Discovered Under the Yellowstone Supervolcano

In the heart of Yellowstone National Park, a supervolcano releases around 45,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide each day.

But the magma chamber lying directly beneath its surface is not considered large enough to produce such levels, so researchers have been searching for an alternative source for years.

Now, by tracking seismic waves, a team of geophysicists has discovered an enormous secondary chamber deeper underground that’s so large its partly-molten rock could fill the Grand Canyon 11 times over.

The Yellowstone supervolcano is one of the largest active continental silicic volcanic fields in the world. Silicic is used to describe magma or igneous rock rich in silica.

It is situated in Yellowstone National Park – which spans the midwestern US states of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana – and last erupted 640,000 years ago.

Lava has flowed in the area as recently as 70,000 years ago, researchers added.

Experts say there is a one in 700,000 annual chance of a volcanic eruption at the site.

Previous research found a relatively small magma chamber, known as the upper-crustal magma reservoir, directly beneath the surface in 2013 that measures 2,500 cubic miles (10,420 cubic km).

To discover the latest chamber, Hsin-Hua Huang from the University of Utah and his colleagues tracked seismic waves from almost 5,000 earthquakes.

These readings combined data from the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, which collected shallow readings from nearby quakes in Utah, Idaho, the Teton Range and Yellowstone, and from the Earthscope array, which revealed deeper readings from temblors from more further afield.

Each of these quakes created waves that echoed around the supervolcano.

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