The Silex Spring in the Fountain Paint Pot area in
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. (Reuters/Jim Urquhart)
An underwater river or "fountain" of magma has been
located underneath the Yellowstone supervolcano. Despite fears that this could
trigger a major eruption in the near future, experts say it's not expected to
blow anytime soon.
According to a research paper published
in Nature this week, scientists Peter Nelson and Stephen Grand believe the
magma may stretch as far as Mexico.
The researchers describe "a single narrow, cylindrically
shaped slow anomaly, approximately 350 km in diameter that we interpret as a
whole-mantle plume," according to the study's abstract.
The scientists note the approximate length of the plume was made
"using the travel times of core waves recorded by the dense seismic
network."
Whether the plume could cause magma to rise in a vertical stream
is still unclear, the researchers added. They also noted the Yellowstone
hotspot itself, which is home to the famous bubbling springs, is also a source
of debate.
The researchers also indicate they've demonstrated the plume's
existence because the structure "gradually decreases in strength" as
it nears the surface and could have temperatures near the mantle of at least
650 degrees Celsius (1,202 degrees Fahreneheit), perhaps in excess of 850
degress Celsius (1,562 degrees Fahrenheit).
"Our results strongly support a deep origin for the
Yellowstone hotspot, and also provide evidence for the existence of thin
thermal mantle plumes that are currently beyond the resolution of global
tomography models," the researchers wrote.
Concerns have cropped up in recent memory, most notably in the
last week when Yellowstone experienced four mini-tremors, that the supervolcano
would erupt faster than initially thought.
However, any talk of it potentially wiping out life as we know
it is incorrect.
According to National
Geographic, researchers Hannah Shamloo and Christy Till analyzed
minerals in fossilized ash from the most recent eruption in the summer of 2017.
What they discovered surprised them – the changes in temperature and
composition only took a few decades, much faster than the centuries previously
thought.
Despite some sensationalist claims seen in the media, the
supervolcano is not expected to erupt anytime soon and if it did, the events
would not be catastrophic. "There's no reason to think it could impact
mass transport the way the Iceland eruption did nor would it have any effect on
crops," Till told Fox News in October 2017. "There is no evidence to
suggest it could destroy mankind."
The supervolcano last had a major eruption about 630,000 years
ago, Till added. Prior to that, the last major eruption was 1.3 million years
ago, per a report from ZME
Science. A smaller eruption, the most current on record, occurred
70,000 years ago.
All eyes or motion detectors are focused on Yellowstone National Park and the recent increase in earthquakes as well as the very recent increase in the intensity of earthquakes. With the well documented massive magma deposit nearing the surface of the earth and the exceptional geologic structure of the park, offering over 400 various types of vents for releasing the massive pressure from below, Yellowstone is the most and best monitored natural disaster zone in the world. Just last September the earthquake activity picked up substantially and it has been increasing ever since. In September earthquakes averaged about 2.0 in magnitude. By January the average magnitude moved up to 2.3 and in the last few days it has reached 2.7 to 2.9.
Cause for alarm, nobody knows. Cause for concern, you better believe it!
There are perhaps 20 supervolcanoes around the world but none has the massive size and danger potential as Yellowstone. Since the most recent eruptions have been 640,000, 1.2 million, and 6 million years ago, we are most certainly way overdue.
Here is what the media are reporting on the most recent developments at Yellowstone. Ironically, the European media is far more interested in Yellowstone than the American media snf they do s much better job of reporting on activity.
Yellowstone earthquake: Fears for deadly SUPERVOLCANO
ERUPTION after TEN quakes in one day
FEARS
for a Yellowstone supervolcano eruption have been sparked after a swarm of 10
earthquakes struck the seismically volatile US national park today following
another quake yesterday.
PUBLISHED: 17:10, Sun, Feb
18, 2018 | UPDATED: 17:18, Sun, Feb 18, 2018
Yellowstone
has been hit by 10 small earthquakes today, setting alarm bells ringing with
the park’s fearsome supervolcano already “under strain” according to one
expert.
While all
the quakes were relatively small, it does point to an increasingly volatile geological
landscape at the park.
All of
today's earthquakes struck near Maple Creek and measured 2.9 of less
magnitude.
Yesterday
Yellowstone was also hit by a 2.6 magnitude earthquake.
Below the
surface of the park lies the fearsome Yellowstone Caldera, a supervolcano which
last erupted approximately 630,000 years ago.
Experts
warn it erupts roughly every million years, with some geologists claiming it is
already showing signs it could be ready to blow once again.
