The Yellowstone Supervolcano Holds Way More Liquid Magma Than We Realized

The supervolcano in northwest Wyoming is one of the most fascinating places on the planet, and it's also one of the most volatile.

A new study by an international team of researchers has determined that there's more magma under the caldera than was previously thought, adding important details to models that could be used to fine tune our estimates on the next big eruption.

We don't need to worry. Extra content doesn't make an eruption more likely, according to research.

The study sought to find out how much of the supervolcano contained and how it was distributed.

They wanted to identify melt, which is often used to predict eruptions by comparing current conditions to those that preceded previous eruptions.

The study doesn't confirm the presence of an eruptible body or imply a future eruption, despite the fact that the study shows substantial melt at depths that fueled previous eruptions.

It's not easy to look deep underground, but the researchers used a new tomographic technique to better understand the waves.

The researchers estimated a partial melt fraction of between 16 percent and 20 percent based on how fast the waves change at different depths.

The liquid-melt is most concentrated at the depths of 3 to 8 kilometers below the surface.

There are a lot of factors that make it hard to predict when an eruption will occur. Some pockets of liquid magma can be missed by the latest scanning methods.

The researchers estimate that the melt fraction is lower than they would have expected if a large portion of the basin were in the eruptible stage.

Small subset volumes of concentrated silicic melt can't be ruled out.

The researchers say that the melt-rich zone is just one part of the picture. As new data comes in, prediction models are continually refined.

There have been three catastrophic eruptions from Yellowstone in the last 2.1 million years, and while there isn't a lot of certainty about when the next one will occur, a clearer indication of the geology of the caldera is always going to help.

The area is under constant observation by the United States Geological Survey, which should mean that further warning signs are picked up.

A host of dynamic processes would likely be accompanied by a host of strain events that could begin to mobilize and concentrate magma.

The research has appeared in a journal.