Yellowstone's volcanoes are relatively recent, calderas formed by large eruptions that occurred between 2.1 million, 1.3 million and 640,000 years ago.

Calderas lie above Yellowstone hotspots beneath the Yellowstone Plateau where light and hot magma

molten rock rises from the mantle to the surface. The hotspot appears to move across land in an east-northeast direction

hotspot is much deeper and more stable than the surrounding land as the North American Plat

Over the past 16.5 million years or so, this hotspot has produced a series of explosive eruptions and less violent floods of basaltic lava.

Together these eruptions helped form the eastern part of the Snake River Plain

At least a dozen of these eruptions were so massive that they are classified as supereruptions.

The oldest identified caldera remnant extends along the McDermitt, Nevada–Oregon border,

although there are volcanic stacks and arcuate faults that define a caldera complex greater than 60 km

in diameter in the Carmax Group of southwest-central Yukon, Canada.

The Yellowstone Hotspot is interpreted to have formed 70 million years ago.

mud volcano

Progressively younger caldera remnants, mostly grouped into overlapping volcanic fields,

One such caldera, the Bruno-Jarbiez Caldera in southern Idaho, formed 10 to 12 million years ago