Is Yellowstone volcano awakening? Yellowstone National Park supervolcano is the only supervolcano of the recorded 30 volcanos located on land (Farrell, Smith, Husen & Diehl, 2014). Furthermore, Yellowstone calderas are registered as the largest supervolcano located on the continent of North America. The supervolcano pride itself to host over 1,000, active thermal features and approximately 300 active geysers, Old Faithful geyser is famously recognized to erupt after every 91 minutes (Farrell, Smith, Husen, & Diehl, 2014). With the active geysers and earthquakes recorded at the volcano, questions emerge with all the intensity, when will this super volcano erupt again given it experiences over 2000 recorded earthquakes yearly? And what are some of the significant impacts will it have on the region? Sometimes March 2014, there were videos recorded, and they went viral as animals were sported to run away from the park (Huang et al., 2015). Animals are noted to sense danger faster than humans. Therefore, when they recorded migrating, it caused panic all over America as the people thought finally, the volcano would erupt. The scientists disregarded the migration of animals and noted that they were following their normal movement patterns. However, later in the week, geologists registered a 4.8-magnitude quake (Huang et al., 2015). In my opinion, in the event, the Yellowstone volcano erupted the scientists would have been blamed for ignoring the people’s observations. Moreover, when confronted with the after earthquakes, many scientists had difficulties relating the quakes with the proposed explanation of animal migration. According to the US Geological survey records, it has been included that Yellowstone is not likely to erupt in our lifetime. The last eruption of the super volcano was approximately 640,000 years ago (Ohtani, Amaike, Kamada, Sakamaki, & Hirao, 2014). The question that lingers on people's minds is should the people trust the scientists’ information that the mountain is not likely to erupt anytime soon yet in recent times it has been reported to show many signs of instability. Moreover, new trends have been reported that are alarming the magma reservoir underneath is said to be two and a half times bigger than it had been earlier reported (Ohtani, Amaike, Kamada, Sakamaki & Hirao, 2014). The news is troubling as the continual temperature fluctuations; it is making it possible to soften the nearby asphalt. In my opinion, the increment in the volume of the magma should not be taken lightly by the geologist; rather this is an avenue to go back to the drawing board to check on the possibilities of an eruption. Furthermore, the fluctuating temperatures are not helping the scenario; rather it is making it more difficult as the magma chamber is continually becoming unstable. It is tough to predict when accurately the super volcano will occur. With the variables such as heat fluctuations and magma flows. However, hard claims were made in 2013 when the Yellowstone volcano magma chamber which is responsible for the geysers and uplifting the calderas was reported to be 50% larger than previously imagined by the geologists (Huang et al., 2015). Therefore, what are the predicted impacts if the volcano was to erupt today? Projections indicate that 3 meters of ash will cover the Rocky Mountains and a few centimeters of ash would include major cities across the US (Farrell, Husen & Smith, 2009). Thus, in my opinion, Geologists cannot continually assume the impacts to be felt in the event of Yellowstone supervolcano erupting. Thus, there is a need to form an emergency response team ready in the event the super volcano ever erupted as the mess to be caused by the volcano will be significant. In conclusion, the major issue that is yet to be answered by the geologist remains, will the Yellowstone supervolcano about erupt? And what are some of the associated impacts to be experienced in the event it erupted? Despite the signs that are evident the mountain is unstable, even if the eruption takes place during this lifetime or maybe a thousand years from the current time it is still unknown as the scientists do not have conclusive evidence. However, it is prudent that Americans get prepared for this type of disaster.
References
Farrell, J., Smith, R. B., Husen, S., & Diehl, T. (2014). Tomography from 26 years of seismicity revealing that the spatial extent of the Yellowstone crustal magma reservoir extends well beyond the Yellowstone caldera. Geophysical Research Letters , 41 (9), 3068-3073.
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Farrell, J., Husen, S., & Smith, R. B. (2009). Earthquake swarm and b-value characterization of the Yellowstone volcano-tectonic system. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research , 188 (1), 260-276.
Huang, H. H., Lin, F. C., Schmandt, B., Farrell, J., Smith, R. B., & Tsai, V. C. (2015). The Yellowstone magmatic system from the mantle plume to the upper crust. Science , 348 (6236), 773-776.
Ohtani, E., Amaike, Y., Kamada, S., Sakamaki, T., & Hirao, N. (2014). Stability of hydrous phase H MgSiO4H2 under lower mantle conditions. Geophysical Research Letters , 41 (23), 8283-8287.
