Beware the Journalistic Supervolcano

Figure 7b from Thorne and others (2013). This is the conceptual model from their study, showing two mantle piles moving towards each other and combining, eventually creating a new hotspot plume. Present day is marked in Time 2, when the two piles are just beginning to interact. Time 3 represents when a new plume would be initiated. Image: Thorne and others (2013), Earth and Planetary Science Letters. I read a lot of science media. Probably too much and I spend a lot of time and words trying to educate people on where the media goes astray when covering either volcanic events or geologic research ... but sometimes it feels like a losing battle. There is only so much time in the day to deal with every piece of slipshod science journalism I run across. Thankfully, some science media is great, many times coming from journalists and bloggers who deeply care ...