From the University of Utah and the “game over if it blows” department:
In a big eruption, Yellowstone would eject 1,000 times as much material as the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption. This would be a disaster felt on a global scale, which is why scientists are looking at this thing closely.
Scientists see deeper Yellowstone magma
Reservoir of partly molten rock is 4 times bigger than shallower chamber
Credit: Hsin-Hua Huang, University of Utah
SALT LAKE CITY, April 23, 2015 – University of Utah seismologists discovered and made images of a reservoir of hot, partly molten rock 12 to 28 miles beneath the Yellowstone supervolcano, and it is 4.4 times larger than the shallower, long-known magma chamber.
The hot rock in the newly discovered, deeper magma reservoir would fill the 1,000-cubic-mile Grand Canyon 11.2 times, while the previously known magma chamber would fill the Grand Canyon 2.5 times, says postdoctoral researcher Jamie Farrell, a co-author of the study published online today in the journal Science.
“For the first time, we have imaged the continuous volcanic plumbing system under Yellowstone,” says first author Hsin-Hua Huang, also a postdoctoral researcher in geology and geophysics. “That includes the upper crustal magma chamber we have seen previously plus a lower crustal magma reservoir that has never been imaged before and that connects the upper chamber to the Yellowstone hotspot plume below.”
Contrary to popular perception, the magma chamber and magma reservoir are not full of molten rock. Instead, the rock is hot, mostly solid and spongelike, with pockets of molten rock within it. Huang says the new study indicates the upper magma chamber averages about 9 percent molten rock – consistent with earlier estimates of 5 percent to 15 percent melt – and the lower magma reservoir is about 2 percent melt.
So there is about one-quarter of a Grand Canyon worth of molten rock within the much larger volumes of either the magma chamber or the magma reservoir, Farrell says.
No increase in the danger
The researchers emphasize that Yellowstone’s plumbing system is no larger – nor closer to erupting – than before, only that they now have used advanced techniques to make a complete image of the system that carries hot and partly molten rock upward from the top of the Yellowstone hotspot plume – about 40 miles beneath the surface – to the magma reservoir and the magma chamber above it.
“The magma chamber and reservoir are not getting any bigger than they have been, it’s just that we can see them better now using new techniques,” Farrell says.
Study co-author Fan-Chi Lin, an assistant professor of geology and geophysics, says: “It gives us a better understanding the Yellowstone magmatic system. We can now use these new models to better estimate the potential seismic and volcanic hazards.”
The researchers point out that the previously known upper magma chamber was the immediate source of three cataclysmic eruptions of the Yellowstone caldera 2 million, 1.2 million and 640,000 years ago, and that isn’t changed by discovery of the underlying magma reservoir that supplies the magma chamber.
“The actual hazard is the same, but now we have a much better understanding of the complete crustal magma system,” says study co-author Robert B. Smith, a research and emeritus professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah.
The three supervolcano eruptions at Yellowstone – on the Wyoming-Idaho-Montana border – covered much of North America in volcanic ash. A supervolcano eruption today would be cataclysmic, but Smith says the annual chance is 1 in 700,000.
Before the new discovery, researchers had envisioned partly molten rock moving upward from the Yellowstone hotspot plume via a series of vertical and horizontal cracks, known as dikes and sills, or as blobs. They still believe such cracks move hot rock from the plume head to the magma reservoir and from there to the shallow magma chamber.
Anatomy of a supervolcano
The study in Science is titled, “The Yellowstone magmatic system from the mantle plume to the upper crust.” Huang, Lin, Farrell and Smith conducted the research with Brandon Schmandt at the University of New Mexico and Victor Tsai at the California Institute of Technology. Funding came from the University of Utah, National Science Foundation, Brinson Foundation and William Carrico.
Yellowstone is among the world’s largest supervolcanoes, with frequent earthquakes and Earth’s most vigorous continental geothermal system.
