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Earthquake Swarm at the Yellowstone Supervolcano
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by Emilio Lizardo | December 29, 2008 at 02:06 pm
4068 views | 65 Recommendations | 18 comments
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Over the past two days here has been an unusual cluster of small-scale siesmic activitity at the Yellowstone Supervolcano site.
What this means is anybody's guess.
YELLOWSTONE VOLCANO (CAVW#1205-01-)
44.43°N 110.67°W, Summit Elevation 9203 ft (2805 m)
Volcano Alert Level: NORMAL
Aviation Color Code: GREEN
PRESS RELEASE FROM YVO PARTNER UNIVERSITY OF UTAH SEISMOGRAPH STATIONS
Released: December 27, 2008 04:40 PM MST
The University of Utah Seismograph Stations reports that a swarm of small earthquakes of magnitude 3.5 and smaller is occurring beneath Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park, five to nine miles south-southeast of Fishing Bridge, Wyoming. The swarm began yesterday afternoon, Dec. 26, and has continued and intensified today. The two largest earthquakes in this swarm have been shocks of magnitude 3.5 and 3.4 which occurred at 1:17 and 1:26 pm MST, respectively, today. Many smaller earthquakes have also occurred, including three events this morning of magnitude 2.5 to 2.8 and a magnitude 3.2 event at 3:30 pm MST. Some of the earthquakes in the swarm have been reported felt by people in the Yellowstone Lake area. Swarms of this nature are relatively common in this part of Yellowstone Park.
The Yellowstone Supervolcano
Yellowstone, like Hawaii, is believed to lie on top of an area called a hotspot where light, hot, molten mantle rock rises towards the surface. Yellowstone's hotspot, referred to as the Yellowstone hotspot by geologists, is now under and helped form the Yellowstone Plateau but was once under and helped create the eastern Snake River Plain through a series of volcanic eruptions. The hotspot's apparent motion is to the east-northeast. In reality, the North American Plate is moving west-southwest over the stationary hotspot deep underneath.
The loosely-defined term 'supervolcano' has been used to describe volcanic fields that produce exceptionally-large volcanic eruptions. Thus defined, the Yellowstone Supervolcano is the volcanic field which produced the latest three supereruptions from the SRPY hotspot. The three supereruptions occurred 2.1 million, 1.3 million and 640,000 years ago; forming the Island Park Caldera, the Henry's Fork Caldera, and Yellowstone calderas, respectively. The Island Park Caldera supereruption that produced the Huckleberry Ridge Tuff was the largest and produced 2,500 times as much ash as the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption. The second largest supereruption formed the Yellowstone Caldera and produced the Lava Creek.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (18)
at 14:22 on December 29th, 2008
Great story! Thanks for the post!
at 14:29 on December 29th, 2008
Thanks for the read and comment !
at 14:54 on December 29th, 2008
Thanks for the post. The USGS also reported another quake (of magnitude 2.3) earlier today.
at 15:29 on December 29th, 2008
Glad they are very small. Some are saying that the Ring of Fire is very active right now. If Yellow stone were to erupt it could result in an ELE. Hope for the Best
at 16:00 on December 29th, 2008
I didn't even know about this Supervolcano stuff 'till about a year or so ago when a friend and I were discussing Krakatoa one day during lunch. About how the sound of the blast of the eruption of Krakatoa was heard thousands of miles away and how many thought this sound may have been the loudest sound ever produced in human history.
It was then he mentioned the dome of Yellowstone Supervolcano, and how it had been rising a few millimeters per year for the last 35 years or so, and what the possible implications might be if it were to ever erupt.
I remember him saying it would make the Mt. St. Helens eruption of 1989 seem like a flea-fart in a whirlwind by comparison !
at 16:08 on December 29th, 2008
It is a good basis for an "end times" story.
at 19:19 on December 30th, 2008
"The Road"
Cormac McCarthy
winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for fiction
at 16:12 on December 29th, 2008
I have been watching these for the last two days and must admit it made me think about the supervolcano. The most recent quake was a 2.9 at 8.38pm GMT.
Source: vinnyswebsite.com
at 21:09 on December 29th, 2008
Good info Vinny. The only thing that Bothers me, other then Nuclear War, is Yellowstone erupting. It would make Mt. St Hellenes a joke.
at 16:14 on December 29th, 2008
Correction !!!
Mt. St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980 ...
at 16:32 on December 29th, 2008
Considering that the Caldera is in "overtime", it probably isn't good. With the New Madrid Fault, ALSO in "Overtime", no one has extrapolated the results if BOTH areas went max-active simultaneously.
BOOM!
at 15:30 on January 4th, 2009
An old Czech proverb says: Misery is never a single.
at 19:38 on December 29th, 2008
Well done. Lets hope it is not another Krakatoa.
at 22:57 on December 29th, 2008
the answer is in the first quoted text
"Swarms of this nature are relatively common in this part of Yellowstone Park."
SWARMS - this implies movement, a group activity based on a shared collective interaction of living things. Can volcanoes swarm??
at 23:35 on December 29th, 2008
Astronomically, there are a few rather special things going on at the moment.
First of all is the Winter Solstice, the point at which the earth's orbital motion around the Sun reverses from moving south to moving north again, which occurred this year on December 21st. This, in itself, subjects our planet to rather unusual mechanical forces. This situation occurs on a six month cycle ( once in the winter and once in the summer ) ...
Secondly, there was a new moon on December 27th. This means that the Sun and Moon both are lined up on the same side of the Earth. This creates unusually strong Soli-Lunar gravitational stresses on our planet and occurs at the rate of once per lunation, or roughly 13-times per solar year.
Finally, the Earth will reach its closest approach, to the Sun, or perihelion, on January 3rd, 2009. A situation which will cause the strongest Solar gravitational stresses on our planet of the entire year. Of course, this situation occurs once per solar year.
So, it is not at all suprising that all three of these things together would result in a higher rate of siesmic activity than might otherwise be considered normal or average ...
Thanks everyone for all the recommendations, great photos, as well as the thoughful and interesting comments.
at 19:43 on December 30th, 2008
nice foillowup
at 22:24 on December 30th, 2008
Maybe the geophysicists and seismologists want to hop on board with quakefinder and install some sensors. Perhaps we can get some accurate reads of electromagnetic field changes to see if there really is going to be a "big one" at Yellowstone. I hope not and I know it is a highly active area. I have been to Yellowstone several times and am always impressed by its majestic beauty ~~ even when seeing it just a few months after the huge fire in the 90s. We can thank Teddy Roosevelt for creating the Nat'l Park System and knowing one day it would be the only nature some of us city dwellers get to experience with awe.
at 08:58 on December 31st, 2008
If this was the New Year of 2000, it could have much more significance I fear...