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New Study Finds Grand Canyon Sized Reservoir Full Of Magma Beneath Yellowstone

Magma

Scientists have discovered a reservoir beneath Yellowstone National Park’s super-volcano that’s full of enough magma to fill the Grand Canyon more than 11 times over. The gigantic chamber of partly molten rock is four times bigger and much deeper than the previously known cavity just above it.

The upper chamber was responsible for three ancient volcanic eruptions that coated much of North America in ash – 2m, 1.2m and 640,000 years ago. University of Utah’s Hsin-Hua Huang, a lead author on the study “For the first time, we have imaged the continuous volcanic plumbing system under Yellowstone.”

For the first time, we have imaged the continuous volcanic plumbing system under Yellowstone (…) That includes the upper crustal magma chamber we have seen previously plus a lower crustal magma reservoir that has never been imaged before and that connects the upper chamber to the Yellowstone hotspot plume below.

A co-author of the the study, Robert B. Smith, said in a recent interview conducted by CBS that “The new study is the missing link between the shallow magma system that we imaged last year and the mantle plume deep in the Earth.”

The new study is the missing link between the shallow magma system that we imaged last year and the mantle plume deep in the Earth (…) By putting in this new body we just discovered, it accounts pretty well for the total of the CO2 that comes out of the system.

According to Sky News, Scientists said the discovery doesn’t increase the risk of an eruption, which is estimated to happen every 700,000 years. The US Geological Survey released in a statement that such a disaster would be extremely unlikely in the next few thousand years.

In other volcano related news here at Immortal News, read about the eruption of the Chilean volcano Calbuco in the southern Andes.

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