Question about the Yellowstone Caldera?

Question

This might be a dumb question.. But how did the yellowstone Caldera, or 'Super-volcano', form if it's not on a tectonic plate? I thought all volcano's formed near tectonic plates, and a caldera is a collapsed volcano i think, right? Just wondering.

Answer 1

The Yellowstone supervolcano formed over a "hot spot". A hot spot magma source is stationary while the tectonic plate move over it. Look at a map of Idaho and you will see the track of the hot spot. That track is the Snake River valley. Think of the magma burning a hole through the moving plate. Yellowstone is just the most recent location of the hot spot. The unusual point about Yellowstone is that it sits in the "middle" of a plate rather than at the plate's edge.

Answer 2

Error: "I thought all volcano's formed near tectonic plates"

Like the Hawaiian Islands, the Yellowstone volcano is over a hot spot where the crust is moving over an upwelling of magma from far below the surface. When it works its way through an volcano/island forms and enlarges, using up the supply of magma locally and temporarily. The caldera forms when the magma chamber empties and collapses. In the case of Yellowstone there there are other sites further west that have been located.

Answer 3

How Was Yellowstone Volcano Formed

Answer 4

The Yellowstone Caldera lies on a "hot spot" in the earth's mantle, one of a few dozen such spots on earth. Bouyant material rises through the upper mantle, bringing heat from the interior to the earth's surface. The Yellowstone hot spot impinges on the base of the North American tectonic plate.



A large body of magma, capped by a hydrothermal system, still exists beneath the Yellowstone caldera, fueling more than 10,000 hot pools, springs, geysers, and bubbling mudpots.