The Largest Magma Chamber on the Planet; The Altiplano Puna Magma Body

[@GeoForge]

I'm researching a Eocene-Miocene volcanic field to determine petrogenesis. The oldest part of the field may be related to Farallon plate slab rollback but the middle and youngest of the field is not fully understood. One previous hypothesis for the youngest of the field is lithospheric delamination/drip, though this doesn't seem likely. You've inspired me to read up on the Altiplano region, might be able to compare and contrast some information on the tectonic processes.

[@TheSpaceEnthusiast-vl6wx]

Good luck researching!

[@Tirani2]

Have you seen Nick Zenter's video about his theory on the Rockies? I found it the most persuasive argument for how they were formed I've seen yet. Search his name and Rocky Mountains, and the video will pop up.

[@GeoForge]

@@Tirani2 I enjoy watching Nick's videos and I've briefly met him in person twice. I'll check it out, thanks.

[@Dragrath1]

If you haven't seen it yet you might want to check out Nick Zentner's crazy Eocene A to Z livestream series from 3 fall/winters ago as it directly covers that time interval. Between that and the Baja BC A to Z livestream series I think the whole Farallon Slab rollback thing has to be dead in the water since there quite simply isn't any Farallon slab to cause said rollback under the Basin and Range and or Colorado Plateau areas with the subducted mantle slabs terminating to the East and North respectively. Probably the most striking observation is that the boundary of these provinces with the rest of North America is underlain by a liner slow sheer velocity discontinuity within the solid upper mantle and its boundaries extend out from underneath North America as the Gouda ridge( sometimes lumped in with the Juan de Fuca ridge) and East Pacific Rise respectively descending deep into the planet. The fit is so good that the match can't be mere coincidence especially since the clockwise rotation experienced by these areas matches the overall velocity vector of the Pacific slab relative to North America.

[@420Khatz]

Love to see nerds nerding.💯

[@gosborg]

Absolutely fascinating, thank you. I was fortunate enough to visit the Altiplano some years ago. It is simply stunning and utterly breathtaking - in more ways than one.

[@nakor667]

If you made a list of the worst places on Earth to be struck by an asteroid (critical hit), would this be in your top 5?

[@AngryGecko1010]

That is a very good question!Large impacts have been linked to melting and volcanic eruptions on other bodies in the solar system, so it makes sense that a large impact on a preexisting large body of magma could trigger an eruption.

[@scrappydoo7887]

Depends on whether or not you include the antipode

[@keesvrins8410]

It is very remote. So if it results in small supervalcano then it is one of best spots for a supervulcano on earth. Nice landscape. Thinking back on my trip overthere.

[@minraja]

Depending on the size and velocity of the asteroid or comet. It wouldn't matter where a planet buster strikes Earth. I would imagine it would have to be a large object to open up the magma chamber to force an eruption. It really depends on how close the magma chamber is to the surface.

[@satanicmicrochipv5656]

No, the opposite side of the planet would be a more destructive double whammy.

[@TheSpaceEnthusiast-vl6wx]

Thanks so much Geology Hub, as always! After the Soccoro magma body video from yesterday, I wondered about the Altiplano magma boxy a bit, and whether you will make a video on it. It is an insane magma body, being able to cover huge swaths of some countries using its boundaries alone. Ignimbrite flare ups are very interesting, as seen with the Mid Tertiary Ignimbrite flare-up. They can produce the perfect ingredients for eruptions exceeding 4,000 cubic kilometers, like the La Garita and Wah Wah Springs super eruptions, anps well as many, many more eruptions! Given the fact that the Altiplano Puna magma body has already produced the La Pacana supervolcano and supereruption, I wonder if it will produce a supereruption rivaling the Toba supereruptions in the long-term future. Who knows if there were other, more extreme Ignimbrite flare-up events in the past, and whether they may have produced magma bodies larger than the Altiplano-Puna magma body.

