Extreme seismic anisotropy indicates shallow accumulation of magmatic sills beneath Yellowstone caldera

Abstract

Understanding the distribution and mobility of crystal mushes within modern magmatic systems is crucial to volcanic hazard assessments as distinct pockets of mobile magma may become interconnected and lead to melt accumulation on shorter time scales than magma that is broadly distributed in a homogeneous mush. Here, we reveal that Yellowstone's upper-crustal magma reservoir in the top 20 km is heterogeneous in both melt concentration and texture. We exploit ambient noise in an unprecedented dense temporary seismic network to jointly constrain vertically- and horizontally-polarized shear wave speeds to create enhanced 3D isotropic and anisotropic shear velocity models. Our models show an exceptionally low-velocity (>20% reduction) layer 4–7 km beneath the surface, situated near the top of the reservoir previously-imaged by earthquake P-wave tomography. The presence of strong radial anisotropy (20%) within this layer indicates the uppermost portion of the modern Yellowstone reservoir is organized as a sill complex, with up to 28% of melt fraction in horizontally-elongated volumes at depths where rhyolite was commonly stored before past eruptions. The findings demonstrate that high-resolution anisotropic imaging through a dense seismic network can constrain both magma distribution and reservoir texture, which are important to understand the evolution and hazard assessment of volcanic systems like Yellowstone.