Volcanic Yellowstone

The Yellowstone Caldera is rising at a rate 3 times faster than ever recorded before. The volcano responsible for the geysers and mudpots covers much of the area under Yellowstone National Park.

But that doesn't mean Yellowstone is about to go the way of Mount St. Helens.

"There's no evidence of an imminent eruption or hydrothermal explosion," said Robert Smith, a geophysics professor at the University of Utah who co-authored the study.

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Yellowstone is situated on a giant, geologically active feature known as a supervolcano.

"It's hundreds of times bigger than Mount St. Helens," Smith said, referring to the active volcano in Washington State.

Much of the park sits in a caldera, or crater, some 40 miles (70 kilometers) across, which formed when the cone of the massive volcano collapsed in a titanic eruption 640,000 years ago.

Photo by Flickr user statico used under a Creative Commons license.