[@StuffandThings_]

The Parana and Etendeka traps are a good example of a massive and ancient ignimbrite flare up

[@psalmerperena4120]

The Sierra Madre Occidental from Mexico might rival or even exceed those in Altiplano-Puna and those in the USA during the Mid-Tertiary ignimbrite flare-up. The calderas in the Sierra Madre Occidental are really weird. They are called graben calderas, which are pretty much grabens that produced explosive eruptions, whatever that means. I always wondered if there are active or dormant calderas around the world that are graben calderas.

[@StuffandThings_]

@@psalmerperena4120 That honestly sounds like a good mechanism for the extremely anomalous Gakkel ridge caldera

[@TheSpaceEnthusiast-vl6wx]

@@psalmerperena4120 I saw what you might be referring to, my goodness...

[@ZodiousE]

I know that it is a very controversial topic... but I'm surprised that you used the Farallon slab rollback theory to explain the formation of the Rockly Mountains. I remembered listening to a lecture that Professor Nick Zentner gave about how they formed, and he used a "new model" talking about the Insular Superterrane. Looking at a map, you can very clearly see the Insular Belt along the North Western section of North America. I'd like to get your thoughts about it or even see a video in regards to how you believe they formed by using this data.

[@Dragrath1]

Yeah that Farallon shallow slab subduction model is pretty thoroughly debunked based on the igneous petrology seismic tomography and paleo sediment tracing. Nick's model also much more readily explains the ignimbrite flare up as large orogenies like the Himalayas or the Andes, which despite their primarily subduction driven origin share more characteristics with continental continental collisions than a typical continental oceanic collision, have deep underlying siliceous magma bodies as the switch from compression to extension as NA began to subduct the East Pacific Rise and the Yellowstone hotspot along it(with Yakutat and Siletzia as the two halves) The contemporaneously and parallel exposure of deep metamorphic core complexes with the Tertiary Ignimbrite flare up including the movement of the volcanic epicenter over time with corresponding equivalent exhumation of deep metamorphic core complexes, see Nick Zentner's crazy Eocene A to Z series, shows that the two events can not be looked at separately. Given the extreme thickness of the crust here the mechanism for melt generation is very likely similar involving gravitational potential induced melting. Based on this newer picture in looks increasingly probable that what happened to make the modern Andes is likely quite similar to what produced the Laramides with the persistence of a distinct Andean plate perhaps being the best evidence that such a mature arc collision occurred closely followed by the existence and characterization of the Caribbean as the splatter after the mature arc "Ribbon continent" archipelago was slammed into by North America during the Cretaceous and South America doing similar during the Miocene respectively. In other words within the newer picture the prerequisite to get a Laramide/Andean style arc is to collide a mature Indonesian style volcanic archipelago with a major continent with the Laramide arc being what happens if it subsequently overrides a major mid ocean ridge or an Andean arc if it doesn't.

[@hertzer2000]

Being in WV, I have to say, OMG holy crap, on the size of the chamber.

[@derrickstorm6976]

Looking at a map, I must agree omg

[@animesenpai1163]

Probably one of the possible places for a traps volcano to occur.

[@GeorgeTilap-x2h]

Or another toba / wah wah spring / flat landing brok

[@HAIYANE9910]

​@@GeorgeTilap-x2hanother La garita, possible, but South American La garita

[@-rodolfo9582]

I have read somewhere how Mount Paekdu on the China / North Korea border forme- It is also due to a sudden tilt ("slab") downwards of one tectonic plate, which is why this volcano is very unusual, US geologists were allowed once to study it, also because according to NK lore, it is the birthplace of the Kim dynasty, its VEI 7 eruption more than 1000 years ago may though have something to do with the nine-tailed fox, an utterly evil creature in Korean mythology. Mount Jeju on a South Korean island is lesser known, it seems there are two volcanic fields in the DMZ.

[@giuseppemaggio5894]

Which plates are the supposed responsible ones for Mt. Paekdu?

