Jaunted

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Things At Yellowstone Aren't As Calm As Once Thought

This month’s copy of National Geographic has some great reading for those headed out to Yellowstone National Park this summer. However, it’s the kind of information that you may not want to hear if you’re a worrywart. Apparently the volcano supervolcano that created one of the country’s best national parks isn’t as sleepy as researchers once thought.

Although researchers aren’t trying to terrify us, there is some evidence that the volcano has been inching upwards in recent years. It’s doming, it’s growing, and researchers refer to it as a caldera at unrest, which sounds a little unsettling to us. Especially when you consider some of the suspected supervolcano eruptions that have taken place in the planet’s history. About 2.1 million years ago an eruption at Yellowstone left a hole in the ground as large as Rhode Island.

For now, researchers seem to agree on one thing: they aren’t sure what will happen and when. An eruption could wipe out much of the human race and next week we could be plunged into a volcanic winter for 100,000 years, or never at all. All we know is we better go see Old Faithful before it's upstaged by something a little more extreme.

Related Stories:
· When Yellowstone Explodes [National Geographic]
· Tonga's Underwater Volcano Might Affect the Fiji Beach Scene [Jaunted]
· Science Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo of Mud Volcano at Yellowstone: enyacologne]