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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Erik said: What we really need is another parameter to show evidence of magma, such as water temperature in the lake/hydrothermal vents, increased CO2 or SO2 emissions or increased surface temperature in that area of the park.
So have there been any such occurrences noted? I am a complete novice but very interested in Geology. -
I just posted the following over at Alan Sullivan’s blog.
“…Here is an USGS example of wind:
http://quake.usgs.gov/recent/helicorders/Examples/GeyserPeakWindstorm.html
Notice also the seismic recording from the Promontory on December 23rd. It was humming all day.
http://www.seis.utah.edu/helicorder/heli/yellowstone/Uuss.YTP_EHZ_WY.2008122300.gif
The short tremors that could seem as if they were “harmonic tremors” often were recorded on other seismographs nearer the origin with more distinct initial shocks that seem more normal to me. Earlier today I compiled all the seismograms into one photoshop document that easily allowed me to hide or reveal each layer and see which waves were arriving early or late. Each seismic recorder was recording events differently. The origin of each shock would show up first and usually strongest in the readings of nearby seismographs and then would arrive weaker and later at more distant locations. Some seismographs were recording clean signals and those near lakes were often producing a lot of hum – I’ve heard reports of it being windy there.
best to you all -
Thanks for the link, Brian. At this point, it is still hard to tell exactly what these events might indicate. They could still be the result of a hydrothermal event, movement along a fault or magma moving under the caldera. What we really need is another parameter to show evidence of magma, such as water temperature in the lake/hydrothermal vents, increased CO2 or SO2 emissions or increased surface temperature in that area of the park.
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Dr. Klemetti, thanks for the input.
What a lot of people on the internet are seeing is here:
http://www.seis.utah.edu/helicorder/heli/yellowstone/Uuss.YML_EHZ_WY.2008123100.gif
And it is at a few locations as well, such as the West Thumb area. This is what people are speculating about. What do you see with this?
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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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