[@-rodolfo9582]

@@giuseppemaggio5894 I have found a longer video about this volcano which explains it in detail: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aXSVeYmFd5Kaa9Usi=x3zRo1rwUoSM1T8G

[@AaronGeo]

Is the largest one technically the mantle?

[@SamWilkinsonn]

With that logic would it mean all of the chambers are interconnected, meaning it’s all one chamber?

[@AaronGeo]

​@@SamWilkinsonn This is deep (no pun intended)

[@TheStormpilgrim]

The mantle isn't molten. It's not solid like crustal rock because tectonic plates can push into it and deform it, but it's not the consistency of magma. Rock melts in the mantle because the plate carries water down to temperatures and pressures where it chemically changes the crust and mantle rock and allows it to melt into a less dense fluid, which then tries to rise back to the surface. The outer core is a truly fluid layer, but it's metallic iron, not rock. It's too dense to ever rise into higher layers.

[@Solidaritas1]

@@TheStormpilgrim Uh, the mantle is molten...in the geologic past because it was far hotter than it is now (potentially by even a few hundred degrees Celsius in the Hadean) and now because of the exact reasons you mentioned, that highly pressurized water will drastically lower the melting point of most minerals, allowing it to melt when it would otherwise be a crystallized mush.

[@SevereWeatherCenter]

Imagine if it were to all erupt you would have a mid-grade VEI-10 eruption. That is a lot of magma. Even if a super interruption happened, it would not even be one percent of all the magma. Jeez!

[@TheSonic1685]

I'd have to say this is the most likely place we'd expect to see a super eruption next.

[@Friedfoodie]

Great episode.

[@jmarth523]

It should be noted that there is new evidence from geophysics that argues against the hypothesis that the Farralon tectonic plate was responsible for the creation of the Rocky Mountains

[@mrvwbug4423]

disproving the Laramide orogeny would dramatically change everything we know about the geology of the western US.

[@coronalight77]

Lol

[@zyrians]

can you make a video about weber deep? The deepest sea in the world is located not in the subduction zone area.

[@unclelou8636]

So is the composition of underground magma bodies something we can actually measure? Or is that more theoretical based on how long it has been emplaced?

[@CyrusDemar]

Just a curious thought. With these massive amounts of "close by" molten rock. Does the heat seep through to the surface? I don't expect it to, but I wonder how close such a magma chamber would need to be to heat the surface, apart from breaking through that is. 🙂

[@minraja]

Can something like this have a potential to turn into a flood basalt eruption in a very distant and uncertain future?

[@JackFrost008]

that sounds like fun.

[@JoshDoingLinux]

so when we're talking "rapid" for slab rollback, how "rapid" is that actually? is that geologically rapid snapping (thousands-millions of years) or like human scale rapid (hundreds-low thousands)? I would assume he former because i think the latter would actually just cause a cataclysm.

[@augustinep6193]

Good. Thanks.

[@RSimpkinuk57]

So best guess is an eruption (of that Bolivian volcano) after a wait of anything from hundreds of years to a hundred times longer than that.

[@jantjarks7946]

What's the size of the magma chamber in Italy, Campi Flegrei?

[@Jillysmom63]

He made a video on it not long ago, if you go to hs channel and look you will find it here. I think he says in it how large it is.

[@jantjarks7946]

@@Jillysmom63 Yeah, I just checked. In fact, there are several videos about Campi Flegrei. Well, I will see. Thanks!

[@R2D2C_3po]

There is a massive magma chamber that hasn't been entirely mapped out by science underneath Northeast Greenland which may give this magma chamber in South America a run for the money on which is larger.

[@psalmerperena4120]

Can you give a source/link for that?

[@Zantigableiaust]

So are Pacific and Euresian plate and Euresia and Indo Australian plate can be like that too in the future? Is it possible?

