Yellowstone Lava Dome Filling Up Quickly

[angelwing]

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly ... 38,00.html

Yellowstone Lava Dome Filling Up Quickly
Thursday , November 08, 2007

WASHINGTON —

Yellowstone National Park, once the site of a giant volcano, has begun swelling up, possibly because molten rock is accumulating beneath the surface, scientists report.

But, "there is no evidence of an imminent volcanic eruption," said Robert B. Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah.

Many giant volcanic craters around the world go up and down over decades without erupting, he said.

Smith and colleagues report in Friday's issue of the journal Science that the flow of the ancient Yellowstone crater has been moving upward almost 3 inches per year for the past three years.

That is more than three times faster than ever observed since such measurements began in 1923, the researchers said.

"Our best evidence is that the crustal magma chamber is filling with molten rock," Smith said in a statement. "But we have no idea how long this process goes on before there either is an eruption or the inflow of molten rock stops and the caldera deflates again."

It's not unusual for ancient volcano sites like Yellowstone and Long Valley, Calif., to rise and fall, according to the researchers.

The Yellowstone volcanic field was produced by what the researchers described as a plume of hot and molten rock beginning at least 400 miles beneath Earth's surface and rising to 30 miles underground, where it widens to about 300 miles across.

Blobs of molten rock sometimes rise to refill the magma chamber beneath Yellowstone.

The volcano at Yellowstone produced massive eruptions 2 million, 1.3 million and 642,000 years ago, all larger than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.

Site of the famed Old Faithful and hundreds of other geysers, Yellowstone sprawls across parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

[HollynLA]

Yellowstone is such a beautiful place. I was just there in July for my second visit. The amount of geysers throughout the park due to the underground supervolcano is pretty amazing. Even a hint of problems from that thing is kinda scary. Hopefully it's just part of the rise/fall process. I guess we'll see.

[flwxwatcher]

Some interesting info can be found here about the Yellowstone super volcano.

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/su ... under.html

[RL3AO]

So is it the end of the world?

[HURAKAN]

No, a new beginning!

[Ed Mahmoud]

Every 700k years, roughly, and its been almost that long?



Geologist in my office says one of the latter Yellowstone eruptions deposited ash up to 2 meters deep in parts of Northwest Texas. Lets just hope this thing blows during Summer, when prevailing winds would take most of the ash to the lightly populated Prairie Provinces of Canada.

Of course, a months long event would allow the wind to take the ash everywhere.

[Cyclenall]

Every 700k years, roughly, and its been almost that long?



Geologist in my office says one of the latter Yellowstone eruptions deposited ash up to 2 meters deep in parts of Northwest Texas. Lets just hope this thing blows during Summer, when prevailing winds would take most of the ash to the lightly populated Prairie Provinces of Canada.

Of course, a months long event would allow the wind to take the ash everywhere.

You can keep your yellowstone ash, thank you.

[Ed Mahmoud]

Every 700k years, roughly, and its been almost that long?



Geologist in my office says one of the latter Yellowstone eruptions deposited ash up to 2 meters deep in parts of Northwest Texas. Lets just hope this thing blows during Summer, when prevailing winds would take most of the ash to the lightly populated Prairie Provinces of Canada.

Of course, a months long event would allow the wind to take the ash everywhere.

You can keep your yellowstone ash, thank you.

We take all that cold Canadian air every winter, and give warm, comfortable air back in return...

[gtalum]

Every 700k years, roughly, and its been almost that long?



Geologist in my office says one of the latter Yellowstone eruptions deposited ash up to 2 meters deep in parts of Northwest Texas. Lets just hope this thing blows during Summer, when prevailing winds would take most of the ash to the lightly populated Prairie Provinces of Canada.

Of course, a months long event would allow the wind to take the ash everywhere.

I doubt the season will make much effective difference when this thing blows.

[feederband]

Alright Yellowstone and lava dome filling up should not be used in a sentence not unless you are running...

[JonathanBelles]

Alright Yellowstone and lava dome filling up should not be used in a sentence not unless you are running...

That was my thought. Is this directly in the area of the caldera?

[Derek Ortt]

if yellowstone (or any other super volcano, probably Toba with all of the quake activity there in recent years) were to blow, it is not going to make much of a difference what the seaosn is. We had better all have an alternative place to live

[gtalum]

We had better all have an alternative place to live

Like Mars?

[Cyclenall]

We take all that cold Canadian air every winter, and give warm, comfortable air back in return...

The landmass doesn't matter to much on the large scale temp. oscillations. It's fairly even because people down south love colder air. The opposite here is true.

[Brent]

Every 700k years, roughly, and its been almost that long?



Geologist in my office says one of the latter Yellowstone eruptions deposited ash up to 2 meters deep in parts of Northwest Texas. Lets just hope this thing blows during Summer, when prevailing winds would take most of the ash to the lightly populated Prairie Provinces of Canada.

Ummm... if Yellowstone blows the prevailing winds are going to be the least of our concern.

[HURAKAN]

Not exactly, those in the immediate area of the disaster would like the winds to be blowing towards the other side of where they plan to go. Afterwards, of course everyone worldwide will be affected. But the prevailing winds are going to make a big difference in the number of deaths over the first few days after the explosion.

That the volcano is growing, that is expected since it has not exploded in a long time. Now, expanding in a super volcano doesn't mean it will blow. If you see an expansion with an increase in the number and frequency of earthquakes, and an increase in gases, then it will mean that this thing is waking up.

[JonathanBelles]

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/rec ... 2.-110.php

Minor earthquakes in the last week, but nothing in the last 24 hours.

[gtalum]

Not exactly, those in the immediate area of the disaster would like the winds to be blowing towards the other side of where they plan to go. Afterwards, of course everyone worldwide will be affected. But the prevailing winds are going to make a big difference in the number of deaths over the first few days after the explosion.

If Yellowstone blows, it'll be far better to be killed quickly than to survive the first few days and then die slowly of starvation and war.

[HURAKAN]

[Derek Ortt]

not all eruptions in yellowstone's past were super eruptions.

The give away that there will be an erutpion is the harmonic tremor