How is Yellowstone Volcano different from other volcanoes?

How is Yellowstone Volcano different from other volcanoes?

Comparison of eruption sizes using the volume of magma erupted from several volcanoes. Therefore a supervolcano is a volcano that at one point in time erupted more than 1,000 cubic kilometers of deposits. Yellowstone, like many other supervolcanoes, has also had much smaller eruptions.

How is Yellowstone different than the other volcanoes in the table above is it located on a hot spot or a boundary is it expected to erupt again soon?

Yellowstone sits atop a continental hot spot. As the North American plate moves steadily westward the hot spot affects different areas of the continent. Volcanic activity can be traced across the United States as the plate has moved across this hot spot.

What is special about Yellowstone volcano?

Yellowstone is a supervolcano. That’s among the largest volcanic eruptions known, and marks Yellowstone as a supervolcano (a term used to describe any volcano with an eruption of more than 240 cubic miles of magma). While the volcano is still active, it’s been about 70,000 years since the last lava flow.

How are Yellowstone and Hawaii different?

Yellowstone Hotspot What makes it different is this hotspot is located under a thick, continental plate. Hawaii sits on a thin oceanic plate, which is easily breached by magma coming to the surface. At Yellowstone, the thick continental plate presents a much more difficult barrier for magma to penetrate.

What is the difference between Yellowstone and Hawaii Volcanoes?

Both Hawaii and Yellowstone are thought to be the result of a hot spot though it is unclear as to why the magma from them is so different. Magma that erupts from Hawaii’s volcanoes is runny and not very explosive. Yellowstone’s magma is more like what came out of Mt Saint Helens: very thick, almost a paste.

Can you see the Yellowstone Volcano from the air?

The Yellowstone volcano is a “super volcano”. You don’t see the volcano as you’re driving out to visit the park. You don’t see it while you’re in the park. The volcano is gigantic that one can only see the shape of it from the air.

What does Yellowstone’s magma look like?

Yellowstone’s magma is more like what came out of Mt Saint Helens: very thick, almost a paste. This type of magma contains large amounts of gas at high pressures beneath the surface. Once it nears the surface however, the gas expands causing the magma to violently explode.

Is Yellowstone a planet changing event?

Thats Yellowstone. Now think of a regular volcano like Mt Baker, Mt Hood, Mt Shasta. Mt Penitubo etc etc these volcanoes have calderas only a fraction of a mile in diameter. When a system like Yellowstone lets go as it will one day it will be a planet changing event.