Study: Supervolcano eruption is least of our hazards in Yellowstone – Bozeman Daily Chronicle
Get any of our free daily email newsletters — news headlines, opinion, e-edition, obituaries and more.If you value these stories, please consider subscribing.Despite an explosive summer at Yellowstone National Park — marked by a thermal feature eruption that destroyed a boardwalk and sent visitors fleeing from an eruption of black water, mud and rocks — a recent study provides reassurance.Researchers have confirmed that the park’s famous supervolcano will unlikely erupt anytime soon.According to an analysis published last week in the journal Nature, while a significant amount of magma is beneath the Yellowstone Caldera, it is stored in small, separate pockets rather than a flowing reservoir, reducing the likelihood of a major eruption.For Michael Poland, the scientist in charge at Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, this finding was far from surprising.“We’ve known from seismic imaging that the magmatic system was mostly solid,” he said. “The Yellowstone system is one that’s been stagnant for a long time.”The volcano’s largest eruption, which earned it the title of a supervolcano, occurred 2.1 million years ago. According to the United States Geological Survey, it released so much magma from its underground reservoir that the ground above collapsed into the magma chamber, forming a massive depression larger than the state of Rhode Island.This enormous crater, known as a caldera, spans up to 80 kilometers long, 65 kilometers wide and hundreds of meters deep, extending from outside the park into its central areas, according to the USGS.Since its formation, the caldera has seen relatively limited volcanic activity. The most recent rhyolitic lava flows occurred around 70,000 years ago, and since the last major caldera-forming eruption 631,000 years ago, approximately 80 mostly nonexplosive eruptions have taken place, according to the USGS.Poland said for the volcano to erupt again, Yellowstone’s magmatic system would need significant rejuvenation, likely driven by heat energy from a magmatic intrusion into the current stagnant magma bodies.“Now, the good news is that kind of event would be accompanied by all sorts of changes. We would see seismicity, we would see really intense ground deformation and changes in thermal emission and gas emissions,” he said.While the exact timeline for such a rejuvenation remains uncertain, Poland estimated it would likely take “decades” at a minimum and, more realistically, “centuries to millennia” to trigger an eruption.“It may be that we see really abundant activity for quite a long time before there’s an eruption,” he said.Despite the study confirming that Yellowstone’s magma is more solid than liquid, Poland emphasized the need to focus on more immediate risks and hazards in the park rather than fixating on the dormant volcano.“I sort of wish it wasn’t such a target for the clickbait kind of stories,” he said. “There’s a different set of hazards and that’s one of the things that bothers me about the whole Yellowstone is going to erupt and wipe out humanity storyline is that it misses the thing that is most likely to occur and that is exactly what happened in July (Biscuit Basin eruption) or a very strong earthquake, like what happened in 1959.”The 7.3 magnitude Hebgen Lake earthquake that year resulted in 28 deaths, most of which were caused by a massive landslide triggered in Madison Canyon. The landslide carried roughly 50 million cubic yards of rock, mud and debris down the south side of the canyon and halfway up the north side, partially burying the Rock Creek campground, according to USGS.Beyond seismic events, the USGS reports that since the park’s opening in 1872, 22 people have died in its hot springs, with hundreds more injured. Bison encounters have led to two fatalities, while bear encounters have caused eight deaths over the past 150 years.Other notable incidents include a gunman taking eight people hostage at Old Faithful Geyser’s visitors’ center in 1989, according to NPS history, and 17 motor vehicle fatalities between 2007 and 2023.“Those are the hazards that are going to occur again, likely within our lifetime,” Poland said.Get any of our free daily email newsletters — news headlines, opinion, e-edition, obituaries and more.Lilly Keller can be reached at lkeller@dailychronicle.com.Send us your thoughts and feedback as a letter to the editor. 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