Found! New Underwater Volcano Discovered In Hawaii
Far more carbon dioxide was being released from the ground at Yellowstone, previous research suggested, than could be explained by the smaller, shallower magma reservoir. That smaller reservoir was found using data from a local seismic array. The array used local earthquakes to seismically illuminate structures in the crust.
To see deeper, however, scientists needed a wider array to record how seismic waves from more distant earthquakes behaved as they passed through the unexplored zone under Yellowstone, Huang said. Seismic waves reveal a lot about the crust because they travel slower through hot rocks than through colder rocks. That wider seismic network came in the form of the USArray, a portable, temporary seismic network that's been crossing the continental United States since 2004.
“Until now we hadn't combined this data,” Huang said. It's the blending of that data that allowed Huang and his colleagues to see the giant hot, partially melted zone. “It's not a new technique, but no one had ever applied it to Yellowstone.