Scientists say a mammoth magma reservoir lies under Yellowstone. It’s four times the size of the magma pool that fuels the super volcano. They say it holds enough hot rock to fill the Grand Canyon 11 times… but you shouldn’t worry.
Dr. Robert Smith is considered the world’s foremost expert on the Yellowstone super volcano system. His publication last year drew attention worldwide, when it declared the magma body under the park was two and a half times larger than previously thought.
His newest publication shows a much, much larger magma reservoir below the one previously mapped.
He explained, “So this lower crustal body we just imaged is four times bigger than the shallow one right at the surface.”
Smith said the team of geologists at the University of Utah now have a complete picture of Yellowstone’s plumbing system, top to bottom, which is more than forty miles below the earth’s surface. They combined decades of monitoring earthquakes around the world.
He said, “It took the data from the local earthquake and the data from the global earthquake and put them together and when you put them together, then the crossing paths of the seismic grades went through this area that didn’t have an image before. There it was.”
Does the discovery of all the hot rocks signal another volcanic eruption? Smith said absolutely not.