The three ancient Yellowstone supervolcano eruptions were only the latest in a series of more than 140 as the North American plate of Earth’s crust and upper mantle moved southwest over the Yellowstone hotspot, starting 17 million years ago at the Oregon-Idaho-Nevada border. The hotspot eruptions progressed northeast before reaching Yellowstone 2 million years ago.
Here is how the new study depicts the Yellowstone system, from bottom to top:
— Previous research has shown the Yellowstone hotspot plume rises from a depth of at least 440 miles in Earth’s mantle. Some researchers suspect it originates 1,800 miles deep at Earth’s core. The plume rises from the depths northwest of Yellowstone. The plume conduit is roughly 50 miles wide as it rises through Earth’s mantle and then spreads out like a pancake as it hits the uppermost mantle about 40 miles deep. Earlier Utah studies indicated the plume head was 300 miles wide. The new study suggests it may be smaller, but the data aren’t good enough to know for sure.
— Hot and partly molten rock rises in dikes from the top of the plume at 40 miles depth up to the bottom of the 11,200-cubic mile magma reservoir, about 28 miles deep. The top of this newly discovered blob-shaped magma reservoir is about 12 miles deep, Huang says. The reservoir measures 30 miles northwest to southeast and 44 miles southwest to northeast. “Having this lower magma body resolved the missing link of how the plume connects to the magma chamber in the upper crust,” Lin says.
— The 2,500-cubic mile upper magma chamber sits beneath Yellowstone’s 40-by-25-mile caldera, or giant crater. Farrell says it is shaped like a gigantic frying pan about 3 to 9 miles beneath the surface, with a “handle” rising to the northeast. The chamber is about 19 miles from northwest to southeast and 55 miles southwest to northeast. The handle is the shallowest, long part of the chamber that extends 10 miles northeast of the caldera.
Scientists once thought the shallow magma chamber was 1,000 cubic miles. But at science meetings and in a published paper this past year, Farrell and Smith showed the chamber was 2.5 times bigger than once thought. That has not changed in the new study.
Discovery of the magma reservoir below the magma chamber solves a longstanding mystery: Why Yellowstone’s soil and geothermal features emit more carbon dioxide than can be explained by gases from the magma chamber, Huang says. Farrell says a deeper magma reservoir had been hypothesized because of the excess carbon dioxide, which comes from molten and partly molten rock.
A better, deeper look at Yellowstone
As with past studies that made images of Yellowstone’s volcanic plumbing, the new study used seismic imaging, which is somewhat like a medical CT scan but uses earthquake waves instead of X-rays to distinguish rock of various densities. Quake waves go faster through cold rock, and slower through hot and molten rock.
For the new study, Huang developed a technique to combine two kinds of seismic information: Data from local quakes detected in Utah, Idaho, the Teton Range and Yellowstone by the University of Utah Seismograph Stations and data from more distant quakes detected by the National Science Foundation-funded EarthScope array of seismometers, which was used to map the underground structure of the lower 48 states.
The Utah seismic network has closely spaced seismometers that are better at making images of the shallower crust beneath Yellowstone, while EarthScope’s seismometers are better at making images of deeper structures.
“It’s a technique combining local and distant earthquake data better to look at this lower crustal magma reservoir,” Huang says.
###
Video
A National Science Foundation video on the new study is here: https://vimeo.com/125823038
University of Utah seismologists prepared a brief animated video of the Yellowstone supervolcano’s underground plumbing system – including the newly discovered magma reservoir. Three versions of the same video are available. They may be downloaded at these links.
— No scale: https://vimeo.com/125629104
— Distance scale in miles, with latitude and longitude: https://vimeo.com/125650792
— Distance scale in kilometers, with latitude and longitude: https://vimeo.com/125650965
From another article on the topic:
“The discovery of the much larger reservoir at a depth of 20 to 50 kilometres helps to solve a long-running puzzle relating to the carbon dioxide spewing out from the huge steaming caldera volcano at Yellowstone, creating ripples of tiny earthquakes it does so. The problem is that the upper magma chamber is much too small to account for the 45 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide discharged daily.”
