Posted on 01/30/2025 9:22:00 AM PST by Red Badger
Scientists studying six North American volcanoes situated along the continent’s Cascade Range have found active magma underneath both active and dormant volcanic sites.
Previous research has suggested that volcanoes lose significant magma volume when they erupt, and any remaining magma dissipates over time.
The scientists behind the discovery argue that a better understanding of the conditions underneath volcanoes could answer several enduring questions about their lifecycles, including whether or not all dormant volcanoes contain pools of magma underneath. The researchers also believe a better understanding of these magma-filled chambers could help inform efforts to prepare for potential volcanic eruptions.
Even North American Volcanoes Dormant for Millenia Had Magma Underneath
Although there are volcanoes on every continent, including Antarctica, the Cornell University researchers behind this latest study focused on a series of six volcanoes of varying size and dormancy situated along the Cascade Range. That massive mountain range, which extends from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon before terminating in Northern California, includes half of the volcanoes designated as “very high threat” by the U.S Geological Survey.
Because the chambers beneath volcanoes are difficult to access, the Cornell team used seismic waves to create sonic “images” of the volcanic chamber’s size, shape, and dimensions. To their surprise, the researchers found magma beneath all of the volcanoes they studied. This was particularly unexpected in volcanoes like the picturesque Crater Lake, which have been geologically dormant for thousands of years.
A picture of Crater Lake, a dormant volcano, during winter. Image credit: National Park Service.
“Regardless of eruption frequency, we see large magma bodies beneath many volcanoes,” said Guanning Pang, a postdoctoral researcher and the study’s lead author, in a statement. “It appears that these magma bodies exist beneath volcanoes over their whole lifetime, not just during an active state.”
Although the researchers are unsure of the exact dynamics behind the magma chambers, they suspect that a volcanic eruption lets off some of this excess magma and pressure but does not completely drain the chamber. After the eruption, they believe the chamber slowly expands and refills gradually over time due to a gradual melting of the crust.
Understanding Magma Dynamics Could Assist Monitoring for Volcanic Eruptions While the team’s findings are limited to a handful of North American volcanoes, the researchers suspect that most, if not all, of the world’s volcanoes, regardless of dormancy, may have a massive amount of magma underneath them. Pang says this would be particularly significant since researchers used to think that finding magma underneath a volcano meant it might be preparing to erupt.
“We used to think that if we found a large amount of magma, that meant increased likelihood of eruption,” the researcher explained, “but now we are shifting perception that this is the baseline situation.”
In the study’s conclusion, the researchers note that the U.S. Geological Survey has been actively “expanding and upgrading” their network of monitors designed to track volcanic activity within the Cascade Range. They say those same efforts are also expanding to other North American volcanoes, including several volcanoes in Alaska, as part of the National Volcano Early Warning System, “with the aim of detecting signals of an impending eruption as early as possible.”
“If we had a better general understanding of where magma was, we could do a much better job of targeting and optimizing monitoring,” said Geoffrey Abers, professor in geological sciences at Cornell. Such work is critical, Abers said, as the world contains a “great many volcanoes that are sparsely monitored or have not been subject to intensive study.”
The study “Long-lived partial melt beneath Cascade Range volcanoes” was published in Nature Geoscience.
Whoop di do. Magma beneath a volcano. Story at the 10. More wasted grant money.
Obama’s real birth certificate?
Thanks A LOT for stealing my thunder you two! 😝
hehehe love that!
To reliably replicate volcano research above ground, all one needs to do is let my wife cook in the kitchen. Boiling eggs turns into Claymore detonation. Cast iron pans that fold as they approach Magma stage.
Oh no, There goes Tokyo!
Two sights that have left me gobsmacked...looking into the Crater Lake caldera, and looking into the Mt. Saint Helens caldera.
I am truly surprised the previous understanding believed a dormant volcano had expended all source of magma from which the volcano arose.
There is a permanent layer of magma below the earth’s surface and I would sumise that every volcano is no more nor less the surface point of a fissure that has opened up between the surface and the layer of earth that contains magma. The release of the magma out the surface may relieve pressure within the below ground region containing a resevoir of magma, but I never thought that meant that layer of magma was spent by the volcano.
Eventually Mt. Vesuvius will blow again. And three million people live in that area today.
““If we had a better general understanding of where magma was, we could do a much better job of targeting and optimizing monitoring,” said Geoffrey Abers, professor in geological sciences at Cornell.”
Sounds like they found a new reason for more funding.
Thank you, first thing that occurred to me too.
“There is a permanent layer of magma below the earth’s surface and I would sumise that every volcano is no more nor less the surface point of a fissure that has opened up between the surface and the layer of earth that contains magma. “
I seem to remember diagrams showing just that in my set of kid encyclopedia that came one volume a week from the grocery store in the 50s.
She’s not on FR, I take it. :^)
My first wife used the smoke alarm as a cooking timer.
Magma under volcanoes, whoda thunk?
I got sucked in by the headline. Magma isn’t exactly “unexpected”. I was thinking in terms of an ice skating rink or an entire city of Mole People.
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