How deep is the lava under Yellowstone?

How large is the magma chamber

magma chamber

The shallower one is composed of rhyolite (a high-silica rock type) and stretches from 5 km to about 17 km (3 to 10 mi) beneath the surface and is about 90 km (55 mi) long and about 40 km (25 mi) wide. The chamber is mostly solid, with only about 5-15% melt.

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How big is the magma chamber under Yellowstone? - USGS

that is currently under Yellowstone? The magma chamber is believed to be about 40 by 80 kilometers across, similar in size to the overlying Yellowstone caldera. The top of the chamber is about 8 km deep and the bottom is around 16 km deep.

How deep is the volcano under Yellowstone?

Lurking beneath Yellowstone National Park is a reservoir of hot magma five miles deep, fed by a gigantic plume of molten rock welling up from hundreds of miles below. That heat is responsible for many of the park's famous geysers and hot springs.

How much lava is underneath Yellowstone?

The chamber is mostly solid, with only about 5-15% melt. The deeper reservoir is composed of basalt (a low-silica rock type) and extends from 20 to 50 km (12 to 30 mi) beneath the surface. Even though the deeper chamber is about 4.5 times larger than the shallow chamber, it contains only about 2% melt.

How deep is the Yellowstone hotspot?

University of Utah graphic. Detailed mapping shows the "hot spot" that fuels Yellowstone National Park's geothermal features is more than 400 miles deep, and might have been responsible for volcanic activity in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho 17 million years ago.

Is there lava under Yellowstone?

Since Yellowstone's last caldera-forming eruption 640,000 years ago, about 30 eruptions of rhyolitic lava flows have nearly filled the Yellowstone Caldera. Other flows of rhyolite and basalt (a more fluid variety of lava) also have been extruded outside the caldera.

Why the Yellowstone Supervolcano Could Be Huge

How close is Yellowstone to erupting?

Although another catastrophic eruption at Yellowstone is possible, scientists are not convinced that one will ever happen. The rhyolite magma chamber beneath Yellowstone is only 5-15% molten (the rest is solidified but still hot), so it is unclear if there is even enough magma beneath the caldera to feed an eruption.

How overdue is Yellowstone?

Volcanoes don't erupt on schedules – eruptions occur when there is enough magma under the surface, and enough pressure to push it to the surface. Yellowstone has neither of these things. After thousands of years, Yellowstone isn't going up – it's pushing down.

What is found beneath Yellowstone park?

Enough hot rock sits beneath Yellowstone National Park to fill the Grand Canyon nearly 14 times over, according to our best view yet of the supervolcano that lies below the famous landscape.

How large is the magma chamber that is currently under Yellowstone?

How large is the magma chamber that is currently under Yellowstone? The magma chamber is believed to be about 40 by 80 kilometers across, similar in size to the overlying Yellowstone caldera. The top of the chamber is about 8 km deep and the bottom is around 16 km deep.

What is found 250 miles below the surface of Yellowstone?

That is the base of the global transition zone – from 250 miles to 410 miles deep – that is the boundary between the upper and lower mantle – the layers below Earth's crust. At that depth, the plume is about 410 miles beneath the town of Wisdom, Mont., which is 150 miles west-northwest of Yellowstone, says Smith.

How far underground is lava?

Summary: Computer models show why eruptive magma chambers tend to reside between six and 10 kilometers underground. A new study reveals why the magma chambers that feed recurrent and often explosive volcanic eruptions tend to reside in a very narrow depth range within the Earth's crust.

Which volcano could end the world?

If Yellowstone's volcano erupted, it would be catastrophic. The eruption would shoot a tower of ash into the air, taller than Mount Everest, covering nearby cities in over a meter of ash and creating giant clouds that would block the sun for decades.

Is Yellowstone about to erupt 2020?

Will the Yellowstone volcano erupt soon? Another caldera-forming eruption is theoretically possible, but it is very unlikely in the next thousand or even 10,000 years. Scientists have also found no indication of an imminent smaller eruption of lava in more than 30 years of monitoring.

Can Yellowstone volcano destroy the world?

End of dialog window. RealLifeLore goes on to say that lava from the volcano would destroy just about everything within a 40-mile radius of the blast. Major US cities like Denver, Salt Lake City, and Boise would also possibly destroyed upon eruption.

What is underneath a volcano?

A magma chamber is a large pool of liquid rock beneath the surface of the Earth.

Will Yellowstone wipe out the world?

When Yellowstone does erupt, it won't be like Hawaii and it won't even be like Mount St. Helens. The pool of magma underneath Yellowstone is huge, and it will take days or weeks to empty. The explosion will be so powerful that huge amounts of ash will be ejected into the stratosphere.

When was the last time the Yellowstone volcano erupted?

The most recent volcanic activity at Yellowstone consisted of rhyolitic lava flows that erupted approximately 70,000 years ago.

How big is the lava plume under Yellowstone?

A new 3-D model shows the 45-mile-wide (72-kilometer-wide), 410-mile-deep (660-kilometer-deep) plume of hot, molten rock rising under Yellowstone's supervolcano.

How hot is the plume under Yellowstone?

How hot? Try 1,800 degrees. The heat produced by the scorching hot rocks — officially known as a mantle plume — was measured at 150 milliwatts per square meter. That's not far from the heat produced under Yellowstone National Park, which is measured at about 200 milliwatts per square meter.

Which supervolcano will erupt next?

The researchers say that an extra four cubic kilometres of magma builds up in Toba every thousand years. This means that next equivalent super-eruption would occur in 600,000 years – though smaller ones could happen in the meantime.

Where is the biggest magma chamber?

University of Utah seismologists have discovered a reservoir of hot, partly molten rock 12 to 28 miles beneath the Yellowstone supervolcano that is 4.4 times larger than the shallower, long-known magma chamber.

How many Supervolcanoes are there?

There are about 20 known supervolcanoes on Earth - including Lake Toba in Indonesia, Lake Taupo in New Zealand, and the somewhat smaller Phlegraean Fields near Naples, Italy. Super-eruptions occur rarely - only once every 100,000 years on average.

Is there a volcano bigger than Yellowstone?

Nestled in the San Juan Mountains, there is ample evidence of one of the largest known volcanic eruptions on the planet: a caldera 22 miles wide and 62 miles long. It's called the La Garita Caldera, and it rivals the Toba eruption in Indonesia and all Yellowstone eruptions.

What would happen to the world if Yellowstone erupted?

If another large, caldera-forming eruption were to occur at Yellowstone, its effects would be worldwide. Such a giant eruption would have regional effects such as falling ash and short-term (years to decades) changes to global climate.

Will Yellowstone erupt again?

In its 2.2-million-year history, the Yellowstone caldera system has erupted catastrophically only three times, while producing many localized lava flows. “Yellowstone is not going to erupt again anytime soon, and when it does, it's much more likely to be a lava flow than an explosive event,” Poland said.