Sad. Weak. New research by a team of geophysicists and volcanologists indicates that the Yellowstone Supervolcano just doesn’t have the stuff to erupt anytime soon and it will be thousands of years if not longer before even a small-to-moderate eruption occurs at the national park.
The paper – lead authored by Hawaii Volcano Observatory geophysicist Ninfa Bennington – is a shit ton of jargon about the current underground hellscape of magma at the park, and reading from a new type of telemetry device. The findings from which lead to the conclusion that the present mix and distribution of red hot melty basaltic magma and ultra-pasty rhyolitic magma is not conducive with conditions that preceded prior eruptions. Right now there’s simply not enough pressure being put on the rhyolitic magma as it’s not concentrated in any one particular spot in the caldera.