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The supervolcano that lies beneath Yellowstone National Park might have erupted less powerfully but more frequently than previously thought... In the ancient past, the supervolcano at Yellowstone led to some of the largest-known continental eruptions in Earth's history. Each of the world's roughly one dozen supervolcanoes is capable of spewing up to thousands of times more magma and ash than any eruption ever recorded in human history. Scientists now find that the biggest Yellowstone eruption — the fourth-largest known to science, which created the 2-million-year-old Huckleberry Ridge deposit — was actually at least two different eruptions that occurred about 6,000...

A sleeping super-volcano in Germany is showing worrying signs of waking up. It's lurking just 390 miles away underneath the tranquil Laacher See lake near Bonn and is capable of ejecting billions of tons of magma. This monster erupts every 10 to 12,000 years and last went off 12,900 years ago. ... Volcanologists believe that the Laacher See volcano is still active as carbon dioxide is bubbling up to the lake’s surface, which indicates that the magma chamber below is 'degassing'.

Is the world's largest super-volcano set to erupt for the first time in 600,000 years, wiping out two-thirds of the U.S.? (Full title) The super-volcano beneath Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming has been rising at a record rate since 2004. It would explode with a force a thousand times more powerful than the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980. Spewing lava far into the sky, a cloud of plant-killing ash would fan out and dump a layer 10ft deep up to 1,000 miles away. Two-thirds of the U.S. could become uninhabitable as toxic air sweeps through it, grounding thousands of...

Some places saw the ground rise by ten inches, experts report. Yellowstone National Park's supervolcano just took a deep "breath," causing miles of ground to rise dramatically, scientists report. The simmering volcano has produced major eruptions—each a thousand times more powerful than Mount St. Helens's 1980 eruption—three times in the past 2.1 million years. Yellowstone's caldera, which covers a 25- by 37-mile (40- by 60-kilometer) swath of Wyoming, is an ancient crater formed after the last big blast, some 640,000 years ago. (See "When Yellowstone Explodes" in National Geographic magazine.) Since then, about 30 smaller eruptions—including one as recent as...

A swarm of mostly imperceptible earthquakes continues to shake Yellowstone National Park in what is now the park’s second-largest on record. From the swarm’s beginnings on Jan. 17 through Monday morning, some 1,620 quakes were recorded by seismologists in the park, which sits atop a gigantic volcanic caldera. The activity is centered around the northwest corner of the Yellowstone caldera, in the back-country between West Yellowstone, Mont., and Old Faithful.

Yellowstone National Park has been rattled by more than 250 earthquakes in the past two days following a period of 11 months of quiet seismic activity in the park. The quakes have been gaining strength, with a 3.1 tremor recorded at 11:03 a.m. today. A 2.9 quake was recorded at 12:38 p.m. Prof. Robert B. Smith, a geophysicist at the University of Utah and one of the leading experts on earthquake and volcanic activity at Yellowstone, said that the activity is a "notable swarm." "The swarm is located about 10 miles northwest of Old Faithful, Wyo., and nine miles southeast...

Sunday, January 17, 2010 at 22:43:34 UTC Sunday, January 17, 2010 at 03:43:34 PM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones Location 44.565°N, 110.972°W Depth 6.5 km (4.0 miles) Region YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, WYOMING Distances 15 km (9 miles) SE (136°) from West Yellowstone, MT 30 km (19 miles) ENE (76°) from Island Park, ID 56 km (35 miles) SSW (201°) from Gardiner, MT 430 km (267 miles) N (10°) from Salt Lake City, UT Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 0.3 km (0.2 miles); depth +/- 1.4 km (0.9 miles) Parameters NST= 24, Nph= 24, Dmin=11 km, Rmss=0.14 sec,...

University of Utah scientists say seismic images of the plumbing feeding the Yellowstone supervolcano show a magma plume much larger than previously thought. Scientists say they've imaged a plume of hot and molten rock rising at an angle from the northwest at a depth of at least 410 miles, contradicting claims there is no deep plume, only shallow hot rock moving like slowly boiling soup. A related University of Utah study used gravity measurements to indicate the banana-shaped magma chamber of hot and molten rock a few miles beneath Yellowstone is 20 percent larger than previously believed, so a future...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new study provides "incontrovertible evidence" that the volcanic super-eruption of Toba on the island of Sumatra about 73,000 years ago deforested much of central India, some 3,000 miles from the epicenter, researchers report. The volcano ejected an estimated 800 cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere, leaving a crater (now the world's largest volcanic lake) that is 100 kilometers long and 35 kilometers wide. Ash from the event has been found in India, the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea. The bright ash reflected sunlight off the landscape, and volcanic sulfur...