[@MrQuobit]

Well, this slab rollback can only happen in flat subduction zones. Cascadia, Alaska, Peru and some parts of the Andes. México is in the process of a slab rollback iirc. But for Eurasian plate, i dont think so. From Kamchatka to Philippines and Sunda Arc are not in flat slab subduction nowadays.

[@Zantigableiaust]

@@MrQuobit Aah, so Indian subcontinent is more like the this before the coalition or something like Iranian plateau right now?

[@StuffandThings_]

@@MrQuobit The TVZ in New Zealand also recently underwent slab rollback. There is a theory that there was some flat slab under China for a while, though this has long since passed. So its definitely possible some time in the geologic future. Australia, no, unless you count the geologic definition which includes New Guinea and then it definitely seems possible considering what happened to NZ.

[@MrQuobit]

@@StuffandThings_ correct I forgot about TVZ, which also is combined with back-arc extension from rollback of the entire Tonga Trench (also happening in Kyushu). Other place i did not mention is the Pampean Flat slab probably starting rollback soon. This is where Laguna de Maule, Calabozos and other large silicic volcanic centers are beggining to form. There are other explanations also for major silicic flare-ups aside from slab rollback. For example, slab tear (believed to have formed the massive Toba Complex and possibly the Southern Hokkaido Volcanic Zone) or slab windows, when a spreading centre is subducted and then one of the oceanic plates detaches from the other. And im probably missing other places seamingly interesting.

[@Drianz5142]

​@@MrQuobitWhat about the Banda Sea plate in eastern Indonesia?

[@SB-qm5wg]

Lets hope it just stays there.

[@Mastercrack_GS]

How many "magma bodies" are buried and hidden on the planet?? Because we only know the "socorro" caldera, puna altiplano magma body, "toba" supervolcano and the yellowstone supervolcano.

[@Solidaritas1]

That's not true...we know about dozens if not hundreds of large magma features, including mantle intrusions like that underneath Eastern Africa, along with mantle plumes like the one that created Greenland and is now centered under the mountains of SE Iceland.

[@JxH]

The factory where Harleys are made? They make them from pig iron and plenty of magma as far as I can tell.

[@carolynallisee2463]

So, whilst people are working themselves into a flap over Yellowstone, or trying to incite others to do so, it isn't really Yellowstone they ought to focus on, but Altiplano Puna instead. I've always wondered why people focus on Yellowstone when they start fretting about super-volcanos, and I've come to the conclusion that it has nothing really to do with how big it is, or when it erupted last and will do so again, or even just how big the next eruption will be. No, it simply comes down to the fact that Yellowstone is the best known example of the phenomena. You really would have to be living in the back of beyond to not have heard of it, and if you've got a smart phone and internet connection, you'd have heard the name even there. Yet Yellowstone isn't the only super volcano in the world; it isn't even the only one in the USA. Long Valley, and Valles are two I can recall off the top of my head, and that's just for starters. The fact Altiplano Puna is pausing in the middle of an ignimbrite flare-up is mildly concerning. I say 'mildly' because whilst we don't know when it'll resume activity, I assume it will give us some warning before it starts pouring out voluminous pyroclastic flows. And whilst we, or rather the politicians who make up our national governments, are wrestling with the needs of their nations against global warming and climate change, and what needs to be done to slow it all down, there is something lurking under their feet that could bring everything tumbling down like a house of cards!

[@davada123]

I'd say Campi Flegri is more of an imminent concern than Altiplano Puna, and definitely WAY more of a concern than yellowstone.

[@ginnrollins211]

We might have a possible fourth supervolcano in the Aleutian Islands called Mt. Cleveland.

[@OutbackCatgirl]

maybe we should stop taking journalists that coin phrases like "supervolcano" seriously when the vast majority of them aren't even remotely educated in vulcanology

[@tdw5933]

Volcanoes in Minnesota?

[@interstellarsurfer]

Volcanoes everywhere.

[@kittty2005]

Darn I was going to get us a dump truck load of cheese flavored popcorn and several cases of root beer and a spot to sit and watch what a bummer.