Yesterday's
earthquake roughly 20 miles from the supervolcano will add to concerns of an
imminent - and devastating - eruption.
Earlier
this week seismologists from UNAVCO, a nonprofit university-governed
consortium, said the site was “under strain”.
They said
“the strain signal is larger than would be expected if the crust under
Yellowstone were completely solid”.
However
these findings are "no cause for alarm”, they said, and reflect the
expected measurements of a volcano which has been building up for close to a
million years.
If the
Wyoming volcano were to erupt an estimated 87,000 people would be killed
immediately and two-thirds of the USA would immediately be made uninhabitable
due to a huge ash cloud sparking rapid climate change.
The large
spew of ash into the atmosphere would block out sunlight and directly affect
life beneath it creating a “nuclear winter” for huge parts of Earth - not
simply the American West.
The
massive eruption could be a staggering 6,000 times as powerful as the one from
Washington’s Mount St Helens in 1980 which killed 57 people and deposited ash
in 11 different states and five Canadian provinces.
If the
volcano explodes, a climate shift would ensue as the volcano would spew massive
amounts of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, which can form a sulphur
aerosol that reflects and absorbs sunlight.
Movie Clips of
Yellowstone Eruption
Scientists 'DON'T KNOW' how big a
'tremendous' eruption from Yellowstone volcano could be
A
“TREMENDOUS” super eruption could be about to take place in Yellowstone, US, as
local experts admit they “don’t know” how big the volcanic blast will be.
PUBLISHED: 02:06, Mon, Dec 4, 2017 |
UPDATED: 07:03, Mon, Dec 4, 2017
Fears are growing a huge eruption
is due from Yellowstone, 630,000 years after the last blast sent debris flying
hundreds of miles across America.
A study by a team of scientists
from Bristol University found these deadly eruptions may happen every 17,000
years or so.
This means our next
super-eruptions could be overdue after the two most recent super-eruptions to
rock Earth happened somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 years ago.
Michael Poland,
Scientist-in-Charge at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, has now admitted
they do not know how large an eruption could be about to take place.
He said: “We don’t know whether there’s enough magma beneath the
surface to have a super eruption.”
What if
it erupted?
Explaining
exactly how large eruptions are measured he continued: “Super volcanos, or
super eruptions, are these eruptions that are on the eruption intensity scale,
there’s something called the volcano explosivity index (VEI) and eruptions that
have a VEI of eight are considered super eruptions.
“And
that’s pretty massive, most eruptions that we see would be VEI three, four. Big
ones are five and then once a century or so there’s a six, so a VEI eight is
really, really tremendous.”
The
confession from Mr Poland that experts are unsure how big an eruption from the
volcano would be is unlikely to put people living in the US at ease.
Denver City is the biggest city at direct risk of a major blast,
located around 500 miles to the south-east of the volcano.
However,
Salt Lake, Cheyenne, Rapid City, Billings and Boise would all also potentially
be at risk.
Denver
is home 600,000 people with as many as two million others living in the metro
area surrounding Colorado’s capital.
Salt Lake City, located one state west in Utah, could see as
much as three feet of ash could fall, smothering the city and blotting out the
sun if a VEI eight erupted.
More
than 180,000 people live in the city with more than one million inhabiting the
surround metro area.
Doctor
Harley Benz of the US Geological Survey said huge eruptions in the past had
left nothing in its wake.
He said: “We’re talking about a huge area that was covered in
tens of feet of ash, in a very large area out to 100 miles from the centre.”
However
Mr Poland has said he hopes no such event takes place.
He
said: “The evidence suggests that a lot of the magma reservoir is actually
solid, and about 50 percent of it is molten, so there may not be enough down
there to have a super eruption.”
‘UFO’ spotted over Yellowstone Volcano
in SHOCKING video
UFO hunters are convinced that they have spotted an alien
spaceship taking off at Yellowstone National Park after witnessing a bright,
pulsating light which was caught on a webcam live stream.
PUBLISHED: 13:33, Mon, Feb
12, 2018 | UPDATED: 14:46, Mon, Feb 12, 2018
A video uploaded to conspiracy YouTube channel The Hidden
Underbelly shows what appears to be a bright light lifting from the ground in
the hills in the background.
The
light then moves towards the camera slowly, before veering off to the left of
the screen.
Viewers
of the video were convinced that the bright light is definitely a UFO, and
believe that the authorities have some answering to do.
Somme
Bomb posted: “Would love to see them explain that one. You can see clearly the
light interferes with the clouds and you can see the reflection in the river.”
