How many giant eruptions have occurred in Yellowstone National Park and how large were they?
Volcanic activity began in the Yellowstone National Park region a little before about 2 million years ago. Molten rock (magma) rising from deep within the Earth produced three cataclysmic eruptions more powerful than any in the world’s recorded history. The first caldera-forming eruption occurred about 2.1 million years ago. The eruptive blast removed so much magma from its subsurface storage reservoir that the ground above it collapsed into the magma chamber and left a gigantic depression in the ground- a hole larger than the state of Rhode Island. The huge crater, known as a caldera, measured as much as 80 kilometers long, 65 kilometers wide, and hundreds of meters deep, extending from outside of Yellowstone National Park into the central area of the Park (Figure 1). Later, activity shifted to a smaller region within the Island Park area of eastern Idaho, just southwest of Yellowstone National Park, and produced another large caldera-forming eruption 1.3 million years ago. Subsequent
Related Questions
- How do the giant eruptions in the Yellowstone National Park region compare to other large historic eruptions?
- How many giant eruptions have occurred in the Yellowstone National Park region and how large were they?
- How many giant eruptions have occurred in Yellowstone National Park and how large were they?
