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Discovery: Welcome to our live chat with volcanologist Jake Lowenstern of the U.S. Geological Survey, scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, and Hank Heasler, National Park Service geologist stationed at Yellowstone. Jake and Hank join us from 11 p.m. until midnight Eastern Time to answer your questions about the Yellowstone caldera, the magma chamber beneath the national park, prehistoric eruptions, the possibility of future volcanic activity at Yellowstone, or anything else prompted by the "Supervolcano" docudrama.

Hank: Hi. I'm the park geologist for Yellowstone. I live in the park, just outside the caldera. My job with the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory is primarily field observations of what's occurring in Yellowstone.
Jake: Hi. I'm the scientist in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. I work out of Menlo Park in CA, where the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has one of its centers for volcano research.

PPD: Does NASA's thermal imaging assist with your observations and predictions of Yellowstone's future?
Hank: The simple answer is not currently, but we are working with various satellites to acquire thermal images on various time scales. For example, one particular satellite would give Yellowstone many images per day, but these images are very coarse. Other images we hope to acquire will be much more precise, but will only be flown about once a year.

Maria: The "Supervolcano" program we've just watched depicts a catastrophic eruption of Yellowstone in modern times. How realistic is such a scenario?
Jake: The scenario is realistic insofar as it depicts an event similar to one that did occur 2.1 million years ago at Yellowstone, and in other places around the world at other times. It's not terribly likely that this event will repeat itself in the next few thousand years at Yellowstone.
Hank: I feel the drama portrayed the super eruption in a geologically correct manner, but it is an extremely, extremely unlikely event. It is unlikely because of the forces involved to have a super eruption. These forces include supplying enough heat to melt hundreds of cubic miles of rock, and that generally occurs over long term periods.

Wryed Ten Yerod: If it erupted how far would it spread?
Jake: In answering that, I need to first say that there are different kinds of eruptions at Yellowstone. The one shown in the docudrama shows the kind of event where ash would spread over much of the central United States. But there are other far more likely kinds of eruptions that have occurred many times at Yellowstone where the volcanic materials don't spread far outside the park.
Hank: In fact, the most likely type of eruption for Yellowstone would be quite locally significant, but not have a regional effect. By regional, I'm saying even a few miles from the eruption would not feel the effect.