A team of scientists say they have evidence that a "super volcano" may be brewing underneath Mount St. Helens, NewScientist.com reports. Researchers say indicators suggest Mount St. Helens and other northwest volcanoes are plugged into a huge subterranean pool of magma that could one day burst to the surface in a "super" eruption. If what they believe is true, the structure beneath the mountain would be comparable in size to the biggest magma chambers ever discovered, such as the one below Yellowstone National Park.

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) - A geologist at Yellowstone National Park was in the middle of a lecturing a group of colleagues on the rarity of hydrothermal explosions earlier this month when, all of a sudden, one went off just behind him. Geologist Hank Heasler was giving a lecture in the Biscuit Basin on May 17 when a hot pool behind him exploded. It spewed mud, rocks and hot water about 50 feet in the air. Geologists only know of only a handful of such unpredictable explosions in YellowstoneÂ’s recorded history. Heasler and the others were just out of...

So Yellowstone, the super volcano, is again rumbling? Mercury has been detected throughout the national park (not a good sign) for quite sometime and along with it the ground under Yellowstone Lake is rising. More than 250 earthquakes reported during a 24-hour period ... Scientists monitoring Yellowstone have stated that it has entered into what they have described as a "red zone." Remember Mount St. Helens? The feds warned folks in the region around the mountain to vacate, and most did. Some (a few) didn't. It's been reported that the feds will issue a vacate order to the inhabitants of...

With the increased seismic activity in the Yellowstone Caldera, it is likely that there is some increased interest in in the geology of the area. Here are some resources that should be of interest. First, we have a fairly recent peer reviewed publication on the "Super Volcano" known as Yellowstone, including some discussion of just what a "Super Volcano" is. The largest scale of volcanic eruptions, the so-called super-eruptions, can destroy all living beings and infrastructure over tens of thousands of square kilometres, can disrupt agriculture over millions of square kilometres and can alter global climate for years or decades....

A Yellowstone earthquake update: 1) The rumbling continues, including 3.5, 3.0 and 3.2 quakes just today 2) Here is some more Jake Lowenstern (the Yellowstone volcano scientist) analysis (via TIME): Jake Lowenstern, Ph.D.,YVO's chief scientist, who also is part of the USGS Volcano Hazards Team, told TIME that it doesn't appear a supervolcano event is imminent. "We don't think the amount of magma exists that would create one of these large eruptions of the past," he said. "It is still possible to have a volcanic eruption comparable to other volcanoes. But we would expect to see more and larger quakes,...

NEW YORK (CBS) ― [Click to zoom.] Click to enlarge Yellowstone remains very geologically active — and its famous geysers and hot springs are a reminder that a pool of magma still exists five to 10 miles underground. (File) CBS 1 of 1 Close numSlides of totalImages Related Stories * Yellowstone Earthquakes May Be 'Precursory' Events (12/30/2008) * Author: Yellowstone Park A Ticking Bomb (7/28/2008) * Wolves Of Yellowstone Spur Love And Hate (7/18/2007) * Yellowstone Bulge May Cause Thermal Unrest (3/2/2006) Related Links * Lowenstern Interview With Blogger * Yellowstone Earthquake Map The recent "swarm" of small earthquake tremors...

More on the Yellowstone earthquake swarm at the supervolcano caldera. First, this piece of database analysis from an IT guy at Splunk puts the swarm into scary perspective: I'm sending you this email with some information I've gleaned from the USGS archives. I'm analyzing the ANSS data (http://www.ncedc.org/cnss/) in an install of Splunk, which is a timeline based search and reporting engine. I have 30 years of data in the system, with about 2M quakes total. It makes doing graphs and adhoc investigations faster than dealing with the USGS limited search forms. Disclaimer: I work for Splunk as their evangelist,...