If I did the math correctly, that’s equivalent to burning a bit over 4.5 million gallons of gasoline. Although I did see that the US burns a daily average of about 374.74 million gallons.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27407-vast-magma-reservoir-found-hiding-beneath-yellowstone-park.html?cmpid=RSS|NSNS|2012-GLOBAL|environment#.VTmgZJPW6Pk
Perhaps they have found Trenberth’s missing heat, since it is clearly not in the oceans.
/s
Wow! Yellowstone is twenty times more likely to go off this year than me winning this weeks UK lottery!
Only if you buy a ticket…
If you buy twenty tickets, the odds are the same.
But the odds go up if you add in all of the other areas with numerous caldera eruption histories, such as central America, Indonesia, and Japan.
True dat.
I think the Thunder God of the Andes heard you say that, Resourceguy!
Nothing to worry about.
Remember the wildfires of 1988?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_fires_of_1988
Where are the Sirens of Little Jimmy [suckling his mother’s tits] Hansen and Al [Biggest Dickest] Gore?
Ha ha
I visited Yellowstone Park twice in the 90s. Nice place.
Here is a nice ditty from Wikki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_National_Park
“In 1806, John Colter, a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, left to join a group of fur trappers. After splitting up with the other trappers in 1807, Colter passed through a portion of what later became the park, during the winter of 1807–1808. He observed at least one geothermal area in the northeastern section of the park, near Tower Fall.[17] After surviving wounds he suffered in a battle with members of the Crow and Blackfoot tribes in 1809, he described a place of “fire and brimstone” that most people dismissed as delirium; the supposedly imaginary place was nicknamed “Colter’s Hell”. Over the next 40 years, numerous reports from mountain men and trappers told of boiling mud, steaming rivers, and petrified trees, yet most of these reports were believed at the time to be myth.”
Ah Ha. Good word, “myth”, that rises amongst the mists. 😉
I didn’t see the South Western volcanic area mentioned:
http://www.livescience.com/24507-southwest-volcano-hazard.html
“More than 1,400 volcanoes dot the Southwestern United States. At least three erupted in the past 1,000 years, which is practically yesterday in geologic time. Experts and disaster officials are finally looking at the potential threats.
Though many of the region’s volcanoes lie in remote corners, puncturing rainbow-hued rocks and surrounded by empty desert, some run smack up against growing Western cities.
To stay ahead of any surprises Mother Nature may be brewing underground, the U.S. Geological Survey recently brought together emergency planners and volcano experts for a conference on volcanic hazards in the Southwest. The Oct. 18 meeting marked the first time both groups had discussed their roles should an eruption occur.
Southern Chile’s Calbuco volcano erupted on Wednesday. Looked quite impressive on the BBC news.
Magnetic storm and record Kilauea lava.
http://s30.postimg.org/4jprzdb4g/Wulkan_Kilauea_Hawaje_Poziom_lawy_2015_04_23.jpg
http://s24.postimg.org/4n6csrer8/Kilauea_01_2015_04_24_08_48.jpg
Any thoughts on this site going forward, anyone? I am thinking it may just be waking up, it we aint seen nothing yet, not from this one. Hmm?
Hmm the annual chance of a catastrophic eruption is 1 in 700,000.
I wonder what the odds are of a catastrophic meteorite strike, even a near miss from a large enough body could be catastrophic.
As I get older don’t even want to consider how the the odds increase for dying from an illness.
At any rate even though the odds of type of death are uncertain, death itself remains certain.
Unfortunately fund raising schemes will live forever
Maybe….
http://www.elysiumhealth.com/team
How many Olympic-sized swimming pools are there in a Grand Canyon fill?
1.37 umpteen bajillion.
When the next caldera eruption occurs in the continental U.S. and spreads ash across the farm belt, there will always be the classic policy refrain by Ed Markey. It is “Who could have known.”
