Yellowstone’s famous supervolcano is likely being fueled in a completely different way from what many scientists assumed. New research suggests that Yellowstone’s volcanic activity is actually driven by shifts in Earth’s crust, rather than a deep well of magma underground as previously thought.
This finding could help scientists predict future volcanic activity and better understand how the volcano will behave.
“Our work changes the [understanding of how] the magma plumbing system works, so future eruption models have to take this into account,” study co-author Lijun Liu, a geologist with the Institute of Geology and Geophysics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Live Science.