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Probing the Yellowstone caldera: Do low temps decrease chances of future eruption?
It is a sure way to generate some cheap page views: declare the end of the world is nigh and proclaim that an eruption of the supervolcano underneath Yellowstone National Park will the catalyst of a world-ending catastrophe.
But the reality, it seems, is strikingly different. If anything, the supervolcano underneath Yellowstone National Park may
be on its last legs, gradually cooling over time -- which means it's
less likely to blow any time soon, and we're not very likely to witness the end of the world.
The evidence is clear: according to a study conducted by Derek Schutt of Colorado State University and Ken Dueker of the University of Wyoming, the Yellowstone supervolcano is only at 2640 degrees Fahrenheit (1450 degree Celsius) at 50 miles below the Earth’s surface. And while that seems really hot, it's actually fairly cool for a supervolcano -- lukewarm at best.
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The ghosts of Cinnabar
Everyone is familiar with ghost towns. They're places where people used to live but left for some reason, usually financial reasons. What are left are the buildings. Sometimes they're well preserved, other times they are fragile shells falling apart on each other. In the case of Cinnabar, Montana, there's nothing left. Were you to go visit the site, which is on a dirt road a few miles north of Gardiner on the west bank of the Yellowstone River (today within the boundaries of the Park), you may not recognize that it was once a town, and once Yellowstone's first gateway town.
Indeed, there's a surprising amount of history in what today is a bunch of indentartions on the ground, accompanied by broken glass. Being the last stop and closest to the park via railroad, Cinnabar became a successful little town. Tourists would get off there and take stagecoaches to the Park's North Entrance. There were stores, a post office, as well as the Cinnabar Hotel. Cinnabar was so successful that when President Theodore Roosevelt came to visit, the Hotel was converted to a temporary White House.
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