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New Three Years Ago: I would like to know if you can give me a reliable web site to gather more info on this event. I ask that the web page goes into great detail. Thank you.
Jake: We think our website is the most reliable website, because it's put together by the scientists who work at Yellowstone. It is volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo.
Hank: Or if you have a hard time finding that, just search for Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

Mopar: I've read that many trails in Yellowstone are over 200 degrees and magma is only three-tenths of a mile below the surface. Doesn't that seem a little ominous?
Hank: First of all, I would question how many trails in Yellowstone are at boiling temperature, and then I would also question that depth of magma. The best seismic imaging shows the closest magma in Yellowstone to be on the order of three to four miles below the surface. The only trails that we know are hot are those in geyser basins where the geyser basin itself is very hot. Many times, the Park Service places boardwalks over the hot ground so that visitors can still enjoy the very beautiful thermal features.
Jake: The temperature of 200 degrees is a common temperature at Yellowstone, because it's the boiling point of water. So any time that steam migrates along cracks, the ground will eventually rise to about 200 degrees Fahrenheit. I've seen the figure of three-tenths of a mile for magma depth on the internet websites, but that number has no basis from any scientist that has worked in the park. It was made up to stir up interest.

Drk Avnger: What would be some of the signs of a problem at Yellowstone as far as a volcano goes?
Jake: Yellowstone is a caldera, and any active caldera system has constant geological activity. Many calderas around the world display the kinds of activities that you don't expect at small cone volcanoes. Before an eruption, we typically expect earthquakes, lots of ground movement, and explosions of steam. At Yellowstone and other calderas, these sorts of events are commonplace, but they still don't erupt. So we expect far more extreme kinds of earthquakes, ground uplift, and explosions that currently is the norm at Yellowstone and many other calderas.
Hank: The precursors to an eruption will also be in the same area, so the things that Jake just talked about that we do have in Yellowstone — hot ground at Norris and uplifts near Norris — are not indicators of an eruption. All those things need to occur in the same area, and those we have not seen during monitoring history of Yellowstone. So as Jake said, the calderas like Yellowstone have those events and we have them in Yellowstone, but they aren't in the same area, and thus we're not concerned with an imminent eruption.