Supervolcanoes have short life spans, study finds

BBC : The largest volcanoes on Earth may actually form and erupt relatively quickly, possibly in as little as a few hundred years, according to researchers who published their results yesterday in PLoS One. Guilherme Gualda of Vanderbilt University and colleagues examined quartz crystals in the Bishop Tuff deposit, in California’s Long Valley, site of an ancient supervolcano. The crystals were formed in the underground magma pool, which started off as nearly pure liquid rock. Because crystal formation stops when the volcano erupts, scientists can use the crystals to estimate how long the magma pool existed. The eruption of a supervolcano can be devastatingâmdash;hundreds of times larger than any eruption that has occurred in human history. Thus, to better predict eruptions, geologists seek to better understand how supervolcanoes’ magma pools develop.