Is the Supervolcano in Yellowstone About to Erupt?

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SStrange things are happening in Yellowstone National Park.

Since July, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists have been monitoring an uplift of the Earth’s surface extending 19 miles near the Norris Geyser Basin. Since then, the mysterious bulge has raised the area about an inch along the northern edge of the Yellowstone caldera, the massive volcanic plateau buried deep beneath the park.

So what’s going on? Is Yellowstone’s dormant supervolcano finally ready to erupt and devastate the planet?

Not necessarily, says geophysicist Michael Poland, who directs the USGS Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. “This doesn’t mean the volcano is about to erupt,” he said. Cowboy State Daily. “It’s Yellowstone being Yellowstone.”

Read more: “New earthquake math predicts how destructive they will be”

In fact, the area where the bulge occurs is known as the “Norris Uplift Anomaly,” named after a similar phenomenon that occurred from 1996 to 2004. By mid-2005, the area became relatively quiet, and although we were spared an eruption, we were still treated to the alarmist TV movie. Supervolcanocourtesy of The Discovery Channel.

So what is responsible for the bulge? Poland says it’s probably just magma activity deep beneath the Earth’s surface.

Although there is nothing to worry about in this typically seismically active area, it is fascinating. “It’s a sign of some pretty dramatic changes happening deep down,” he told KTVQ, the CBS affiliate in Billings, Montana. “The source of this spring is 10 miles deep, so there’s a lot of rock between there and the surface, but it still has the energy to push the surface upwards – even though it’s only about an inch, it’s still impressive.”

In other Yellowstone news, a study recently published in Nexus PNAS studied the effect of earthquakes on the activity of microbes in a 330-foot-deep borehole. In 2021, researchers from Montana State University traveled to Yellowstone to monitor subterranean bacteria during and after a series of small earthquakes. They found that microbial life, which feeds on chemicals from deep within the Earth, increased about 6.5 times during the tremors before gradually returning to normal levels. It’s a discovery that has important implications for the search for life on other planets.

Meanwhile, here on Earth, someone probably just gave the green light Supervolcano II: bacterial explosion.

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Main image: Public domain

• Jake Currie

  Published on February 13, 2026

  Jake Currie is a writer based in Brooklyn, New York.