Mushy magma beneath Yellowstone

Mushy magma beneath Yellowstone

[1] A recent prospective on the Yellowstone Caldera discounts its explosive potential based on inferences from tomographic studies which suggests a high degree of crystallization of the underlying magma body. In this study, we show that many of the first teleseismic P-wave arrivals observed at seismic stations on the edge of the caldera did not travel through the magma body but have taken longe...

Magma chamber behavior beneath a volcanic edifice

[1] The construction of a large volcanic edifice at Earth’s surface generates stresses in the upper crust whose magnitude is comparable to those of tectonic stresses and overpressures within a magma chamber. We study how this affects eruption behavior. Analytical calculations are carried out in two dimensions for a cylindrical reservoir with an internal overpressure in an elastic half-space wit...

Mantle Transition Zone Topography and Structure Beneath the Yellowstone Hotspot

for a crustal magma reservoir beneath the upper east rift

An anomalous body with low Vp (compressional wave velocity), low Vs (shear wave velocity), and high Vp/Vs anomalies is observed at 8–11 km depth beneath the upper east rift zone of Kilauea volcano in Hawaii by simultaneous inversion of seismic velocity structure and earthquake locations. We interpret this body to be a crustal magma reservoir beneath the volcanic pile, similar to those widely re...

Evidence for deep magma injection beneath Lake Tahoe, Nevada-California.

A deep earthquake swarm in late 2003 at Lake Tahoe, California (Richter magnitude < 2.2; depth of 29 to 33 kilometers), was coeval with a transient displacement of 6 millimeters horizontally outward from the swarm and 8 millimeters upward measured at global positioning system station Slide Mountain (SLID) 18 kilometers to the northeast. During the first 23 days of the swarm, hypocentral depths ...