by Playfuls Staff |
1st March 2007
A 17-year
U.S.
study shows the power of the huge volcanic hotspot beneath
Yellowstone
National Park is much greater than
thought.[more]
The $2.3 million, 1987-2004 University of Utah
study revealed the approximately 300-mile-wide underground plume of molten rock
known as the Yellowstone hotspot exerts itself
forcefully even when not triggering eruptions and earthquakes.
"The Yellowstone hotspot has had
a much bigger effect over a larger area with more energy than ever
expected," said University of Utah
geophysics Professor Robert Smith, who led the study.
"We're seeing large-scale deformation of the Earth's
crust in the western United States
because of the effects of the Yellowstone hotspot,"
added Christine Puskas, a geophysics doctoral student and the study's first
author.
The research -- conducted by Smith, Puskas, postdoctoral
fellow Wu-Lung Chang and former Utah researcher Chuck Meertens -- focused on
the Yellowstone caldera, a gigantic volcanic crater formed by a catastrophic
eruption 642,000 years ago that was 1,000 times bigger than the 1980 eruption
of Mount St. Helens.
The research is to appear in the March 2 issue of the
Journal of Geophysical Research -- Solid Earth.
© 2007 UPI
