It is always exciting when we discover something unexpected. Our understanding of volcanoes is still really in its youth, so we're still generating new insights into how volcanoes operate and how much interaction there might be between neighboring volcanoes. Just this month, researchers looking at a cluster of volcanoes in Alaska now think that they might be part of larger volcanic complex ... and that complex might harbor a large caldera that could have been the source of some giant eruptions.
However, as cool as this research is (and it is!), many articles covering this seem to have jumped directly to the conclusion that it is some sort of new Yellowstone. The media is always drawn to the massive caldera system in Wyoming and loves to compare volcanic eruptions with what happened there over the past 2 million years. This does an injustice to both Yellowstone and whatever other volcanoes are being examined.
