massive caldera, one of the world’s most famous super volcanoes is showing signs of movement. While there is no immediate danger, the findings highlight how unpredictable the region remains.

A representative image of the Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone. (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | AlexKane)

This finding was revealed in a study titled 'The progression of basaltic–rhyolitic melt storage at Yellowstone Caldera.' It was published earlier this year in the journal Nature. Seismologist Ninfa Bennington and the rest of her team suggest that the vast underground magma chambers, long responsible for the caldera’s explosive history, now appear to be drifting northeast. This means that the next major volcanic eruption could happen in that direction. In their paper, they wrote, "Post-caldera rhyolitic volcanism in the previous 160,000 years has occurred across the majority of Yellowstone Caldera with the exclusion of this northeast region."

A representative image of a hot spring in Yellowstone National Park. (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | George Rose)

Rhyolite is a dense type of magma, rich in silica, that doesn’t flow easily, but when pressure builds, it can result in highly violent eruptions. The researchers also estimate that beneath northeastern Yellowstone, the crust may hold as much as 105 cubic miles of molten rock. That's almost the same amount of magma that erupted 1.3 million years ago during the massive Mesa Falls event, as reported by Newsweek. The study found at least seven zones under Yellowstone that hold massive amounts of magma, with some of them linked together and sharing the same supply.

These magma pockets sit at different depths, from as deep as 29 miles under the ground to as close as 2.5 miles below the surface. To study the crust, Bennington and her team used an electromagnetic method that tracks even the minor shifts in Earth’s magnetic field, allowing them to find out exactly what lies hidden underground. Moving ahead, the researchers emphasized that a more detailed study is required before anyone can estimate when the magma reservoir in the northeast might erupt.

Yellowstone is a giant super volcano unlike any other on our planet. Over the last two million years, it has erupted three times with massive force, leaving behind huge bowl-shaped craters. In addition to the Mesa Falls eruption mentioned above, the other two massive explosions were the Huckleberry Ridge eruption, which took place a little more than two million years ago, and the Lava Creek eruption that happened about 630,000 years ago, as reported by the BBC Science Focus. Apart from these, it has also produced several smaller eruptions throughout the years.

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