YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — In this week’s Caldera Chronicles, the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO) compares the famous volcanic systems of Yellowstone National Park (YNP) and Hawai’i.
“The next time you need a Hawaiian vacation, consider visiting the Yellowstone region. There’s a lot of Aloha in southern Idaho and northwestern Wyoming.”
YVO Deputy Scientist-in-Charge Mark E. Stelten, PhD
According to YVO Deputy Scientist-in-Charge Mark E. Stelten, PhD, both YNP and the Hawaiian Islands are “some of the most spectacular examples of active volcanic systems in the world,” each drawing millions of visitors annually. But these two volcanic systems are separated by over 3,000 miles and have “dramatically different behaviors and appearances.”
Stelten writes that volcanic activity in Hawai’i tends to build broad shield volcanoes like Mauna Loa (the largest active volcano on Earth) that are composed of numerous fluid lava flows and stand above the surrounding landscape. While Hawaiian volcanoes are often capped by calderas, they are much smaller than those produced by YNP and formed by collapse due to emission of lava flows rather than explosive eruptions.
And while YNP doesn’t produce tall volcanic features like Hawai’i, its large calderas tend to fill with rhyolite lava flows and domes that form broad plateaus or steep dome-like structures that often become covered with lodgepole pine trees.
Stelten confirms that Hawaiian volcanoes also erupt much more frequently than YNP, but individual eruptions tend to be much smaller than those from YNP.
But it’s not all different. According to Stelten, YNP and Hawai’i have some deeply-rooted similarities. Volcanism in Hawai’i and YNP is driven by mantle plumes, or are regions where the Earth’s mantle is anomalously hot and buoyantly upwelling.
“As the hot mantle rises to shallower depths it causes melting, which in turn leads to the development of a magmatic system that can produce volcanic eruptions,” Stelten writes. “Mantle plumes operate independently of plate tectonics and remain mostly stationary as the Earth’s tectonic plates move above them. As a result, magmatic systems like those in Hawai’i and Yellowstone produce chains of volcanoes that have an age progression along their lengths.”
As an example, the Yellowstone hotspot was once as far away as present-day Oregon.
Despite both powered by mantle plumes, Hawai’i’s location on oceanic crust makes volcanoes behave differently than those on the continental crust present at YNP. Due to the thinner crust underneath Hawai’i, Stelten confirms magma rises more quickly and easily and tends to erupt as runny basaltic lava flows. Eruptions also tend to be more frequent and smaller in volume. The thick continental crust underneath YNP prevents magma from easily ascending.
But Stelten emphasizes that both volcanic systems are worth visiting.
“Despite their outward differences, the fundamental engines that power volcanism in Yellowstone and Hawai’i are quite similar,” Stelten writes. “So the next time you need a Hawaiian vacation, consider visiting the Yellowstone region. There’s a lot of Aloha in southern Idaho and northwestern Wyoming.”
