Researchers from the University of Utah and the California Institute of Technology to map Yellowstone National Park鈥檚 Old Faithful Geyser in the journal Science聽on Thursday.聽They found a previously unknown magma chamber, which 聽holds enough molten rock to fill the Grand Canyon 11 times.
The team used seismic tomography, a sort of ultrasound technique, over five days in early April to map the ground underneath Yellowstone. According to the Guardian, scientists already knew of a large magma chamber. But this new one, holding 11,500 cubic miles of solid, spongelike, and molten rock, is 4.5 times bigger and sits 12聽to聽28 miles under the surface.
鈥淭he existence of the second magma chamber does not make it any more or less likely that a large volcanic eruption at Yellowstone will occur,鈥 Jamie Farrell, a seismologist at the University of Utah, told the Guardian. 鈥淭hese findings do not change the current volcanic hazard at Yellowstone.鈥 The last major eruption was 640,000 years ago, according to Science.
But this new discovery does mean that if Yellowstone鈥檚 hot spot were to blow its top, it would be a lot worse than previously thought. 鈥淜nowing that you have this additional reservoir tells you [that] you could have a much bigger volume erupt over a relatively short time scale,鈥 Victor Tsai, co-author and geophysicist at CalTech, told Science.