Monitoring services from the US Geological Survey (USGS) found there has been 174 earthquakes in the Yellowstone region over the past 28 days. All of the tremors were relatively small, with the largest being a magnitude-2.4 tremor on February 10.
Could Yellowstone volcano erupt?
However, experts warn it is not necessarily the size of an earthquake which is an indicator a volcano might erupt, but the quantity of them.
Portland State University Geology Professor Emeritus Scott Burns said: “If you get swarms under a working volcano, the working hypothesis is that magma is moving up underneath there.”
But others disagree about whether an earthquake swarm near a volcano could be a sign of things to come.
Jamie Farrell at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, believes this is just part of the natural cycle for Yellowstone volcano, saying: “Earthquake swarms are fairly common in Yellowstone.
“There is no indication that this swarm is related to magma moving through the shallow crust.”
The Yellowstone supervolcano, located in the US state of Wyoming, last erupted on a major scale 640,000 years ago.
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the chances of a Yellowstone eruption is around one-in-730,000.
With 640,000 years having passed since the last major eruption, Yellowstone is edging closer to exploding – but it could still be thousands of years away.
However, experts are preparing for the worst now and are studying how a major eruption, which could instantly wipe out large swathes of the US, could be prevented.
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The proposal would have the added benefit of using the steam from the water and magma combo to create carbon-free geothermal electricity at a much cheaper rate than any alternative energy currently available on the market.
Mr Wilcox told Mr Walsh: “The thing that makes Yellowstone a force of nature is that it stores up heat for hundreds of thousands of years before it all goes kablooey all at once.
“It would be good if we drained away that heat before it could do a lot of damage.”
Others, however, are not so convinced about the feasibility of Mr Wilcox’s idea. USGS scientist Jake Lowenstern told Mr Walsh: “It all seems a bit fanciful.”