[@pierreetienneschneider6731]

If you want to sit and watch something happening there, the magma body is actually vented right now by Lascar volcano, which is quite a prolific erupter, and can produce very violent Vulcanian-type explosive eruptions.

[@TUKByV]

Woooo

[@garycosby1948]

Check your math. The area of the United States in 10 million km2. 500,000 km3 div 10 million km2 is 50m not 131m.

[@jamesfowley4114]

Isn't the outer core the largest magma chamber?

[@scrappydoo7887]

No. That's the outer core 🤦

[@dani16161]

"Largest"

[@Jesuscoming7235]

Below all these volcanoes is hell since all these eruptions people in some places are seeing demons rapture coming soon. Proof rapture 2024.dr. David Jeremiah,greg laurie revelation series.

[@markodnivel]

Earth surface is 1386 million km3, so 1/3 of earth mass ??? * Updated Hahahaha need to read more so is 1/2,172,000 erath volume hahaha some cheese like that ?

[@b.a.erlebacher1139]

You're out by more than a few orders of magnitude. Check your math and don't confuse area with volume. I find converting everything to scientific notation helps avoid errors in magnitude.

[@lasarith2]

It’s 510 million KM (square), the amount of people on here the can’t do math is astounding.

[@markodnivel]

@@lasarith2 title quotes km3

[@markodnivel]

I check my math and yea you guys are right earth volume is 1.08 trillion km3

[@thatonewwefanguy2006]

I always look forward to your videos.

[@harmharm3490]

500.000 km3 and 60.000 km2 suggest that the magma chamber is almost 10km deep. Sounds absurdly deep. On the other hand, the Altiplano is almost 4km high. So must be be something significant pushing it up and maybe not that absurd after all. Anyone know if I should indeed see it a such a big blob of magma or is reality a bit different?

[@Jameson1776]

Largest that we know of.

[@JxH]

Precisely correct. Thank you. Facebook has had a new "World's Oldest Tree" every three weeks for about the past 12 months.

[@zackakai5173]

Well, yes. That's true of basically everything, so we don't really need the disclaimer on every individual thing.

[@JxH]

Accurate wording can help to clarify thoughts. There's a lot of muddled thinking that is impacting society, so I support more-precise wording.

[@penteractgaming]

​​@@JxHwhat this is is unhelpful nitpicking. No one and I mean no one benefits from the "clarification"

[@JxH]

@@penteractgaming Have you met 'the general public' ? They need all the help they can get.

[@deborahferguson1163]

I really appreciate and enjoy the kinds of videos!!! Thank you GH!!

[@James-xu3vc]

Any correlation to the lithium deposits in that region ??

[@pierreetienneschneider6731]

Indirectly, yes.... This magma body contains alkali metals (Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs). Its heat drives up groundwater as geothermal fluids to the surface, and alkaline elements easily dissolve in water. Once at the surface, which is desertic and subject to extreme heat and dryness, it all dries out and crusts over as salt beds. Salt which has a significant portion of its sodium contents substituted by lithium, potassium, rubidium and cesium. It's quite tricky to separate because all are extremely soluble in water, but lithium hydroxide tends to be less than the other, and can be fractionnally crystallized out. Needless to say, this process is an ecological nightmare, producing tons of salt effluent and alcaline sludge laced with heavy metals, because hydrothermal fluids contain all sorts of other nasty stuff, fluorine, bromine, iron and you-name-it.

[@beefandbarley]

@@pierreetienneschneider6731Thanks for that fascinating explanation. 👍

[@tigertiger1699]

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 I love your insights../ leaning about our wee rock👍🇳🇿

[@BocVel]

Isn't this the same place where there's a huge lithium reserve? Ready to be mined?

