One of the most remarkable locations on earth is Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park.
Along with a massive volcano, it also boasts a variety of hot springs and geothermal features,
including an active geyser field.
Visitors may watch geysers exploding, steam pouring from the ground, and bubbling mud
pots.
In addition, it's a terrific place to see animals including bison, elks, antelopes,
wolves, and bears.
Due to its geographic position, Yellowstone is relatively far away, and its geothermal
properties can be dangerous.
Yellowstone National Park is 3500 square miles in size and stands above a volcanic hot zone.
The park is mostly in Wyoming, although some areas stretch into Montana and Idaho.
Yellowstone National Park is famous for its canyons, alpine rivers, and lush forests.
Yellowstone National Park sits on a super volcano.
Super volcanoes produce more than a thousand cubic kilometers of gas, ash, magma, and rock.
Super volcanoes that have erupted within the last 100 000 years include Lake Toba in Indonesia,
Lake Taupo in New Zealand, and Yellowstone National Park in the United States.
In the last few months, there has been a significant and abrupt uplift inside the volcanic system.
This upward movement is most likely driven by rising magma under the surface.
While there is no immediate danger of an eruption, scientists are closely monitoring the situation.
Join us as we venture to Wyoming to see Yellowstone National Park's majestic beauty and to learn
more about the large abrupt uplift in the volcano system observed by Yellowstone National
Park officials and the threat it presents.
The Yellowstone hotspot has remained stable for a long time while the North American continent
has migrated southwest.
The ancient Yellowstone eruptions may be traced back to what is now known as the southeastern
section of Oregon.
The most recent eruptions occurred in the northeast area of Wyoming, where the Yellowstone
Super volcano has erupted three times.
The park's hot springs, geysers, and other hydrothermal phenomena are caused by the super
volcano, the most recent of which happened 640 thousand years ago.
The super volcano also built the caldera in which the park is located.
A caldera is a bowl-shaped depression produced by the eruption of magma or lava from a volcano.
Yellowstone's caldera is approximately 34 miles wide, and the super volcano's most recent
eruption occurred after a period of slumber.
Over time, the caldera filled with water, and forestation occurred, resulting in an
environment that is home to many different animal species.
Yellowstone National Park, according to park experts, is a safe refuge for one of the world's
largest super volcanoes, which is displaying indications of life.
Yellowstone National Park was founded in 1872 and is called after the area's yellow sandstone.
The volcano is in northeastern Wyoming where the huge Yellowstone is confined.
The super volcano is believed to sit atop a heated zone made of molten and semi-molten
rock known as magma, which explains why the earth lifts and lowers.
The ground expands as this lava streams into a magma chamber about four to six miles under
Yellowstone National Park.
The ground sinks when the lava cools and hardens.
Volcanologists have been investigating volcanic activity since 1923, and the ground rose 9.8
inches between 2004 and 2009.
However, in 2010, the land began to subside, leaving many scientists wondering if the Yellowstone
would erupt soon and how violent the eruption would be.
Earth sciences professor of the university of northern Colorado and renowned volcanologist
Dr. Steve Anderson says, "The big question is if Yellowstone started shaking tomorrow
what is there to expect," he adds, “I don't think we know exactly what to expect."
However, scientists think it wouldn't be any less than a doomsday.
The high continental barrier between the northern and central Rocky Mountains is formed by the
Yellowstone plateau volcanic activity.
With the exception of the eastern snake river plain, which expands to the southeast as a
structural depression roughly 350 kilometers long, the plateau has an average height of
7900 feet and is flanked on all sides by hilly terrain with peaks as high as 13 000 feet.
For 2.2 million years, the 17 000 square kilometer Yellowstone plateau has been molded by cataclysmic
eruptions, extensive ground collapse, extraordinarily thick lava flows, ground rising, persistent
faulting, and the erosive strength of flowing water and ice.
Dr. Jacob Lowenstern, scientist in charge of the Yellowstone volcano observatory research
geologist, explains that "Yellowstone is currently an inactive volcano with low levels of restlessness,"
adding that "there is no current activity going on that would indicate anything happening
and if something was coming there is nothing to show at this point in time."
The Yellowstone plateau volcanic region has gone through three volcanic cycles in the
last two million years, two of which are regarded some of the world's most devastating volcanic
eruptions.
Lava flows from the last pitch stone plateau eruption, 77000 years ago, were contained
to the caldera of what is now known as Yellowstone National Park.
The initial eruption happened 2.1 million years ago at the huckleberry ridge tuff, creating
a 75-kilometer-wide crater and viscous volcanic deposits.
The Mesa Falls tuff erupted 1.3 million years ago, kicking off the second cycle.
The last activity on the Yellowstone plateau was documented 640 000 years ago, when a lava
stream erupted, creating a caldera 45 by 85 kilometers in size.
600 cubic kilometers of rhyolitic lava flows surged into the caldera between 180 000 and
70 000 years ago; no magmatic eruptions have occurred since then.
Despite this, hydrothermal eruptions occurred during the Holocene, the last 11,700 years
of Earth's history.
Mallard Lake and Sour Creek are two sites that have suffered ground surface uplift and
subsidence.
These are known as "Resurgent Domes" in geology.
A resurgent dome is a dome-shaped structure formed when the caldera floor expanded or
rose due to a change in motion in the magma chamber underneath it.
