Scientists eye unusual swarm of Yellowstone quakes
December 30, 2008 By MEAD GRUVER , Associated Press Writer(AP) -- Yellowstone National Park was jostled by a host of small earthquakes for a third straight day Monday, and scientists watched closely to see whether the more than 250 tremors were a sign of something bigger to come. Swarms of small earthquakes happen frequently in Yellowstone, but it's very unusual for so many earthquakes to happen over several days, said Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah.
Content from The Associated Press expires 15 days after original publication date. For more information about The Associated Press, please visit www.ap.org .
Similar stories from PHYSorg:
Mining destruction for data to help others
Feb 04, 2010 |
4 / 5 (1) |
0
Haiti: Physics of Quakes Past, and Future
Feb 04, 2010 |
5 / 5 (3) |
0
Researchers Find New Way To Study How Enzymes Repair DNA Damage
Jan 28, 2010 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
NSF scientists return to Haiti to assess possibility of another major quake
Jan 26, 2010 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
Mammoth Achievement: Researchers at the forefront of molecular biology
Jan 26, 2010 |
4.5 / 5 (12) |
0
Feb 08, 2010
And speaking of wagging the dog when it comes to natural disasters, another thing far worse than the unlikelihood of things like AGW (which, if there IS any warming, is vastly more likely caused by geothermal and/or solar power fluctuations) is the ubiquitous chemicals, mainly xenohormones, in our environment probably causing the rampant low sperm counts, feminization, cancers, autism, etc.. Pharmaceutical and tobacco companies are powerful in the halls of power, though. Thus marijuana is treated like the devil's own drug and tobacco & alcohol not much worse than lemon drops.
Don't discount the fact that a lot of other typically active faults have been unusually dormant as of late and that we've seen these cycles of activity before. Typically when they reference Yellowstone I tighten up a bit though, there are no volcanoes current or otherwise anywhere near the size of Yellowstone from what I know.
Want a volcano to worry about? Pay attention to Long Valley, CA.
This hot-spot (currently under Yellowstone) has a long history of caldera-forming eruptions, with a string of calderas that run all the way into Nevada. The continent has been drifting southwest for millions of years, but the hot spot hasn't. A small mountain range has now drifted over the hot spot since its last eruption 640,000 years ago, providing more pressure, and more material to displace (and spread across the western US.)
Fun image here:
http://volcanoes....arge.jpg
People will die, of course, but hopefully we can keep the casualties to a minimum.
I hope that was a troll.
When was "back then?" The last eruption that included lava flows was 70,000 years ago. But we're not talking about those. We're talking about caldera-forming eruptions that happen every 600,000 years. These eruptions are 2,500 larger than the 1980 eruption of St. Helens.
The entire midwest will be buried in 1-3 feet of ash. Sunlight will not reach the ground for weeks or months. The bread-basket will be empty, starving livestock and people.
Those who survive will not be happy.
We don't need to spend any time worrying about the eruption, as it may not happen for 100,000 years. However, diminishing the fact that it will kill the vast majority of the US's population, if not the majority of the world's population is foolish. A caldera-forming eruption from the yellowstone hot-spot will be catastrophic and globally life-threatening.
Magma Movement = Harmonic Termors.
Nowhere in the articles are Harmonic Tremors mentioned.
Yellowstone is in a tectonically active area, and experiences something like 1000-2000 earthquakes per year. Earthquake swarms like this are not unheard of in this area. There was an event in 1985 where over 3000 over a period of several months. There have also been 70 earthquake swarms in the period 1983-2008.
Further, there was no eruption from Yellowstone 70,000 years ago. The eruption that occurred 70,000 years ago was from Lake Toba in Indonesia (Sumatra). The Lake Toba eruption was nearly 3 times bigger than the last Yellowstone eruption which occured 640,000 years ago, and in terms of volume ejected only barely qualifies as VEI 8.
There have been several larger eruptions than the most recent magmatic eruption at Yellowstone, 640,000 years ago.
http://www.quake....3100.gif
http://www.quake....3100.gif
Looking at those graphs, those tremors don't look like harmonic tremors to me, the shapes all wrong, they just look like a series of earthquakes to me, but the only way to tell for sure is to perform a Fourier transform analysis of them, and examine their spectra (they're called harmonic tremor for a good reason).
According to the USGS, Yellowstone is still only at alert level normal.
Finally, have you looked at a map of the distribution of these earthquakes?
I have, and i've compared the map to other maps, and do you know where these earthquakes are occuring?
I do.
They're occuring in a distribution that is consistent with a faultline.
They're occuring in a location, and in an orientation approximately consistent with one of two things.
A former calder rim (a giant fault line).
A possible northward extension of a fault that runs along one of the shores of lake yellowstone (in an area that has recorded earthquakes since 1973).
Seriously, there's no cause for alarm (as near as I can see) [i]at this time[/i] but seriously. If you're that scared, make sure your last will and testament is up to date, and start stocking up.
But seriously? Stop panicing people with speculation.
http://upload.wik...map2.jpg
http://www.seis.u...one.html
Yeah, that'd be about right.
