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the Caldera of Yellowstone is a supervolcan located in the United States that last erupted 70,000 years ago. He has been called a supervolcan because of his potential to inflict damage worldwide. There has been no eruption of this nature for more than 630,000 years, but scientists still believe this is a threat.
Jacob Lowenstein, a renowned scientist in charge of monitoring Yellowstone, revealed during a Conference in Menlo Park, California, on how the USGS has recorded a surprise in the ground for seven years.
He said in 2014: "We have a technique called InSAR – it's another satellite-based technique like GPS.
"And this image was produced and called an interferogram.
"InSAR is a radar technique – you have a radar in space and you take an image of the ground surface below it – sweeping the surface.
"You take an image and compare it – in this case, from 1996 to 2003 – and you can look at how the ground surface has changed in relation to that satellite."
Dr. Lowenstein then showed a map where several rings seemed to be getting closer to the caldera.
He added, "What you get here looks like an outline map – the yellow ring represents places that have moved similarly to the satellite.
"But when the rings are very close together, it means that there was a lot of movement.
"Here we can see that between 1996 and 2003, there was about 12 cm of uplift during this period within a five-mile radius.
"It's a big volume increase, but it fades when you get to outside areas."
"It allows us to understand what is really happening, where the terrain is evolving and where it is going."
Dr. Lowenstein had already explained why it was imperative to monitor Yellowstone.
At the same conference, he said, "Yellowstone has a lot to do, it's a very active place.
"We have a volcano observatory there, partly because we feel we have to watch it closely because there is a considerable risk here.
"There is no place on Earth so similar to Yellowstone, it has a large magma system and things are constantly happening."
Mr. Lowenstein then explained why monitoring such a unique volcano could help them understand other threats around the world.
He added: "We believe it is important for scientists to know what is going on there and to be able to present this data and publish it for our colleagues around the world.
"Because what we learn in Yellowstone learns a lot about volcanoes around the world.
"A lot of volcanoes do not do anything. They sit idle until about two weeks before they erupt.
"In Yellowstone, we are seeing consistent activity even though it has not broken out in 70,000 years."
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