Yellowstone National Park's geologic activity is currently restricted to hot springs and
geysers.
Yellowstone is now one of the world's largest locations, with the greatest concentration
of geysers and hydrothermal systems.
Because of the huge networks of faults related to the super volcano and the surrounding topography,
the region is one of the most seismically active in the world.
Huge earthquakes occur often in the plateau around the Teton and Hebgen Lake faults.
The Hebgen Lake fault erupted in 1959, causing significant damage to the region.
Earthquakes happen when tectonic plates become trapped at their edges owing to friction and
the pressure on the edge overcomes the friction.
Energy waves are created and travel through the earth's crust, causing the ground beneath
us to quiver.
Tectonic plates are massive irregular solid rocks that make up continental and oceanic
lithosphere.
In July 2022, 59 earthquakes were reported in the region by the university of Utah seismograph
stations, which manage the operations and analysis of the Yellowstone seismic network.
The biggest event of the month was 3.1 magnitude earthquake 14 miles southwest of the Mammoth
Hot Springs region.
Such earthquake series account for around half of Yellowstone's seismicity.
The Old Faithful geyser sits in Yellowstone's upper geyser basin, near the park's southwest
corner.
Every 91 minutes, it spouts more than 14 thousand liters (3 700 gallons) of boiling water more
than 30 meters in the air.
The Washburn expedition found it in 1870.
It was named given its periodic and predictable eruptions, which account for almost a million
eruptions since Yellowstone Park was established in 1872.
Old Faithful, the world's most renowned geyser, erupts 20 times every day.
The height of these eruptions varies between 100 and 180 feet, with an average height of
130 to 140 feet and a period of one and a half to five minutes.
Because of ground water buildup, Yellowstone remained at background levels of activity
throughout July, according to the GPS network.
June was a little busier, with heavy rain and melting snow generating record floods
in the Yellowstone region.
Several landslides and rockfalls occurred between June 10th and June 13th, primarily
in Yellowstone National Park's northern boundary.
Some roads and bridges were washed away, and Yellowstone floods wreaked havoc on the region's
infrastructure, stranding entire settlements.
The floods had no negative seismic effects, and they had no effect on the hydrothermal
activity.
There was, however, a significant influence on geyser activity.
Geysers began erupting more frequently because geysers produce more frequently during wet
seasons than during dry periods of the year.
The difference in time is minor, but statistically significant.
The steamboat geyser erupted twice in 2022, on June 10th and 20th, resulting in eight
significant outbursts.
The seismograph stations at the University of Utah detected 149 earthquakes.
GPS monitors in the Yellowstone caldera and in Norris' geyser basin have reported a few
millimeters of elevation since the summer began.
When snow melts and flows into the ground, it causes the earth to swell.
Since 2015, there has been an annual tendency of caldera sinking of a few millimeters.
For the past several years, yearly sinking of two to three centimeters (one inch) has
been documented.
Experts think an eruption of the Yellowstone Super volcano is very unlikely, but recent
subsurface activity raises concerns about how strong it may be.
While most of these earthquakes are minor, they provide scientists with information on
how rapidly the magma chamber under Yellowstone is filling up, producing greater shaking and
trembling around the park, indicating that fresh pools of lava have just drained into
the reservoir.
Yellowstone's ground surface has risen at the quickest pace in the last decade.
Because it is hard to monitor and evaluate every minute aspect of what is happening in
Yellowstone National Park, geologists find it difficult to forecast the super volcano's
next move.
Despite the increased frequency of earthquakes, experts believe there are no imminent dangers
as of yet or anytime soon.
Examining historical eruptions, on the other hand, can provide some information.
The three massive eruptions that occurred within the last 2.1 million years were separated
by 600,000 to 800,000 years.
The impacts of the most recent massive eruption, which happened 640 000 years ago, may be felt
throughout the park and for thousands of kilometers in the surrounding area.
Each of the three perilous eruptions emitted massive amounts of volcanic ash, gas, magma,
and other volcanic debris, shrouding most of the continental US.
After each eruption, the Yellowstone Super volcano collapsed on itself, devouring forests,
mountains, and everything else in the region.
According to geologists, a caldera-forming eruption would create a tremendous natural
disaster in Yellowstone.
The latest Yellowstone explosion was 1,000 times greater than the catastrophic Mount
Saint Helens eruption in 1980, which killed 56 people and countless of animals and destroyed
hundreds of square kilometers in Washington and Oregon.
Yellowstone's last eruption launched a devastating cloud of hot ash particles, rock, and poisonous
gases thousands of meters into the air.
One-third of the continent was most certainly immersed in darkness.
Pyroclastic flows, which are swift currents of hot dry rock pieces and gases, rushed across
the terrain, burying and destroying everything in their path.
Yellowstone is currently dormant, with scientists watching for every hiccup or cough in order
to anticipate the next eruption.
Although the brewing energy underneath the park has been dormant for thousands of years,
Yellowstone's slumber does not mean it will not reemerge; the issue is when and with what
ferocity.
It would be a worldwide disaster if an eruption occurred.
The super volcano has the ability to erupt lava flows that would cover whole states,
as well as a cloud of ash and dust that would obscure the sun and temper the planet's climate.
For the time being, park officials advise visitors to be cautious and aware of the potential
danger.
Will the Yellowstone Super volcano erupt in the near future?
Tell us in the comments.