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[Nova]

Other new data show that Yellowstone's magma chamber extends 13 miles (21 kilometers) farther to the northeast than previously thought.

But that doesn't mean the region is on the verge of exploding, said study leader Robert Smith, a geophysicist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

"This [plume] is the source of Yellowstone's volcanic system," he said. "It doesn't say anything about the probability of a big eruption. [That is] a very rare thing."

Yellowstone's Eruptions

Scientists had already known that Yellowstone is a volcanic hot spot, and that within the past two million years, the region has seen three mammoth eruptions at intervals of about 700,000 years.