http://www.escapodule.freeiz.com/1_17_Yellowstone-Park-Caldera.html The above link is to my site where a more exhaustive approach to this subject is available. There are associated pages amalgamated from the USGS (M6.0 + in my email box from May 2010 on ), other sites with charts, tables, maps, solar flare data from www.spaceweather.com and NASA's SOHO site (my favorite with MDO, EIT, etc.) and how I've been putting this puzzle together. In a nutshell: Yellowstone did errupt probably 70,000 years ago and that formed many of our aquifers, meaning the top layers of underground waters. These developed from its eventual flow of lava all the way to Michigan's UP, the Illinois/Indiana border, Canada, Mexico and, in short, about 30 some states East of the Rockies. New underground brine lakes have been recently discovered. I've been using my logic, findings and imagination to form a POSSIBILITY of what may likely happen in the next 5 to 10 years. I am predicting more geysers and springs, "bubblers" so new tributaries flooding the Western lowlands and progressively raising the level of the Great Lakes, Great Salt Lake, etc., thus, over perhaps an ensuing 10 years, perhaps 20, to about 700 feet above mean sea level (AMSL). It truly is not that different from a stratovolcano's erruption, only the area of the crater is about 1500 times as large, thus the internal centrifugal forces of the planet spinning at roughly 1100 miles per hour, will cast out more volume than altitude. If Mount St. Helen's can be compared to the altitude of a stream from a garden hose pointing upward with one's thumb constraining the orifice, Yellowstone would be like the stream after releasing the constraint. As of now, it appears the Earth's magnetic field has a lot to do with quakes. The solar wind has a lot to do with the Earth's magnetic field, thus auroras and the weather patterns. We are seeing what is likely the effects of this in the latest observations showing 35,000 square miles of ice melting of the top of the Arctic every day. Global warming? Probably, but how much our abuse of the planet's resources and carbon emissions has to do with it all is questionable. If in doubt use wind and solar power. The site is young and under construction, still its purpose is important. We need to consider higher grounds and drawing ourselves closer together. This means creating at least one, if not many, brave new worlds. Dr. C.