Yellowstone supervolcano has a lot more magma than previously thought: Scientists - ABC News

The supervolcano astatine Yellowstone National Park has substantially much magma reservoir nether the caldera than scientists antecedently thought, according to caller research.

In addition, the recently recovered lava is flowing astatine shallow depths that fueled anterior eruptions, according to a insubstantial published Thursday successful Science.

Researchers mapped the seismic question velocity beneath the Yellowstone volcano utilizing a method called seismic tomography. This 3D modeling of seismic waveforms measures the measurement of the melt and makes assumptions of the organisation of however the melt is dispersed successful the subsurface successful Yellowstone's magma reservoir, Ross Maguire, an adjunct prof astatine the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's section of geology and writer of the study, told ABC News.

"We recovered that it's apt that Yellowstone's crustal magma reservoir holds much melt than antecedently was thought," Maguire said, adding that determination is up to 20% melt astatine shallow depths.

Castle Geyser is simply a cone geyser successful the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park.

George D. Lepp/Getty Images

Previous studies person suggested the partial melt fraction was betwixt 5% and 15%, Maguire said.

The Yellowstone magma reservoir is not truthful overmuch "a large vessel of magma," with accumulation each successful 1 body, Maguire said, but rather, much similar a "snow cone," successful which determination is simply a coagulated constituent and a liquid component, Kari M. Cooper, prof and seat astatine the University of California Davis's section of world and planetary sciences, told ABC News.

The findings amusement it's imaginable determination are immoderate comparatively tiny to moderate-size bodies of magma that are beneath Yellowstone that could beryllium mobilized and expelled, Cooper said. Yellowstone tends to garner a batch of attraction due to the fact that of the imaginable for "catastrophic, explosive eruptions," Maguire said, but that's not the astir communal benignant of eruption successful the park.

"They would beryllium of a akin size to what's happened successful the precise caller Yellowstone past that's produced a bid of lava flows that filled the astir caller caldera aft the astir caller truly ample eruption," she said.

Yellowstone eruption, illustration. Yellowstone National Park is sited supra an underground magma chamber.

/Science Photo Libra

Despite the caller discovery, the probe does not bespeak that an eruption volition hap immoderate clip soon, the scientists said. There are nary signs of "increased volcanic unrest" astatine Yellowstone, Maguire said.

"This truly does not alteration the hazard appraisal astatine all, due to the fact that we already knew that. We already knew this was the caller activity," Cooper said. "We already knew that was the astir apt benignant of enactment to hap next."

However, a cardinal contented for assessing the hazards of volcanic eruption is to ascertain however overmuch magma is beneath the aboveground and where, and continued monitoring of the subsurface is important to supply a wide representation if the concern begins to dramatically change, the researchers said.

Grand Prismatic Spring In Yellowstone National Park.

Marie-louise Mandl/Eyeem/Getty Images

In addition, Yellowstone is thoroughly monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Cooper said.