The Yellowstone caldera is chillingly referred to as a supervolcano due to its ability to inflict devastation on a global level. Despite this, USGS scientist Jacob Lowenstern admitted scientists are no closer to knowing when it will erupt. The scientist in charge of Yellowstone Volcano Observatory in Wyoming was asked during a question and answers session in 2014 when we could expect another eruption.
He admitted: “We don’t know everything.
“It’s possible it will erupt and have small lava flows.
“It’s possible, but not likely, that it will have another massive eruption.
“Ultimately this is stuff that is happening four or five miles beneath us.
“But everything we know seems to indicate that nothing right now is unusual.”
Dr Lowernstern went on to reassure the public that even an increase in earthquake activity does not suggest a supereruption is on its way.
He added: “The kind of activity we see at Yellowstone is the kind that’s been going on for the last 100 years and, from our geologic evidence, has gone on for thousands of years before then.
“Occasionally we get swarms of earthquakes and some of these swarms can be quite intense.
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Some have claimed the time difference between these incidents means a supereruption is 70,000 years overdue.
However, researchers at 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.”