New England Might Not Be Volcano-Free Forever

Mt. Washington in the White Mountains of New HampshireJose Azel/Getty Images Last week I ran across a fairly provocatively-titled article on Gizmodo that claimed that New Hampshire might have a volcanic future. At first glance, you might think that is click-bait nonsense, but that is far from it. At some point in the geologic future---maybe millions to hundreds of millions of years from now---volcanoes will erupt across eastern North America. It is likely inevitable. However, until recently, we haven't had any geologic evidence of what might (and I emphasize might) be the first sparks that could someday lead to a newly volcanic New England. Now, New Hampshire and all of the northeastern United States has been a very volcanically quiet place for a long time---and by that, I mean we likely haven't had a whiff of volcanism in over 100 million years (contrary to some apocryphal reports of volcanoes in ...