Hawaii and Yellowstone (and several other places on the planet) are also located above hot spots: weak places in the Earth's crust where huge volumes of magma are released periodically to the surface. Hawaii's current eruptions are quite slow and gentle as volcanic eruptions go. People usually have time to escape personal injury even though they may lose property. We hope the Icelandic eruptions follow a similar pattern.
Yellowstone, on the other hand, has a very explosive history, with incredibly violent eruptions about 600,000 years apart. While the time between eruptions is a very rough estimate, the last one was 640,000 years ago. A new supervolcanic eruption at Yellowstone would probably be the end of the U.S.A.
My father was stationed for a year in Iceland in the early 60’s. They were warned regularly not to try to cross the ancient lava beds as there were crevasses underneath & the surface could give way. While he was there, four guys took a jeep & decided it would be faster to cut across to their destination, rather than follow the road. They were never seen again.
