Signs of a supervolcano lurking under Alaska’s Aleutian islands

January 12, 2022 / 3:43 PM

Sharjah24 – Reuters: National Geographic reports that a group of volcanoes in the Aleutian Islands has all the makings of potentially being part of one big supervolcano, around the same size as the massive Yellowstone Caldera in Wyoming.

In a study presented to the American Geophysics Union by a team of earth scientists led by John Power of the U.S. Geological Survey, the scientists showed evidence that points to the strong possibility that the six volcanoes collected in an Aleutian island group called the Islands of the Four Mountains are actually standing on the edges of one massive caldera.

A caldera is a large bowl-shaped depression that is left behind after a massive reservoir of magma suddenly empties and the overlying ground collapses.

The scientists say they are uncovering evidence of such a large bowl under the ocean, as well as rock samples and undersea ridges that indicate a cataclysmic volcanic eruption did very possibly cause the depression that rings the six active volcanoes of the island group.