[@xwiick]

Thanks for all the hard work on these videos

[@jiks270]

Thanks for this, the APMB is my favorite volcanic system on the planet & the one I always like to trot out as the most likely next mass extinction event trigger. You know a volcanic system means business when the satellite cones are super volcanoes! Also very useful as a distraction when the weekly drivel about Yellowstone appears.

[@CaradhrasAiguo49]

do you think Altiplano will eventually produce a flood basalt? I don't think any super-eruptions (VEI-8) have caused planet-wide mass extinctions, but flood basalts have...and at least twice

[@jiks270]

@@CaradhrasAiguo49 I don't think a flood basalt event is on the cards, those are thought to be triggered by different mechanics, ie mantle plume getting carried away for so far unknown reasons. Plus the existing magma is the wrong type. However, it is in my totally amateur opinion, capable of many VEI8s & techically VEI9s as 10% of the magma chamber is still 50K KM^3. Still, nothing we need to worry about as nothing likely to happen for a while in geological terms.

[@Trassik]

How much energy(velocity and mass) would a meteorite require in order to break off/fold down a piece of mantle like that?

[@sjeason]

Well I can’t give you exact numbers but I can say that it would need an absurdly high amount of energy and would need to be much more then a meteorite in size to do it, maybe even small moon sized. Also it would have to penetrate DEEP into the planet without disintegrating to do it, something that very few meteorites come close to doing.

[@johnnyc2764]

Wouldnt likely happen. Its too small and going too fast, it would just vapourize the rock without pushing it anywhere

[@Trassik]

@@johnnyc2764 and @sjeason I didn't really restrict the size of the object. For instance, if our moon hit the earth, it would technically be a meteorite as it would be: A stony or metallic mass of matter that has fallen to the earth's surface from outer space. And I'm pretty sure the moon would cause a bit of turmoil in the mantle and crust.

[@sigisoltau6073]

​@@TrassikA bit? More like a lot. A 500 kilometer object would leave a Crater several thousand kilometers across. The energy would boil the oceans. The transient crater would be 500 kilometers deep. By the way, for your earlier question an asteroid would have to be about 10 to 20 kilometers across to reach this magma chamber. As for the moon, it would cause quite a bit of havoc on the crust and mantle. The moon is 3,476 kilometers across. Let's say it stopped orbiting the earth, and earth's gravity pulled it straight down, it could reach a speed of roughly 11.2 kilometers per second, or roughly 40,000 kilometers per hour. A large object, plus mass, plus speed equals massive destruction to earth. There's a program on the internet called the Earth Impact Effects Program that was created by the Purdue University, the site is called the Imperial College London.

[@Trassik]

@@sigisoltau6073 I read a science FICTION novel by Neal Stephenson named Seveneves where very fast and somewhat sizable object hit the moon beginning the process of breaking it into many pieces which pieces eventually deluged the Earth. I visited the Barringer crater in Arizona and saw the folding back of huge plates of the surface. I was trying to conceptualize the shockwaves that would have traveled down from such an impact and well, silly me, I start asking questions.

[@StopBanningMaStuff]

For those wondering 500,000 cubic km is 250000000000 km of material....bruh.......1.25E+17 goodness.

[@Oh_Hell_No_6969]

OMG! That’s bizarre to even phantom, that this is Larger than Yellowstone!!! Thank You very much for Answering this Question!!!

[@scrappydoo7887]

Believe it or not there are things outside of America

[@Joe-j5j1u]

I think the same thing happened in the nevada region prior to basin and range extension or around its initiation. GH explains it way better lol

[@johngrundowski3632]

Thanks , glad for the time refrences🌐

[@AngryGecko1010]

How fast is slab rollback?Are we talking fast in human or geological terms?

[@SumErgoCogitum]

Geological terms, several hundred thousands or even million of years

[@karihamalainen9622]

Is this somehow conectedto S-Americas magneticanomaly? It isnot faraway andmagma-flowscangeneratemagnetism-anomalies??

[@spider0804]

You need a pop filter or distance from your mic, i can hear your saliva.

