Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. This week's contribution is from Violet Turner and Faith Nolander, completing a summer undergraduate research experience with Madison Myers, associate professor of Earth Sciences at Montana State University .

Did you know that factors like pressure, temperature, water content and chemistry of a magma all heavily control the way a volcano erupts? For instance, the hotter a magma, the less sticky (or viscous) it becomes. And as magma cools, gas bubbles can accumulate and cause an eruption to be more explosive. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to stick a thermometer into a magma chamber to take its temperature. Instead, volcanologists must rely on rock comp

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