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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Just an amateur observer here, but the most recent trace looks an awful lot like the “tremor” example on the USGS site, and the amplitude of the “tremor” seems to be increasing steadily. It’s certainly different than any seismograph output I’ve ever seen in California…
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If you’re curious about the shapes of different seismic signals, check out:
USGS Seismic signals
For another look at volcanic earthquake, check out these images of a “Tornillo” signal from Galeras. They are another sign of potential eruption.
There have been a lot of earthquakes at Yellowstone, but none of them scream “eruption”. We’ll just have to wait and see … -
I am the guy by the way who pointed them out to Alan Sullivan. I have seen those kinds of signals at St. Helens that were harmonic tremors, but also at other cascade volcanoes that turned out to be weather related, as in strong winds that make a sensitive seismorgraph shake like a harmonic tremor.
Still, whatever this is, it is being detected on several stations, like Mary Lake and Yellowstone Lake. I am interested in what the professionals like Dr. Klemetti say. I think a lot of people are assuming these are harmonic tremors, when they may not be. Hopefully we will hear soon from Dr. Klemetti. -
Happy New Year Dr.Eric and all Volcano enthusiasts.
Alan Sullivan over at Fresh Bilge has checked out some of the Traces from the the Yellowstone swarms. One of his alert readers pointed him to the traces. Alan has analysed some small tremors in the traces, see
http://www.seablogger.com/?cat=22
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“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
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