Scientists, who started research in the US, made breakthrough after returning to China and gaining access to domestic computing power
3-MIN READ3-MINZhang Tongin BeijingPublished: 10:00pm, 27 Apr 2026Yellowstone is the world’s largest active volcanic systems – whose eruption is hundreds of times more powerful than Vesuvius’ blast and ash could blanket half the US – and yet scientists could not agree on what drives its underground magma system.
But a new finding detailed by Chinese researchers could settle the dispute.
They declared that Yellowstone’s magma channels were not blasted open by magma forcing its way upward. Instead, tectonic forces tore the lithosphere apart first and only then did magma rise into the pre-cut pathways, the team said in a paper published in the journal Science on April 10.
Their proposed model, which overturns a long-held theory, was made possible by a resource the team could not adequately access in the United States – supercomputers – according to an official science outlet in China.
Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano spews lava 30 metres high, knocking out remote camera
Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano spews lava 30 metres high, knocking out remote cameraTo solve the puzzle, Liu Lijun and his colleagues at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, wrote in Science they had built a three-dimensional numerical model spanning the distance from the surface down to the core-mantle boundary.
