Talk:Yellowstone hotspot

Caldera or volcanic field
I want to change the red link Twin Falls Caldera and Picabo Caldera to Twin Falls volcanic field and Picabo volcanic field as in the National Park Service interactive map. More than 1 Ma time is probably more than one event for the Yellowstone hotspot, seeing Mark Anders: Yellowstone hotspot track and McDermitt volcanic field. There are eleven calderas between 15 Ma and 16.5 Ma. The complain of no references might be exagerated, seems a lil bit the USGS Yellowstone page. I'll read it more carefully later. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 19:30, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Prior to Columbia River Basalt Group formation
Just to note the Yellowstone hotspot has probably existed before the formation of the Columbia River Basalt Group. Some volcanics in southwest-central Yukon were thought to be products of volcanic arc or back-arc basin volcanism due to the potassic character of them, but more recent geologic studies have indicated that these volcanics were erupted during a magmatic lull and they lack coeval calc-alkalic batholiths such as are commonly associated with continental volcanic arcs. The erupted lavas are petrologically similar to plume-related Eocene to Pliocene potassic lavas of the western United States and scientific studies have shown that the Yellowstone hotspot may have been the cause of their formation 70 million years ago before being displaced by plate tectonics. BT (talk) 19:41, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

"In this case Yellowstone could be expiring"?
This is more than an unreferenced claim -- to go along with all the other unsupported claims in this section -- it would appear to contradict expert opinion and the most recent data which shows that the magma chamber has filled. Experts have been unanimous in saying that it is a question of when not if for some kind of eruption. I suppose all volcanoes go extinct eventually, over geological time, but to suggest as the article does that Yellowstone is currently in the process of expiring now at present seems to be WP:OR -- as well as sheer wishful thinking. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:38, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

It will be referenced soon with the two references listed below - the academic study is objective and robust. But the writing in this paragraph still needs to be cleaned up to clarifie the intended meaning of so-called "normal" and "light" magmas - and caldera and post-caldera magmas - and much besides. (References to be added: Kathryn Watts (Nov 2007) GeoTimes, "Yellowstone and Heise: Supervolcanoes that Lighten Up": Kathryn E. Watts, Ilya N. Bindeman and Axel K. Schmitt (2011) Petrology, Vol. 52, No. 5, "Large-volume Rhyolite Genesis in Caldera Complexes of the Snake River Plain: Insights from the Kilgore Tuff of the Heise Volcanic Field, Idaho, with Comparison to Yellowstone and Bruneau-Jarbidge Rhyolites" pp. 857-890)

External links modified (January 2018)
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100120021410/http://www.tetontectonics.org/Climate/Table_S1.pdf to http://www.tetontectonics.org/Climate/Table_S1.pdf
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070701002925/http://www.largeigneousprovinces.org/0events.html to http://www.largeigneousprovinces.org/0events.html
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20041021174651/http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/dox/NVtopo.pdf to http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/dox/NVtopo.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110725205200/http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/dox/b113/figures/fig1.pdf to http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/dox/b113/figures/fig1.pdf

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Commercial exploitation?
What do we know about commercial exploitation of geothermal stuff in this region? Like, is there any? &#39;&#39;Paul, in Saudi&#39;&#39; (talk) 05:58, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Prohibited by 1970 Geothermal Steam Act--N7bsn (talk) 03:55, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Origin in Siletzia
As mentioned by BT in 2010, the YHS apparently existed long before the obvious chain of calderas. A popular press summary: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9218491/Yellowstone-hotspot-dates-50-million-years-scientists-say.html

The Siletzia terrane may have been formed far out in the Pacific by the YHS. Plate movement brought the hot spot to the recognized chain of calderas, along the way forming the Columbia River Basalt Group. The rock formations don't look right on the current map because clockwise rotation of the Pacific Northwest has moved Siletzia deposits and the Columbia River formations northward from where they actually were formed. The movement of the North American plate has been fairly consistent so the YHS origin was in a relative direction of SW or WSW, at least before the tectonic wriggle 50 million years ago.

The Columbia River flood basalts were probably caused by the YHS being blocked by subducted Farallon Plate slab, causing a large pool of melt to accumulate under the subducted slab, before being suddenly released.


 * https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2021/02/yellowstones-hotspot-has-been-simmering-about-17-million-years
 * https://www.geosociety.org/GSA/Publications/GSA_Today/GSA/GSAToday/science/G477A/article.aspx
 * https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article/10/4/692/132166/Geologic-history-of-Siletzia-a-large-igneous
 * https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017JB014517
 * https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/books/book/2116/chapter/114752195/Voluminous-and-compositionally-diverse-middle

This information should be woven into several affected articles as well as this one. Parts of Geology of the Pacific Northwest are also relevant. -- SEWilco (talk) 23:53, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Grey's Landing supereruption
There is this article that I found (link) https://strangesounds.org/2020/06/discovery-two-new-yellowstone-super-eruptions-hotspot-waning.html#:~:text=The%20Grey%E2%80%99s%20Landing%20Super-eruption%20The%20ca.%208.72%20Ma,and%20hottest%20documented%20eruption%20from%20the%20Yellowstone%20hotspot. That says that Yellowstone had the Grey's Landing supereruption, which was as large as Toba's supereruption but also says that the hotspot is waning. Any thoughts? The Space Enthusiast (talk) 10:03, 26 May 2021 (UTC)