Can we drill into Yellowstone to stop it from erupting?
In some cases, limited scientific drilling for research can help us understand magmatic and hydrothermal (hot water) systems; however, drilling to mitigate a volcanic threat is a much different subject with unknown consequences, high costs, and severe environmental impacts. In addition to the enormous expense and technological difficulties in drilling through hot, mushy rock, drilling is unlikely to have much effect on whatever magma is stored beneath Yellowstone. At near-magmatic temperatures and pressures, any hole would rapidly become sealed by minerals crystallizing from the natural fluids that are present at those depths.
Additionally, Yellowstone National Park is protected from geothermal resource development. World-famous features like Old Faithful Geyser and Grand Prismatic Spring depend on heat provided by the magma chamber deep below Yellowstone's surface. Any allowed geothermal extraction would lower the pressure on the existing geysers and hot springs, altering their behavior and, in many cases, causing them to disappear.
Concerns about volcanic eruptions at Yellowstone typically involve a cataclysmic, caldera-forming event, but it’s unknown whether any such eruption will ever occur there again. Current seismic imaging of the magma reservoir reveals a system that is too crystalline to erupt on a grand scale.
Even if there were significant “eruptable” magma beneath Yellowstone, drilling into it in an attempt to release pressure would have a devastating effect. Scientific research has proven again and again that depressurization is one of the factors that drives magma toward the surface to erupt. So attempts at cooling and depressurizing magma systems would have many unintended, negative consequences, including making an eruption more likely.
A program of large-scale magma quenching will not be undertaken at Yellowstone or elsewhere in the foreseeable future.
Learn more: Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.
Related Content
When was the last time Yellowstone erupted?
How big is the magma chamber under Yellowstone?
How much volcanic activity has there been at Yellowstone since the most recent giant eruption?
How do scientists know what’s going on beneath the ground at Yellowstone? Is Yellowstone monitored for volcanic activity?
Is Yellowstone overdue for an eruption? When will Yellowstone erupt?
Can we use the heat from Yellowstone for energy?
Could a large Yellowstone eruption significantly change the climate?
What is the relationship between volcanism and the geysers and hot springs in Yellowstone?
Living with volcano hazards
Volcanic eruptions are among Earth’s most dramatic and powerful agents of change. Ash, mudflows, and lava flows can devastate communities near volcanoes and cause havoc in areas far downwind, downstream, and downslope. Even when a volcano is quiet, steep volcanic slopes can collapse to become landslides, and large rocks can be hurled by powerful...
Stovall, Wendy K.; Driedger, Carolyn L.; Westby, Elizabeth G.; Faust, Lisa M.
Protocols for geologic hazards response by the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory
The Yellowstone Plateau hosts an active volcanic system, with subterranean magma (molten rock), boiling, pressurized waters, and a variety of active faults with significant earthquake hazards. Within the next few decades, light-to-moderate earthquakes and steam explosions are certain to occur. Volcanic eruptions are less likely, but are ultimately...
Preliminary Assessment of Volcanic and Hydrothermal Hazards in Yellowstone National Park and Vicinity
Possible future violent events in the active hydrothermal, magmatic, and tectonic system of Yellowstone National Park pose potential hazards to park visitors and infrastructure. Most of the national park and vicinity are sparsely populated, but significant numbers of people as well as park resources could nevertheless be at risk from these hazards...
Christiansen, Robert L.; Lowenstern, Jacob B.; Smith, Robert B.; Heasler, Henry; Morgan, Lisa A.; Nathenson, Manuel; Mastin, Larry G.; Muffler, L.J. Patrick; Robinson, Joel E.
Steam explosions, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions -- what's in Yellowstone's future?
Yellowstone, one of the world’s largest active volcanic systems, has produced several giant volcanic eruptions in the past few million years, as well as many smaller eruptions and steam explosions. Although no eruptions of lava or volcanic ash have occurred for many thousands of years, future eruptions are likely. In the next few hundred years,...
Lowenstern, Jacob B.; Christiansen, Robert L.; Smith, Robert B.; Morgan, Lisa A.; Heasler, Henry
Tracking changes in Yellowstone's restless volcanic system
No abstract available.
Stauffer, Peter H.
The Quaternary and Pliocene Yellowstone Plateau volcanic field of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana
This region of Yellowstone National Park has been the active focus of one of the Earth's largest magmatic systems for more than 2 million years. The resulting volcanism has been characterized by the eruption of voluminous rhyolites and subordinate basalts but virtually no lavas of intermediate composition. The magmatic system at depth remains...
Christiansen, Robert L.
The National Volcano Early Warning System (NVEWS) will help USGS better monitor nation’s most dangerous volcanoes
In September 2004, USGS scientists detected sudden, but unmistakable, signs that Mount St. Helens was waking up. Volcano monitors had picked up the occurrence of hundreds of small earthquakes and other signals that the volcano’s crater floor had begun to rise. Within a week, several eruptions blasted clouds of ash into the atmosphere, and soon after, a new lava dome emerged in the crater.
Which U.S. volcanoes pose a threat?
USGS Volcanic Threat Assessment updates the 2005 rankings.
Study to Uncover Yellowstone’s Subsurface Mysteries
New study investigates groundwater from the air
Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone
Old Faithful Geyser erupts on a clear winter day in Yellowstone National Park
Forecasting Ashfall Impacts from a Yellowstone Supereruption
- Yellowstone is one of a few dozen volcanoes on earth capable of "supereruptions" that expel more than 1,000 cubic km of ash and debris.
- The plumes from such eruptions can rise 30 to 50 km into the atmosphere, three to five times as high as most jets fly.
- Yellowstone has produced three supereruptions in the past 2.1 million years. The most recent was
Great Fountain Geyser, Yellowstone
Great Fountain Geyser erupting in Yellowstone National Park on a clear day.
Riverside Geyser, Yellowstone National Park
Riverside Geyser in Yellowstone National Park
Lone Star Geyser, Yellowstone National Park
eruption of Lone Star Geyser, Yellowstone National Park
The Yellowstone Volcano: Past, Present and Future
Public Lecture on Yellowstone Volcano by Jake Lowenstern at Menlo Park, CA on January 23, 2014. The Q&A at the end of the talk can be found on the original source video (Source URL).
Yes! Yellowstone is a Volcano (Part 1 of 3)
USGS Scientist-in-Charge of Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Jake Lowenstern, answers
the following questions to explain volcanic features at Yellowstone: "How do we know Yellowstone is a
volcano?", "What is a Supervolcano?", "What is a Caldera?","Why are there geysers at Yellowstone?",
and "What are the other geologic hazards in Yellowstone?"
View
Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (Part 2 of 3)
USGS Scientist-in-Charge of Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Jake Lowenstern, answers
the following questions to provide a tour of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory: "What is YVO?", "How
do you monitor volcanic activity at Yellowstone?", "How are satellites used to study deformation?", "Do
you monitor geysers or any other aspect of the Park?", "Are
Yellowstone Eruptions (Part 3 of 3)
USGS Scientist-in-Charge of Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Jake Lowenstern, answers
the following questions to explain volcanic eruptions at Yellowstone: When was the last supereruption at
Yellowstone?", "Have any eruptions occurred since the last supereruption?", "Is Yellowstone overdue for
an eruption?", "What does the magma below indicate about a
Upper Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park
Aerial view of Upper Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park
Ear Spring, Yellowstone National Park
USGS scientist Dr. David P. Krabbenhoft sampling Ear Spring, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, for dissolved mercury species. Old Faithful is erupting in the background.