Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. This week’s contribution is from Michael Poland, geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey and scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.
A common question asked of YVO scientists is “when will Yellowstone erupt?” And the usual reply is that “an eruption of any sort, either an explosion or a lava flow, is very unlikely in our lifetimes.” This is a true statement — seismic imaging has shown that the magma chamber beneath Yellowstone is mostly solid, we know that lava flow eruptions occur in clusters separated by tens to hundreds of thousands of years.
A logical, and frequent, follow-up question is: “if there is little concern of a volcanic eruption, why monitor Yellowstone at all?”
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There are two very compelling answers.
First, volcanic eruptions