Ancient Global Dimming Linked to Volcanic Eruption Ker Than for National Geographic NewsMarch 19, 2008 A "dry fog" that muted the sun's rays in A.D. 536 and plunged half the world into a famine-inducing chill was triggered by the eruption of a supervolcano, a new study says. The cause of the sixth-century global dimming has long been a matter of debate, but a team of international researchers recently discovered acidic sulphate molecules, which are signs of an eruption, in Greenland ice. This is the first physical evidence for the A.D. 536 event, which according to ancient texts from Mesoamerica, Europe,...

The ground on the western edges of Naples, Italy is rising, spurring worries of a possible volcanic eruption, but scientists now think they know exactly what is causing the uplift and may be able to better predict any potential eruption. Using GPS measurements, a group of scientists at the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology in Italy monitored the ground’s motions for several years, and based on the patterns they observed, they believe the uplifting is caused by magma intruding from a shallow chamber. The rising motions of the ground reached a peak rate of about three feet per year...

Ancient "Supervolcano" Rocked Washington State Richard A. Lovett for National Geographic News February 6, 2007 An ancient "supervolcano" in what is now Washington State spewed steam and billowed ash in amounts that dwarf the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, new research shows. The blow-up occurred in two major bursts about 3.7 million years ago in the northern Cascade Range, creating flows of searing-hot gas and belching out some 33 cubic miles (137 cubic kilometers) of ash. It wasn't the first eruption to occur there, said David Tucker, a research associate at Western Washington University. And it wasn't the...

Eruption May Have Been Bigger Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News Dec. 21, 2006 — One of the largest volcanic eruptions on record just got bigger. The Taupo Volcanic Zone of New Zealand appears to have had twin eruptions only 20 miles apart within days of each other a quarter-million years ago. Each eruption belched out more than 25 cubic miles (100 cubic kilometers) of rock and volcanic ash. This is the first evidence of twin supervolcanic eruptions. "It's possible one of these triggered the other," said geologist Darren Gravley of the University of Auckland, New Zealand. But exactly how the...

Pulse reveals beating heart of a supervolcano 01 March 2006 From New Scientist Print Edition Jessica Marshall "I DON'T think visitors appreciate that they're standing directly on top of the largest, most dynamic magmatic system on the planet," says geologist Daniel Dzurisin. While the supervolcano that is Yellowstone National Park won't be erupting any time soon, he and his colleagues have uncovered a surprising source of volcanic activity beneath tourists' feet, which was probably the reason trails had to be closed in 2003. The Yellowstone caldera formed 640,000 years ago in an explosion of magma more than 1000 times greater...

Government officials are evaluating and revising disaster plans around the United States in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, just as they did after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. While war and automobiles kill more people than nature, find out what natural disasters top scientists’ worry lists. #10 Pacific Northwest Megathrust Earthquake Geologists know it’s just a matter of time before another 9.0 or larger earthquake strikes somewhere between Northern California and Canada. The shaking would be locally catastrophic, but the biggest threat is the tsunami that would ensue from a fault line that’s seismically identical to the one that...

BBC and the Discovery Channel produced a new docudrama and documentary about Yellowstone. The BBC version was shown in March and the Discovery Channel version will be shown on April 10th. The docudrama Supervolcano dramatically explores the impact of a large caldera-forming eruption at Yellowstone. The scale of the portrayed eruption is similar to the eruption of the Huckleberry Ridge Tuff at Yellowstone 2.1 million years ago. The movie is realistic insofar as depicting what could happen if an eruption of this magnitude were to occur again. Although the drama is set in the future, it does an acceptable job...

SYDNEY (AFP) - As Indonesians struggled to recover from the second deadly earthquake to strike them in three months, an Australian expert warned the country faced the prospect of a "super volcano" eruption that would dwarf all previous catastrophes. Professor Ray Cas of Monash University's School of Geosciences said the world's biggest super volcano was Lake Toba, on Indonesia's island of Sumatra, site of both the recent massive earthquakes. Cas told Australian media Friday that Toba sits on a faultline running down the middle of Sumatra -- just where some seismologists say a third earthquake might strike following the 9.0...

