“Overdue”
I’m a geologist, and the idea that the Yellowstone caldera is “overdue” for an eruption drives me insane.
That is only if you base its eruption cycle on the previous two eruptions. The time between the 1st eruption and 2nd eruption was just under a million years, and it hasn’t been that long since the 3rd and most recent eruption.
But really, volcanoes do not follow cyclical eruption patterns as the public seems to believe. It’s important to note that the term “relative” in geologic time and human time is not even near the same. Something could be “relatively recent” in geologic time, and that could mean 20 million years ago.
Story credit – Reddit/[deleted]