UNM scientists examine magma accumulation beneath Yellowstone Caldera
December 22, 2022 - Steve Carr
Scientists have long been fascinated with Yellowstone National Park and the scientific playground it has provided the research community over the decades. Seismic tomography has played a key role in that research giving scientists insights into Yellowstone’s crustal magmatic system to understand the melt distribution in the subsurface and the current stage of the volcano’s life cycle.
With the help of new tomographic images of shear wave speed of the Yellowstone magmatic system, scientists are gaining new insights into what’s going on beneath the Yellowstone Caldera, sometimes referred to as the Yellowstone Supervolcano. The caldera formed over 2.1 million years ago after a series of three super-eruptions, the most recent 640,000 years ago which created the Yellowstone Caldera. That eruption of rhyolitic material blanketed a good chunk of the western United States and Great Plains in ash. The ensuing collapse of the magma reservoir shaped the current Yellowstone Caldera in northwestern Wyoming. It has since been filled with rhyolite flows as young as 70,000 years old.
Based on geophysical observations, it’s quite clear that the modern Yellowstone magmatic system remains active, however, questions persist about the volume and distribution of melt and how it compares with conditions that preceded prior eruptions.
Read more at UNM Newsroom.