An exploding supervolcano would be a calamity to dwarf an asteroid strike or the Asian tsunami A VOLCANIC super-eruption that would threaten the future of modern civilisation is up to ten times more likely than a catastrophic asteroid impact, yet it has been ignored by the world’s governments, scientists said yesterday. Vast volcanic blasts that cause global devastation occur on average every 50,000 years — and, as the last one struck 74,000 years ago, at Toba, Indonesia, another may be overdue. The scale of such a cataclysm would dwarf that of the recent Asian tsunami: the eruption could kill millions...

The eruption of a super volcano "sooner or later" will chill the planet and threaten human civilization, British scientists warned Tuesday. And now the bad news: There's not much anyone can do about it. Several volcanoes around the world are capable of gigantic eruptions unlike anything witnessed in recorded history, based on geologic evidence of past events, the scientists said. Such eruptions would dwarf those of Mount St. Helens, Krakatoa, Pinatubo and anything else going back dozens of millennia. "Super-eruptions are up to hundreds of times larger than these," said Stephen Self of the United Kingdom’s (U.K.) Open University. "An...

SUPERVOLCANOES WARNING Slumbering supervolcanoes powerful enough to wipe out much of the planet may awaken much sooner than it had previously been thought. Experts believed it would take hundreds of thousands of years for reservoirs of molton rock, or magma, beneath a supervolcano to build for an eruption. But a new study indicates the time between super-eruptions can actually be tens of thousands of years - and many are already long overdue. A blast from a supervolcano would be strong enough cause mass extinction and change the world's climate. The findings, published in the Journal of Petrology, are bad...

BBC to Unleash Supervolcano Disaster Film By Anita Singh, PA Showbusiness Editor The BBC has made a disaster movie which predicts one billion people will be wiped off the earth by a “supervolcano”. The £3 million drama claims America’s Yellowstone National Park is due an eruption of cataclysmic proportions. If – or when – it does erupt, 100,000 Americans will be killed in minutes by a giant cloud of burning ash. But the volcano will have such a profound effect on the global climate that up to one billion people will die as a result, the programme will claim. The...

I just noticed that the Yellowstone Supervolcano show will be on National Geographic Channel tonight at 10 eastern time, in case anyone is interested. ;-D

People love to talk about scary stuff. Especially when it’s end-of-the-world scary, such as the big asteroid recently in the news that was supposed to hit Earth and destroy all life, including human life. The big media morons went right along with this far-fetched prediction for the sake of a few more viewers and readers, but as usual the truth came out: Oops! Our calculations were off. The asteroid won’t hit Earth after all. It’s not the first time an on-again, off-again asteroid was headed for Planet Earth, and it’s only one of many “doom and gloom” scenarios the news...

Scientists CloselyMonitoring YellowstoneProLiberty.com12-23-3   Recent eruptions, 200 degree ground temperatures, bulging magma and 84 degree water temperatures prompt heightened srutiny of park's geothermal activity...  BILLINGS, Mont. -- Yellowstone National Park happens to be on top of one of the largest "super volcanoes" in the world. Geologists claim the Yellowstone Park area has been on a regular eruption cycle of 600,000 years. The last eruption was 640,000 years ago making the next one long overdue. This next eruption could be 2,500 times the size of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption. Volcanologists have been tracking the movement of magma under...

Park lake hints at buildup to huge blast By Diedtra Henderson Denver Post Science Writer Sunday, August 10, 2003 - YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. - The mystery of the deep at picturesque Yellowstone Lake is a bulge that rises 100 feet from the lake floor, stretches the length of seven football fields, and has the potential to explode at any time. Of all the life-threatening events that could happen at Yellowstone - from volcanic eruptions to massive earthquakes - this type of hydrothermal explosion is likely the most immediate, serious hazard in the park. So, scientists are trying to better...

Yellowstone National Park,Wyo.- The mystery of the deep at picturesque Yellowstone Lake is a BULGE that rises 100 feet from the lake floor, stretches the length of seven football fields, and has the potential to explode at any time.

It is little known that lying underneath one of America's areas of outstanding natural beauty - Yellowstone Park - is one of the largest super volcanoes in the world. Scientists have revealed that it has been on a regular eruption cycle of 600,000 years. The last eruption was 640,000 years ago…so the next is overdue. The next eruption could be 2,500 times the size of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption.And the sleeping giant is breathing: volcanologists have been tracking the movement of magma under the park and have calculated that in parts of Yellowstone the ground has risen over...