Huge Cache of Magma Hidden Beneath California Supervolcano

[Judi Lynn]

By Jeanna Bryner, Live Science Managing Editor | August 16, 2018 07:14am ET

Some 760,000 years ago, before our species took its first steps on Earth, an enormous eruption in what is now eastern California sent high-speed rivers of ash and lava across an area tens of miles across. The event ejected ash as far east as present-day Nebraska.

When the dust settled, six days later, the Long Valley supervolcano had disgorged about 1,400 times the volume of lava, gas and ash as the famous 1980 supereruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington.

And since 1978, Long Valley has shown signs of restlessness, with the depressed valley at the center of the volcano (the caldera) showing uplift, possibly from magma moving toward the surface. (Magma is the hot rock stored beneath a volcano that ultimately erupts onto land and is renamed lava.) Some scientists also argue that liquids from stored magma may be causing the uplift. [The 11 Biggest Volcanic Eruptions in History]

Now, scientists think they've figured out what's happening in the bowels of this beast, finding evidence of a mother lode of magma — some 240 cubic miles (1,000 cubic kilometers) — stored like syrup between the rocks making up a giant stack of "pancakes." That's "enough melt [or magma] to support another supereruption" like the one 760,000 years ago, Ashton Flinders, of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Menlo Park, California, and colleagues wrote online Aug. 2 in the journal Geology.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/63349-long-valley-supervolcano-magma-cache.html?utm_source=notification

[KY_EnviroGuy]

1. Thanks, Judi Lynn..

for helping to keep our brains operational during this numbing tRump fiasco.

From the same LiveScience site, here's a good refresher on potential for the next Yellowstone eruption:

Link: https://www.livescience.com/20714-yellowstone-supervolcano-eruption.html

I had read before that the magma bed for it extends under several states. This is the first article I've seen that shows a map of the potential ash fall and it indicates the entire continental US being covered to some degree.

...........

[SergeStorms]

2. As if....

Californians don't have enough to worry about already.

[pansypoo53219]

3. pretty sure wi can shovel that.