[@EnlightnMe48]

So what you're saying is the "Andes" Super Volcano is potentially bad?

[@watersrising8044]

Very interesting video. Been there, amazing landscape. Btw it’s pronounced all-tee-plano, not all-tie-plano.

[@AB-tc8lx]

The KZbin Washington State geologist. Nick does a teach slab rollback. You should watch his lectures. He has a different point of view.

[@saoirsecameron]

I was under the impression that the shallow subduction model of Sevier and Laramide Orogeny is increasingly falling out of favor and is being replaced by the Hit and Run model. What are your opinions on this?

[@iliketrains0pwned]

0:24 I guess Maryland and Delaware would remain untouched lol

[@farhanatashiga3721]

Remaking your old videos huh?

[@anoldsouldwanderer1461]

hot damn!!

[@dawnpalmby5100]

Is there a reason both the farralon and the nazca plates seeming slip downward on an almost lateral line 🤔 I may be over-thinking things

[@timcory4455]

Here I always thought the largest magma chamber was in the mantle of the earth! 🤔

[@AlicePeterson-p3k]

We don't need any bigger volcanos

[@jacobvoracek2349]

At 4:27 that’s called dormant.

[@nikluz3807]

1:14 the lava lamp 😂

[@chrisjenkins9606]

Another mantle plume

[@RoxanneBurk]

Wow that big and don't good

[@Jesuscoming7235]

Is this a I

[@comparatorclock]

If the magma body continues to uplift higher, does that mean that in say, 1-2ish million years, the body would reach the surface in its entirety, thereby resulting in a massive eruption that forms a new magmatic province?

[@HAIYANE9910]

Similar to La garita. Somehow scary. But is the reality, Brazil should monitor that. Another La garita could be a threat

[@timberry1135]

I highly doubt that this magma chamber contains 0.5m cubic kilometers of magma. the magma chamber may be that size but from the evidence seen from other massive magma chambers most of this will be hot solid rock not magma.

[@inanimateuser9828]

Love the videos! I also live in West Virginia!

[@Intelligenthumour]

I wonder if there's a lot of gold in that area.

[@sammie73155]

I hate the A.I voice on this video

[@shisuiuchiha2159]

So don’t watch it….

[@sammie73155]

@@shisuiuchiha2159 not that it’s any of your business, I’m allowed to have an opinion!!

[@Quinna78]

What VEI would that be if this chamber would empty?

[@sjeason]

Well considering VEI goes by a factor of ten and a VEI 9 is 10,000km3, if all the magma in the chamber erupted at once it would be considered a VEI 10 and would be half way to a VEI 11. However it is pretty much impossible for an event like that to occur so it’s not all bad (minus the fact that it will probably create super volcanoes again in the future)

[@Joe-j5j1u]

I wonder..... i think maybe the largest magma chamber/body is under hawaii or galopagos islands. But very deep in the mantle/crust boundary. Alta planapuna is def the largest shallower magma body. Its amazing that it is kept hot and fluid or semifluid for as much as a million years i think. When it erupts the whole world will know. Well when it explosively erupts anyway.

[@sjeason]

That isn’t true, while undoubtedly the heads of the Hawaiian and Galapagos hotstops contain a lot of magma, they aren’t even close to this one. Think about it in a sense of scale, you could fit the main Hawaiian islands and the Galapagos into the area that is covered by the Altiplano body. Also if they did contain more magma than altiplano, don’t you think we’d see far larger eruptions there in the historical record than the ones there are?

[@cristiancristi9384]

And I thought Altiplano was just a huge flat land full of gently grazing llamas ✌️😅

[@pierreetienneschneider6731]

and a lot of quite active volcanoes.

[@hendryhorn4046]

💦"Free Palestine , Justice and Truth Prevails!"💦

[@xaviersavedra711]

I can recall a video of both the Socorro and Altiplano magma bodies a few years ago, are these reuploads or somethin?