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California's supervolcano that has the power to bury Los Angeles in more than 3,000 feet of ash is showing signs of activity. Scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) identified over 2,000 earthquakes rumbling throughout the Long Valley Caldera in recent years. The team conducted a new investigation to see if the seismic activity was a sign of impending doom or that the risk of a massive eruption was decreasing. Caltech researchers created detailed underground images of the caldera, finding that the recent seismic activity results from fluids and gases released as the area cools off and settles down....

The Science Channel investigated a section of the valley and discovered many clouds of smoke pouring from beneath the ground. Using InSAR data that has been monitoring the region for the last 20 years, geophysicist Jared Peacock pointed out a worrying aspect of the caldera that might portend problems. InSAR is a remote sensing method that employs a laser to concentrate a beam of radiation on a target, bouncing back to a sensor on an antenna, providing a comprehensive map of a region. One of the most concerning sites in InSAR was near Mammoth Lakes, a hamlet in the Sierra...

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered what likely triggered the eruption of a "supervolcano" that coated much of the western half of the United States with ash fallout 760,000 years ago. Using a new technique developed at Rensselaer, the team determined that there was a massive injection of hot magma underneath the surface of what is now the Long Valley Caldera in California some time within 100 years of the gigantic volcano’s eruption. The findings suggest that this introduction of hot melt led to the immense eruption that formed one of the world’s largest volcanic craters or calderas. The...