This week, Science featured a veil of hot spring water steam rising over a volcanic vent. In Yellowstone National Park, near Wyoming, USA, there is a lake heated by the warm heat of underground magma. The name Yellowstone comes from the hot spring water containing sulfur that flows through the limestone layer and colors the rocks yellow.
Science published a paper on the 1st (local time) by a research team from the Department of Geology at the University of Illinois in the United States, indicating that there is more magma than originally estimated under the Yellowstone volcano. Magma refers to the melting of rocks underground by heating them to high temperatures.
Ross McGuire, professor of geology at the University of Illinois in the United States, measured the speed of seismic waves under the Yellowstone volcano through seismic tomography and estimated the amount and distribution of magma under the volcano through 3D modeling. As a result, it was discovered that there was more magma than expected in the magma reservoir.
“Previous studies have estimated that 5 to 15 percent is molten, but it has been shown that up to 20 percent is molten,” McGuire said. It is generally believed that the more molten the rock, the more likely it is to explode.
However, the results of this study do not mean that the Yellowstone volcano will erupt immediately. Michael Polen, a senior researcher at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, said: “Although the possibility of an eruption is slightly higher than previously thought, the results show that the Yellowstone volcano is generally solid.”
Meanwhile, the Yellowstone volcano has erupted a total of three times in the past 2.1 million years. There was a major eruption 640,000 years ago and the most recent eruption is estimated to be 70,000 years ago. Volcano experts predict that if Yellowstone erupts, it will be more than 1,000 times more powerful than the St. Helens eruption in 1980, destroying two-thirds of the United States.
