ST. GEORGE — The tiny town of Veyo, Utah — just 20 minutes northwest of St. George with a total population of 822 — sits nestled in the shadow of a volcano.
“Volcano country,” its welcome sign reads. A little over 8.5 miles south of Veyo, just south of picturesque Diamond Valley, is the Santa Clara Volcano.
No need to worry: Neither the Veyo Volcano nor the Santa Clara Volcano will erupt ever again. That’s because they’re both cinder cones — also called scoria cones — said recently retired BYU geology professor Eric Christiansen.
And cinder cones are monogenetic, meaning they erupt only once, he said.
Christiansen was part of a research team that, in 2013, discovered evidence that a supervolcano near Wah Wah Springs erupted 30 million years ago, burying a region that stretches from central Utah to central Nevada and from Fillmore in the north to Cedar City in the south.
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Written by KAITLYN BANCROFT, The Salt Lake Tribune.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.
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