Magma reservoir under Yellowstone is at least two and a half times larger than previously thought

[n2doc]

Alexandra Witze


The reservoir of molten rock underneath Yellowstone National Park in the United States is at least two and a half times larger than previously thought. Despite this, the scientists who came up with this latest estimate say that the highest risk in the iconic park is not a volcanic eruption but a huge earthquake.

Yellowstone is famous for having a ‘hot spot’ of molten rock that rises from deep within the planet, fuelling the park’s geysers and hot springs1. Most of the magma resides in a partially molten blob a few kilometres beneath Earth’s surface.

New pictures of this plumbing system show that the reservoir is about 80 kilometres long and 20 kilometres wide, says Robert Smith, a geophysicist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. “I don’t know of any other magma body that’s been imaged that’s that big,” he says.

Smith reported the finding on 27 October at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver, Colorado.

Yellowstone lies in the western United States, where the mountain states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho converge. The heart of the park is a caldera — a giant collapsed pit left behind by the last of three huge volcanic eruptions in the past 2.1 million years.

more

http://www.nature.com/news/large-magma-reservoir-gets-bigger-1.14036

[Jessy169]

1. "...the highest risk in the iconic park is not a volcanic eruption but a huge earthquake"

But only because the huge earthquakes are much more likely to happen. However, IF/WHEN the giant caldera errupts in one of those every-640K year-or-so events, THAT would be magnitudes worse than all of the "huge earthquakes" combined.

[haikugal]

2. Volcano's have been an obsession for me...

since early childhood. I'm in awe of how our knowledge has grown over my lifetime. I can't help but wonder if a large earth quake might precede an eruption...Yellowstone is a wonderful place but if it blows we're toast..

[Warpy]

5. Most of us out west are toast.

That quantity of ash will also disrupt everything on the east coast, too.

I'm on the edge of the great ash falls here in north central NM. Still a foot or so of the stuff will collapse most structures. If I survived, I wouldn't like it much.

The deepest ash falls here were from the Valle Grande supervolcano about 70 miles northwest. It's an inactive crater and the thing is assumed to be extinct since it hasn't erupted for a million years. Still, the layers of tuff are 30 feet thick from that one, meaning the ash fall was something on the order of 300 feet, about what those under the ash plume could expect from Yellowstone.

[NickB79]

6. Your lungs would be shredded

Long before you had to worry about ash burying you.

Volcanic ash like that would be like inhaling microscopic shards of glass. Definitely not how I'd want to go :shiver:

[Warpy]

7. Good reason to keep something more quickly lethal

around. It's a horrible prospect, that's for certain.

[MisterP]

3. "that means we HAVE to sell of Yellowstone and clear-cut it before it blows!"

anyone remember that GOPing point from '05?

[GOTV]

4. Whoa! We're going to OWN the magma market! n/t