The Yellowstone caldera gets its chilling label as a supervolcano due to its ability to inflict devastation on a global level should another supereruption occur. An event of this kind has occurred three times in history – 2.1 million years ago, 1.3 million years ago and 640,000 years ago. However, USGS’ scientists-in-charge – Jacob Lowenstern – claims to have calculated the odds of another super-eruption occurring in his lifetime.
He revealed, based on geological records, there is a one-in-10,000 chance we could be hit by a global-level threat before 2100.
However, he added that, given the erratic nature of volcanoes, that number doesn’t mean much.
He said in 2017: “It’s not impossible to rule out, but it’s a remote possibility.”
Each of the three past super-eruptions of the Yellowstone hotspot spewed more than 250 cubic miles of magma into the environment
Mr Lowenstern previously warned that would be enough to cover almost the entirety of North America in an ash blanket.
He said in 2012: “The ash is thick near the eruption source and a small fraction of a millimetre once you move 2,000 miles away.
“It’s fair to say that a trace of ash would be found over most of the United States, though it would only be thick enough to collapse roofs in the states closest to Yellowstone.”
The prospect of an event of this nature has been enough to worry many Americans, with some claiming another one is overdue.
However, researchers working for the USGS have stated this theory couldn’t be further from the truth.
Their website reads: “First of all, one cannot present recurrence intervals based on only two values, it would be statistically meaningless.
“But for those who insist, let’s do the arithmetic. The three eruptions occurred 2.1 million, 1.3 million and 0.64 million years ago.
“The two intervals are thus 0.8 and 0.66 million years, averaging to a 0.73 million-year interval.
“Again, the last eruption was 0.64 million years ago, implying that we are still about 90,000 years away from the time when we might consider calling Yellowstone overdue for another caldera-forming eruption.
“Nevertheless, we cannot discount the possibility of another such eruption occurring sometime in the future, given Yellowstone’s volcanic history and the continued presence of magma beneath the Yellowstone caldera.”
The potential for another eruption is something that is being monitored closely by NASA, too.
Satellite images taken by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) are helping scientists to identify hotspots and rising magma, to warn of any future events.
Greg Vaughn from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) revealed in 2012: “This is technology and data that could be applied to any geothermal and volcanic areas around the world to monitor eruptions and maybe even predict volcanic activity.
“Most volcanoes aren’t monitored until they erupt, and I want to get ahead of that.
“[Taking data manually is] a difficult thing to do because Yellowstone is such a huge area.
“It’s hard work, it’s time-consuming, and there are bears.”
The researchers use thermal imaging from space to monitor roughly 10,000 geothermal features of the Yellowstone region.
Dr Vaughn and his team take images overnight to prevent picking up heat reflected from rocks.