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Watch: Hydrothermal explosion at Yellowstone sends guests fleeing
Video captured the instances when a hydrothermal explosion alarmed visitors to Yellowstone National Park.
Researchers are monitoring alterations at the massive supervolcano situated beneath Yellowstone National Park, yet there is no cause for concern at present.
“The western region of the Yellowstone caldera is decreasing,” articulated Ninfa Bennington, a geophysicist specializing in volcanoes with the U.S. Geological Survey and the primary author of a study in Wednesday’s release of the journal Nature.
(The caldera is the vast volcanic crater remaining from the last significant eruption at Yellowstone, 640,000 years ago. It spans an area of about 30 by 45 miles.)
The results indicate that the imminent volcanic activity at Yellowstone is centered in the northeastern section of the park, and there is no likelihood of an eruption any time soon.
“This volcanic system does not have the capacity to generate that level of eruption,” noted Bennington.
Currently, the mud pots in Yellowstone will continue to bubble, the hot springs will keep producing steam, the geysers will maintain their sprays, the Earth will perpetuate its tremors, and the fumaroles will go on venting. The enormous underground reservoirs of magma beneath the renowned park remain intensely hot, with temperatures ranging from 2,512 to 1,247 degrees, according to Bennington.
Gaining insight into the magma beneath Yellowstone
Yellowstone is among the largest volcanic systems on the globe, a location where a plume of molten Earth’s core rises through the solid crust, generating heat and melting it to create magma reservoirs located between 2.5 and 30 miles beneath the surface.
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Historically, this has often been depicted as one large subterranean lake of lava beneath the volcanoes, but modern mapping and imaging techniques allow for a clearer view of the intricate systems of reservoirs in which magma has accumulated.
A mapping technique that yields more accurate depictions of the substantial magma reservoirs beneath the park reveals sizable pockets of deep magma leading to shallower ones closer to the surface in the northeast, which connect to the well-known hydrothermal systems of the park.
To determine the likelihood of a volcano erupting, vulcanologists compute what’s referred to as a melt fraction. This reflects the ratio of how much magma (or “melt”) exists relative to the total crust volume.
“Imagine the Earth as a sponge,” explained Bennington. But instead of water filling the gaps, it’s molten rock. In a volcanically active region, there’s a larger ratio of magma to Earth. The greater the magma ratio, the more prone the area is to an eruption.
The mapping was executed using magnetotellurics that gauge the electrical conductivity of subsurface materials. Molten rock, or magma, is highly efficient at conducting electricity, allowing for accurate mapping of areas where magma is stored. This research was carried out over several months by scientists from USGS, Oregon State University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
What their findings indicated was that although there are numerous massive magma reservoirs beneath Yellowstone, they remain isolated from one another.
“It would be challenging to move into a singular eruption because they are not interconnected,” stated Bennington.
When is the next Yellowstone eruption expected?
It remains possible that the northeastern section of the park could experience a significant explosive eruption akin to those that have transpired at Yellowstone over the last 2.1 million years. During those events, volcanic ash extended from the Pacific Ocean to Canada and Mexico.
They typically occur approximately every 600,000 to 800,000 years, as per the U.S. Geological Survey.
The most recent eruption took place 640,000 years ago and is referred to as a super eruption due to its release of an estimated 250 cubic miles of material – one thousand times larger than the Mount St. Helen’s eruption in Washington state in 1980.
Currently, the spaces within the sponge do not contain sufficient magma to support an eruption. For such an event to occur, the system would require additional magma to fill more cavities in the crust’s “sponge.” Once a significant part of those spaces are occupied by magma, it could potentially trigger an eruption.
“But we are far from that point now,” remarked Bennington. “We’re discussing geological time scales.”
That translates to hundreds of thousands of years – and potentially much longer.
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