I am doing a research study on the volcano at Yellowstone. Do you know when it is expected to erupt again? I was also wondering it it is big enough to cover other states with lava. If so which ones? P.S. Thank you very much for answering an earlier question Charles A.Wood! It really helped me out.

rocky Suzanne

Hi Suzanne,

I'm not sure if anyone is predicting an eruption any time soon at Yellowstone. Yellowstone is a kind of volcano that we luckily don't have much experience with in an active stage. As you probably know it is extremely explosive when it does erupt in a big way, but the whole Yellowstone volcanic system also includes the products of what must have been much smaller and less explosive eruptions.

Yellowstone is more famous geologically for erupting huge quantities of ash rather than lava. It has, however, produced some lava domes. These are very slow moving, viscous blobs of lava. Because Yellowstone sits near the intersection of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, and because part of the caldera is actually in Idaho, it would be very easy for ash from an explosive eruption to reach into other states.

The last three eruptions were 2 million, 1.3 million, and 0.6 million years ago, which gives an average time between eruptions of 0.7 million years (=700,000 years). If it were really regular (which it almost certainly is not) then we might say that we have 100,000 years to go until the next one. Since volcanoes are not so easily predictable, nobody says that. There are lots of earthquakes at Yellowstone and many of them are probably somehow related to the residual heat from previous eruptions as well as perhaps new magma leaking into the system from below. Whether or not that will lead to an eruption any time soon remains to be seen.

Sincerely,

Scott Rowland 

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