More than 120 earthquakes have struck in and around the Yellowstone Volcano in the past month, but is this a sign that it is about to erupt?
Statistics from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) show that 121 earthquakes have rocked Yellowstone National Park over the past 28 days.
The tremors were relatively small, with the largest of the quakes occurring on December 15, when a magnitude 3.5 quake hit the area.
However, experts say that these earthquakes are not an indicator of a possible volcanic eruption, but their number is alarming.
Scott Burns, Emeritus Professor of Geology at Portland State University, said: "If you get tremors beneath an active volcano, the working hypothesis is that magma is moving up there."
But others disagree over whether a swarm of earthquakes near the volcano could be a sign of impending apocalyptic events.
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Jamie Farrell of the University of Utah at Salt Lake City thinks it's just part of the natural cycle for the Yellowstone volcano, saying, “Earthquakes are pretty common in Yellowstone. There is no indication that this swarm of earthquakes is associated with magma moving through the shallow crust.”
The Yellowstone supervolcano, located in the US state of Wyoming, last erupted on a large scale 640,000 years ago.
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the likelihood of a Yellowstone eruption is about one in 730,000.
640,000 years have passed since the last major eruption, and Yellowstone is approaching an explosion - but it could be a thousand years before that.
However, experts are now preparing for the worst and are studying how a major eruption could have been prevented that could instantly wipe out large swathes of the United States.