Twilights daughter added: “They must have been checking out the
geysers and scenery just like the humans were.”
Yellowstone
has also piqued the interest of many around the globe over fears that it could
soon erupt.
The
Yellowstone Caldera supervolcano last erupted 70,000 years ago but a spike in
seismic activity around the national park has unsettled nerves.
If the Wyoming volcano were to erupt it would kill an estimated
87,000 people immediately and make two-thirds of the USA immediately
uninhabitable.
The
large spew of ash into the atmosphere would block out sunlight and directly
affect life beneath it creating a “nuclear winter”.
The massive eruption could be a staggering 6,000 times as
powerful as the one from Washington’s Mount St Helens in 1980 which killed 57
people and deposited ash in 11 different states and five Canadian provinces.
If
the volcano explodes, a climate shift would ensue as the volcano would spew
massive amounts of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, which can form a
sulphur aerosol that reflects and absorbs sunlight.
Yellowstone timebomb - Over 11,000 MILES
of magma just waiting to spew from park
MORE than 11,000 cubic miles of magma is waiting to burst from
beneath the world's most dangerous volcano in Yellowstone National Park in the
US.
PUBLISHED: 14:23, Fri, Jun
2, 2017 | UPDATED: 15:36, Fri, Jun 2, 2017
Deep magma reservoirs, such as
that below the Yellowstone caldera, are the key to causing volcanic
‘super-eruptions’, that could threaten millions of lives, new research
suggests.
If a mega eruption of
Yellowstone, one of the world’s largest supervolcanoes,
happened so much toxic ash and moult on rock would be hurled into the
atmosphere it could block out sunlight and trigger a nuclear-winter type effect
or even a mini ice age.
An international team of
geologists carried out the study which shows the importance of large magma
reservoirs in creating Earth’s most powerful volcanic eruptions.
The researchers claim that the
most powerful volcanic eruptions, dubbed ‘super-eruptions’, are triggered by a
slow and steady drip feed of magma from large reservoirs deep within the
Earth’s crust into smaller reservoirs closer to the surface.
These large reservoirs draw in
hot magma from the Earth’s mantle and exist as large volumes of partially
molten rock that are able to store magma like a sponge.
By conducting a number of numerical simulations of this process,
the research team showed that these large reservoirs are crucial to generating
the largest volcanic eruptions on Earth.
But,
fortunately, the team also showed that these large reservoirs can take millions
of years to form, hence why ‘super-eruptions’ happen so rarely.
Yellowstone
is believed to have seen super eruptions at intervals of two million, 1.2
million and 640,000 years ago, meaning another one could be due any time.
It
is believed the new findings could help to understanding why some volcanoes
erupt frequently and at certain magnitudes.
The
study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found the amount of magma
that is stored in the upper layer of the Earth’s crust determines the frequency
and magnitude of volcanic eruptions.
Small
eruptions that erupt less than one cubic kilometre of material occur very
frequently (from daily to yearly), while the largest eruptions that erupt
hundreds of cubic kilometres of material are infrequent, with hundreds of thousands
of years between them.
Co-author of the study Dr Wim Degruyter, from Cardiff
University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, said: “Our current
understanding tells us that hot magma can be injected from the Earth’s lower
crust into colder surroundings near the surface.
"At
this point, the magma can either erupt or cool down to such a point that the
magma solidifies and an eruption does not occur.
“Up
until now, this theory hasn’t been able to explain how the magma can maintain
its heat in these near-surface reservoirs and thus produce extremely powerful
eruptions.
“Our
study has shown that the key to this is much larger reservoirs deeper below the
surface that are able to slowly increase the temperature in the upper part of
the crust such that it becomes more amenable to the storage of magma.
"When
the crust has become fully mature, giant reservoirs are able to form in the
upper crust and thus we see extremely powerful eruptions.”
Previous research revealed that a deeper magma body connects to a
magma reservoir in the upper part of the crust underneath Yellowstone, which
spreads across the sates of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.
The
deeper magma body sits 12 to 28 miles below the surface and it’s believed that
the hot molten rock could fill the 1,000-cubic-mile Grand Canyon 11.2
times.
It
is believed that the last super eruptions at Yellowstone were fed by the
volcanic plumbing system that sits beneath it.
Dr
Degruyter added: "Our calculations appear to agree with the observations
that have been made at Yellowstone.”
The
study, Lifetime and size of shallow magma bodies controlled by crustal-scale
magmatism, was led by researchers at ETH Zurich, and also included researchers
from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
