Yellowstone looks to be keeping everyone on their toes as we ring in 2009. The earthquake swarm reported earlier this week is continuing, with multiple events between 2-3.5 on the Richter Scale. Again, the folks monitoring the caldera – this time the Univ. of Utah – play down these events as normal for any active caldera system … and they’re very likely right. However, the media love to bring up the “supervolcano” angle and we’re even getting expert opinion from (wait for it) Garrison Keillor!. The earthquakes are just normal earthquakes so far – none of the dreaded/anticipated harmonic tremor that might indicate an eruption. This will likely mean that more gas and water monitoring will be occurring in the park in the coming weeks/months.
25 responses to “Yellowstone New Year’s Eve Update”
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Let me say a few words about some different volcanic resources available on the web – and some have different strengths.
The blog here at eruptions provides good accurate information in a timely way – and Erik has the highest personal expertise in what he is discussing.
The Volcanism blog also provides good, accurate, and sometimes more timely information. His website excels at translating Spanish reports on dangerous volcanoes in South America. He is a superb source of official information on Chaiten. He also provides a lot of links to dig deeper. Like Erik – he is not given to alarmism but he probably provides the deepest and thorough volcanic coverage on the internet. His Volcanism blog doesn’t engender as many comments as this blog does. The link button to make or read comments there blends in with all the other links – it doesn’t stand out much – and the comments aren’t used much.
http://volcanism.wordpress.com/
Alan Sullivan has a wide-ranging blog that will sometimes intensely focus on a volcanoes that he thinks have the potential to change history. Since he is an outsider – Tianca might respect his independence. His blog is usually among the first to address any major changes in the status quo for the one or two volcanoes that might happen to be following. Particularly he will give you quick notice of any seismographical activity that happens at Yellowstone. He or the commenters at his blog will give nice, very timely analysis of any activity visible at the Chaiten webcam.
http://www.aipchile.cl/camara/location.php?locationID=34&cameraID=116
Although he isn’t an expert he learns as he goes along. He is often a very timely source of information and he quickly passes on information found elsewhere. As an outsider he is less constrained about engaging in “what if” scenarios. If he thinks there is a 5% chance that Chaiten could have a catastrophic eruption he will say it. I think he is read by some people around the world who have something worth contributing.
http://www.seablogger.com/
Another site worth occasionally checking out for new information is
http://www.volcanolive.com/news.html
John Seach is a volcano filmer and explorer. He sometimes has first hand accounts of what is happening at volcanoes.
Of course there are also Smithsonian reports issued regularly that you can subscribe to get via email.
Earthquake links also bear watching. When one happens near a volcano it may – or may not be significant for the volcano.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/
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Quote of the week
“It’s not far-fetched that almost everywhere in the world where you have volcanoes you have mythologies or new gods being created.”
~ Werner Herzog
Eruptions 
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