Yellowstone supervolcano eruption 2015 unlikely; eruption now can be predicted up to 10 yrs in advance - If you have been worrying about Yellowstone supervolcano erupting in 2015, you can relax as scientists have found a way to predict the next eruption of the dormant supervolcano in Yellowstone National Park by 10 months to 10 years in advance.

They say the eruption will not be catastrophic, yet its ash and lava could cause a volcanic winter.

Arizona State University (ASU) study focused on past eruptions at Yellowstone volcano, with the most recent happening 70,000 years ago, to learn more about the time when its sleep is over.

Petrologist Christy Till, professor in ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration, and her associates combined the data on the volcano's past with measurements obtained by NanoSIMS, an advanced chemical imaging instrument.

This allowed them a closer observation of magma crystals that enabled a calculation of the time period between magma's reheating and the volcano's eruption.

Till said "We find that the last time Yellowstone erupted after sitting dormant for a long time, the eruption was triggered within 10 months of new magma moving into the base of the volcano, while other times it erupted closer to the 10 year mark."

Till further added that our results indicate an eruption at the beginning of Yellowstone's most recent volcanic cycle was triggered within ten months after reheating of a mostly crystallized magma reservoir following a 220,000-year period of volcanic quiescence.

After continuous monitoring of Yellowstone for 30 years, scientists say that there have been no indications that the volcano will erupt in 10 months, or even 10 years.

According to geological evidence, within the past 2.1 million years there have been 3 major eruptions at Yellowstone, but smaller ones are far more numerous.

Since the last large scale eruption that took place about 640,000 years ago, there have been over 23 smaller ones with the most recent one happening some 70,000 years ago.