Is Yellowstone on a Convergent or Divergent Plate Boundary?

Neither. Yellowstone sits on the North American Plate—far from any plate boundary. It’s an intraplate hotspot.

How It Works

• A mantle plume (narrow upwelling of hot rock) rises from deep mantle, melting the overlying crust.
• The plate moves SW over the stationary plume, creating a track of extinct calderas (Snake River Plain) ending at the active Yellowstone caldera.
• No subduction (convergent) or rifting (divergent) occurs here.

Analogous to Hawaii (on Pacific Plate), but continental crust makes Yellowstone’s eruptions more explosive (rhyolite vs. basalt).