The first thing to watch out for would an article that talks about Harmonic Tremors, rather than an earthquake swarm. Never forget that the Yellowstone hotspot is currently overlain by a geologically active mountain range, and lies adjacent to some rather substantial normal faults (which according to one article i've come across, it is, or has been, forcing to go the wrong way - dropping the mountain range, and pushing the valley floor up).
The next step would be to check the USGS YVO website: http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/ and see if the USGS has changed the status of the Volcano. They've got that many sensors in the area I doubt you could fart without them noticing, and I think they're planning on an upgrade.
Finally, given the nature of the area, I'd suggest that as a precursor to any genuine magmatic eruption, you would see a change in the over volatile flux, which could, for example, result in fish kills (depending on where they are) and it also seems to me that any magmatic movement prior to an eruption is going to result in a substantial alteration in the geothermal activity in the area, it may even result in a pattern of hydrothermal eruptions and steam explosions.
Although there is a general trend of uplift in parts of the caldera floor, i'm unclear whether this is generally considered in this specific instance to be indicative of anything specific, but it's also my understanding that although any future magmatic eruption by Yellowstone will probably be preceeded by a period of rapid up lift (more in line with what was observed at North Rim anomaly in 1996-2003.
If you're genuinely interested, there's a huge amount of literature on the subject that can be accessed from the YVO website.
Incidentally, this from YVO:
"The swarm is in a region of historical earthquake activity and is close to areas of Yellowstone famous hydrothermal activity. Similar earthquake swarms have occurred in the past in Yellowstone without triggering steam explosions or volcanic activity. Nevertheless, there is some potential for hydrothermal explosions and earthquakes may continue or increase in magnitude. There is a much lower potential for related volcanic activity."
Maybe the lava flow 70,000 was non-explosive, but it was an eruption of lava.
Finally, the majority of posts here aren't predicting major events but are addressing what the severity of such would be. I'm not fear-mongering, just acknowledging the potential of the area rather than dismissing it out of hand.
And you should check the context of the discussion.
Yes, there were some minor rhyolitic extrusions 70,000 years ago, but those certainly weren't the source of the ash and dust that killed off 60% of humanity (or whatever figure is being bandied about).
At least that's what the models look like, we haven't seen a calderic volcano go off yet.
I was responding to theophys' strange suggestion that "back then" we didn't have the tools to survive an eruption. I was asking if "back then" meant 70,000 years ago during the last significant eruption from the yelowstone hot spot. I did not suggest that this was an extinction event, so maybe you should take your own advice and check the context of the discussion before mouthing off.
Time to take some of your own advice Bud.
I didn't say it was you that was making that claim now did I?
I was, in fact referring to Velanaris' and theophys' posts as well.
So you're tilting at windmills.
Your first critical post immediately followed mine and specifically contradicted my statement that yellowstone erupted 70,000 years ago. It also included some general information and did not specifically quote or cite any other posts.
I replied, and you quoted my entire reply and made more specific statements about my post that were inaccurate.
I apologize for misinterpreting your posts. But it seems very reasonable for me to have assumed they were specifically directed at me.
Finally, I noticed you didn't acknowledge that your very specific statement that "Further, there was no eruption from Yellowstone 70,000 years ago" was blatantly false, further demonstrated by a new article here on physorg (to which I made a sarcastic comment for you.)
People make mistakes, but earn credibility by admitting to them (in my opinion.) They lose credibility by trying to change the subject and point more fingers. You can probably guess which category you fall into.
In this instance, i'm goint to refrain from calling you a liar, assume you missed this post:
And await your apology. I'm also going tol point out that realistically the only thing i've actually done wrong is in my initial post I should have used the term 'super eruption' (which, given that the posts up until that point had, as far as I could tell, been talking about super eruptions is relatively minor - the point being that the mistake I made isn't neccessarily the mistake you think I made) rather than eruption in my initial post.
For now i'm going to ignore your sarcastic post on the other article and give you the opportunity to make a reasonable response here.
Besides all of which, the point that I was making was, and still is, that the volcanic eruption that is thought to have resulted in the genetic bottleneck around 70-75000 years ago was [b]NOT[/b] caused by Yellowstone.
LOL. Which would be a silly assumption since you quoted my reply to that post. I'll assume you are being sarcastic.
I assumed your reply stating "minor rhyolitic extrusions" occurred was a dodge, rather than an admission of error. That may have been a poor assumption in retrospect.
If it was actually an admission of error, I apologize for misunderstanding it.
My post was very clear regarding the eruption 70,000 years ago, and did not correlate those eruptions to extinction events:
Velanarris was the first to suggest that the eruptions 70,000 years ago were extinction events. I did not, and have not opined such, but you seem to continue to fail to acknowledge that.
Your (erroneous) assumption.
As i've already said, the error I made isn't neccessarily the errpr you think I made.
And my post was quite clearly directed at those who were trying to correlate the Yellowstone eruptions with the genetic bottleneck.
Nowhere have I (deliberately) stated or implied that you WERE opining such, in fact i've explicitly stated two or three times now that my original opneing post was not directed at you, and that it was directed at Velanarris et al who were positing that idea.
It's text and in a heated discussion it's easy to take small comments out of context. Don't sweat the small stuff. =)