Not one, but two super eruptions formed the colossal Yellowstone caldera

According to new research, the colossal caldera of the Yellowstone supervolcano was created by not one, but two powerful and closely spaced eruptions that took place some 630,000 years ago. The super eruptions were powerful enough to affect the global climate as the planet was recovering from an ice age. Supervolcanoes, such as the one resting beneath the Yellowstone National Park are capable of generating eruptions that dwarf those of their smaller cousins. Evidence of the ferocity and magnitude of these eruptions is evident in the sheer size of the 45 x 30 mile (72 x 48 km) Yellowstone caldera – the crater that formed in the wake of the supervolcano's most recent bout of activity. A team of geologists from the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) discovered a new record of the violent events that formed the Yellowstone caldera in two layers of ash and the shell sediments located off the Californian coast...more