Detailed mapping shows the "hot spot" that fuels Yellowstone National Park's geothermal features is more than 400 miles deep, and might have been responsible for volcanic activity in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho 17 million years ago.
The mapping contradicts previous theories that Yellowstone's geothermal features were powered by a relatively shallow -- perhaps 250 miles deep -- hot spot.
Additionally, University of Utah researchers say the "banana-shaped magma chamber" they mapped runs at an upward angle from below the park's northwestern corner and is 20 percent larger than previously thought. As a result, they say, "a future cataclysmic eruption could be even larger than thought."
Those are among the findings produced by four National Science Foundation-funded studies that are reported on in the current issue of the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research. The studies were overseen by Robert Smith, a research professor and professor emeritus of geophysics at the University of Utah and the coordinating scientist for the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.
The plume angles downward 150 miles to the west-northwest of Yellowstone and reaches a depth of at least 410 miles, Professor Smith said in a release the university issued Monday. The study estimates the plume is mostly hot rock, with 1 percent to 2 percent molten rock in "sponge-like voids" within the hot rock.
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