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Yellowstone Scientists Find New Thermal Area:
Yellowstone National Park has a new thermal area that scientists think has been growing for the past 20 years.
The new area is deep in Yellowstone's backcountry between West Tern Lake and the previously mapped Tern Lake thermal area, the U.S. Geological Survey [(USGS)] announced earlier this month.
"This is exactly the sort of behavior we expect from Yellowstone's dynamic hydrothermal activity," R. Greg Vaughan, a research scientist with USGS, wrote in a blog post, "and it highlights that changes are always taking place, sometimes in remote and generally inaccessible areas of the park."
A thermal area is the visible result on the Earth's surface of magma activity underground. They can include geysers, like Yellowstone's Old Faithful; hot springs; and fumaroles, which are vents that allow volcanic gases to escape. They are surrounded by hydrothermal mineral deposits, geothermal gas emissions, heated ground and lack of vegetation, the USGS says.
Previously: NASA Warning: "Catastrophic" Supervolcano Eruption Could "Push Humanity to Extinction".
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday April 11 2019, @03:13AM (1 child)
That may not actually be so. There's interesting remnants from a much older hot spot to the east (Devils Tower [wikipedia.org] and some related geological structures [wikipedia.org], which were formed 40 million years ago. Current thought is that these were formed by magma that never made it to the surface.
The Yellowstone hot spot has to pass underneath the Rockies (and it already is well into the area), a thick bit of continental plate. It is possible as a result that most of its heat and energy get consumed melting deep continental rock rather than erupting to the surface in future supervolcano eruptions, particularly, if the hot spot is weakening over time. Then the only evidence of its passage might be in the far future more Devils Towers, or dikes and sills of solidified magma intrusions.
Thus, there is a chance that while it might not actually do any more of those massive eruptions. I don't think it's a great chance, but it probably isn't strongly zero either.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday April 11 2019, @12:17PM
Perhaps zero is a strong statement... still: the mantle is ~1800 miles thick, while average continental crust thickness is ~25 miles. +1 or 2, occasionally 3 miles in the Rockies doesn't seem significant enough to completely quash a hot spot.
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