The geyser, the world’s tallest active geyser, saw 32 eruptions last year – smashing the previous record of 29, according to the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO). The huge hot spring is notoriously erratic and roared back to life last year after three-and-a-half years since its last major eruption. The series of three blasts in April 2018 was the first triple eruption in 15 years and sent streams of boiling water hundreds of feet into the air.
Since the surge in activity, the geyser went on to erupt a total of 32 times in 2018.
The YVO said the geyser had suddenly become more active in May 2018, saying it appeared to have “entered a phase of more frequent water eruptions, much like it did in the 1960s and early 1980s”.
Steamboat was on course to watch the 1964 record until December, when there were three eruptions in quick succession on the 8th, 17th and 25th.
Jeff Hungerford, Yellowstone’s park geologist, said: “The heightened activity at Steamboat this year is uncommon but not unprecedented.
“We have seen similar activity twice previously; once in the early 1960s, and again in the early 1980s.
“Conversely, the world’s tallest active geyser has also exhibited years of quiescence or no major eruptions, with the longest being the 50-year period between 1911 and 1961.
“We’ll continue to monitor this extraordinary geyser.”
Scientists say the sudden surge of activity provides a valuable opportunity to study the geyser’s plumbing system – the subterranean ducts which feed Steamboat with its water supply.
Once a sufficient amount of water and steam has built up beneath the hot spring, the huge pressure blasts liquid and gas hundreds of feet into the air in a spectacular eruption.
Yellowstone National Park sits atop a huge supervolanco and the activity at Steamboat geyser had prompted speculation of activity below the surface.
But experts say the record-breaking eruptions are not a sign of a major geological shift.
Michael Poland, the scientist in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, told Wyoming Public Radio: “It’s an anticlimactic answer but it’s true. Most geysers are not like Old Faithful in that they’re not predictable and erupt regularly.
“They can respond to subtle changes in their plumbing systems.”
If the Wyoming volcano were to erupt an estimated 87,000 people would be killed immediately and two-thirds of the USA would immediately be made uninhabitable.
The large spew of ash into the atmosphere would block out sunlight and directly affect life beneath it creating a “nuclear winter”.
The massive eruption could be a staggering 6,000 times as powerful as the one from Washington’s Mount St Helens in 1980 which killed 57 people and deposited ash in 11 different states and five Canadian provinces.
If the volcano explodes, a climate shift would ensue as the volcano would spew massive amounts of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, which can form a sulphur aerosol that reflects and absorbs sunlight.