Science:

How to Keep Things Hot at Yellowstone and Katla: Just Add Water (Wired)

A large fumarole (steam vent) in the Norris Basin at Yellowstone.
Photo by Erik Klemetti.

Two volcanoes that get the interwebs all hot and bothered have made the news in the last week. First, Katla in Iceland produced some glacial flooding (jökulhlaups) that followed some earthquakes. Second, over at everyone’s favorite caldera, Yellowstone, there has been a lot of buzz over roads melting due to heat from the volcano.

Now, as odd as it might seem, these two events are connected by the same process: geothermal (and hydrothermal) activity.

When it comes down to it, most volcanoes are sitting on big heat sources. One way to lose the heat is by erupting, but probably the most important way to lose the heat is by the circulation of water in the crust. This water help keep things hot by efficiently moving heat generated by the magma that might be 5-6 kilometers (or more) below the surface and bringing it up to the surface — all of this happening when there is no threat of an eruption.

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