Strong, a single magnetic storm can be an impetus to a volcanic eruption.
What can we do about it? If nothing, then lets stop worrying and move on.
Someone please tell Algore that it’s “millions of degrees” in that magma reservoir. That way he can continue to entertain us with his knowledge of Earth science.
I love learning science from a guy who took one science class in college, and got a D!
You can’t tax a super volcano or a meteorite, so you have to pick other targets of opportunity. Such ambulance chasing policy priorities for new revenue and influence peddling leads back to middle class humans and their mundane attempts to survive and get ahead a little bit. Right Barry and Hillary?
A volcano erupted overnight in Costa Rica, shooting up a column of ash that forced the closure of the airport in the capital city San Jose.
The blast from the Turrialba volcano in the east of the Central American country came after the Calbuco volcano in Chile erupted twice in the space of seven hours, after remaining dormant for more than 50 years.
Airport officials said authorities evaluated the situation at the airport, located 80km from the volcano, and said it would not reopen until later today at the earliest.
Landing strips were covered with ash. Reports said 14 arriving flights from the United States and countries in Central America were cancelled.
The volcano, 3,340m high, erupted in early March and shut down the airport for nearly two days.
Turrialba was inactive for 130 years until it came back to life in the 1990s.
In late October of last year it erupted with great force, spewing ash and magma. It has been rumbling ever since.
http://img.rasset.ie/000a7b0c-642.jpg
Why did the researchers do not warned before the earthquake in Nepal?
In the Himalayas are projected heavy snowfall.
Did anyone notice the stealth black hole skirting the Ort Cloud? I thought not.
The BBC made a great movie about a Yellowstone eruption, Supervolcano. Worth a watch if you can find it.
Thanks, Anthony.
This is geology probing the real world.
Something else to frack about.
http://cascade.uoregon.edu/photos/Yellowstone_photoRGB.jpg
The evidence of the many eruptions of Yellowstone are scattered throughout Wyoming in the form of Bentonite deposits. Some thick and close enough to the surface to mine and others not so much. There are, however, significant amounts of bentonite mixed in with much of the soil in many areas of the state which causes it to turn to a greasey jello like material, which is also sticky at the same time, when it becomes wet. Real nasty stuff for any type of transport. But these multiple eruptions have not all been of the really catastrophic variety. Some much more “mild” according to the evidence we see here. So the next one could be of a variety of possible magnitudes. Theoretically, I have been told, a few milder ones obviate the danger, to some degree, of a really cataclysmic eruption due to reduction in the internal pressures. But then, does anyone really know if this is so?
More interesting info here:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CbnW6Gtn8Pg/TzjDb9HcePI/AAAAAAAAAHs/Ab5DRR7AKLQ/s640/Yellowstone_Underneath+BLOG02.jpg
http://geog1202oldestnationalpark.blogspot.com/
USA! USA!! USA!!! The three biggest, baddest anywhere!
Wait ………….
Hey, anything that has a better chance of happening than me winning the lottery is something I worry about and take seriously. Lol!
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/04/28/climate-changes-waking-giant-to-set-off-rash-of-volcanic-eruptions-tsunamis-earthquakes/
“If you look at the geological record of the end of the last ice age, there’s something that crops up that’s more than a little bit disturbing. The approximate 10,000 year period in which 4 degrees Celsius of warming took place was also punctuated by a rash of intense volcanic activity, earthquakes and tsunamis.
It was a time of extraordinary geophysical changes that not only saw the, sometimes catastrophic, melting of massive ice sheets and extreme rises in sea level — it also saw severe geological upheaval. In one region alone — Iceland — instances of volcanic eruption increased 30-50 fold during a period starting about 12,000 years ago. Overall, global spikes in volcanism began near the start of major melt events at around 18,000 years ago and continued on through the Iceland spike at the 12,000 year time-frame, finally tapering off around 7,000 years ago. In the 12,000 to 7,000 year before present period, global volcanic activity was between 2 and 6 times today’s frequency.”