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Yellowstone Earthquakes: Supervolcano Update
U.S. News & World Report ^ | January 02, 2009 | James Pethokoukis

Posted on 01/02/2009 9:32:36 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

A Yellowstone earthquake update:

1) The rumbling continues, including 3.5, 3.0 and 3.2 quakes just today

2) Here is some more Jake Lowenstern (the Yellowstone volcano scientist) analysis (via TIME):

Jake Lowenstern, Ph.D.,YVO's chief scientist, who also is part of the USGS Volcano Hazards Team, told TIME that it doesn't appear a supervolcano event is imminent. "We don't think the amount of magma exists that would create one of these large eruptions of the past," he said. "It is still possible to have a volcanic eruption comparable to other volcanoes. But we would expect to see more and larger quakes, deformation and precursory explosions out of the lake. We don't believe that anything strange is happening right now." Last summer, YVO installed new instrumentation in boreholes 500 to 600 feet deep to better detect ground deformation. Says Lowenstern: "We have a lot more ability to look at all the data now.

3) Here is a passage on the Yellowstone supervolcano from "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. He interviews a Yellowstone geologist, Paul Doss. I don't find it reassuring:

I asked him what caused Yellowstone to blow when it did.

"Don't know. Nobody knows. Volcanoes are strange things. We really don't understand them at all. Vesuvius, in Italy, was active for three hundred years until an eruption in 1944 and then it just stopped. It's been silent ever since. Some volcanologists think that it is recharging in a big way, which is a little worrying because two million people live on or around it. But nobody knows."

"And how much warning would you get if Yellowstone was going to go?" He shrugged. "Nobody was around the last time it blew, so nobody knows what the warning signs are. Probably you would have swarms of earthquakes and some surface uplift and possibly some changes in the patterns of behavior of the geysers and steam vents, but nobody really knows."

"So it could just blow without warning?"

He nodded thoughtfully. The trouble, he explained, is that nearly all the things that would constitute warning signs already exist in some measure at Yellowstone. "Earthquakes are generally a precursor of volcanic eruptions, but the park already has lots of earthquakes-1,260 of them last year. Most of them are too small to be felt, but they are earthquakes nonetheless."

A change in the pattern of geyser eruptions might also be taken as a clue, he said, but these too vary unpredictably. Once the most famous geyser in the park was Excelsior Geyser. It used to erupt regularly and spectacularly to heights of three hundred feet, but in 1888 it just stopped. Then in 1985 it erupted again, though only to a height of eighty feet. Steamboat Geyser is the biggest geyser in the world when it blows, shooting water four hundred feet into the air, but the intervals between its eruptions have ranged from as little as four days to almost fifty years. "If it blew today and again next week, that wouldn't tell us anything at all about what it might do the following week or the week after or twenty years from now," Doss says. "The whole park is so volatile that it's essentially impossible to draw conclusions from almost anything that happens."

Evacuating Yellowstone would never be easy. The park gets some three million visitors a year, mostly in the three peak months of summer. The park's roads are comparatively few and they are kept intentionally narrow, partly to slow traffic, partly to preserve an air of picturesqueness, and partly because of topographical constraints. At the height of summer, it can easily take half a day to cross the park and hours to get anywhere within it. "Whenever people see animals, they just stop, wherever they are," Doss says. "We get bear jams. We get bison jams. We get wolf jams."

In the autumn of 2000, representatives from the U.S. Geological Survey and National Park Service, along with some academics, met and formed something called the Yellowstone Volcanic Observatory. Four such bodies were in existence already-in Hawaii, California, Alaska, and Washington-but oddly none in the largest volcanic zone in the world. The YVO is not actually a thing, but more an idea-an agreement to coordinate efforts at studying and analyzing the park's diverse geology. One of their first tasks, Doss told me, was to draw up an "earthquake and volcano hazards plan"-a plan of action in the event of a crisis.

"There isn't one already?" I said.

"No. Afraid not. But there will be soon."

"Isn't that just a little tardy?"

He smiled. "Well, let's just say that it's not any too soon."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; US: Wyoming
KEYWORDS: caldera; catastrophism; earthquakes; extinction; geology; kissyouassgoodbye; science; supervolcano; yellowstone
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To: Pete-R-Bilt

I need to marry a fat chick and learn at-home liposuction?


21 posted on 01/02/2009 10:19:39 PM PST by glock rocks (Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time...)
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To: Cobra64
Bush’s fault.

Just so it's not the San Andreas fault

22 posted on 01/02/2009 10:20:45 PM PST by gogov
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To: Dallas59

I saw that special on cable. Truly incredible.


23 posted on 01/02/2009 10:23:02 PM PST by rintense (Go Israel!)
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To: glock rocks; tubebender; Pete-R-Bilt; B4Ranch; Brad's Gramma

Think I’ll stay home. All we have to worry about is hurricanes and they come with warnings.


24 posted on 01/02/2009 10:23:07 PM PST by SouthTexas
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To: glock rocks
"Wonder if the lava flow will reach Salt Lake County."

If it does I'm not in it's path. I'll live to see another day.

25 posted on 01/02/2009 10:24:21 PM PST by blackbart.223 (I live in Northern Nevada. Reid doesn't represent me.)
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To: Outland

I think the park will be there after DC is gone.


26 posted on 01/02/2009 10:24:51 PM PST by Big Horn (Rebuild the GOP to a conservative party)
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To: Pete-R-Bilt; tubebender

Tork made me post that. To any fat chicks who are being liposuctioned to power SUV’s...

As Larry the Cable Guy would say...”Lord, I apologize....”.


27 posted on 01/02/2009 10:25:28 PM PST by glock rocks (Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time...)
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To: SouthTexas
"All we have to worry about is hurricanes and they come with warnings."

The thing that gets you comes without a warning.

28 posted on 01/02/2009 10:26:19 PM PST by blackbart.223 (I live in Northern Nevada. Reid doesn't represent me.)
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To: SouthTexas; Brad's Gramma; Pete-R-Bilt

I’m in trouble, huh?


29 posted on 01/02/2009 10:27:05 PM PST by glock rocks (Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time...)
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To: tubebender

You forgot about the Madrid (MO) Fault. They say the last one rang bells in Boston churches. And the Mississippi really did run backwards due to land lift and blockages from rockfalls, etc. Manhattan, NY is on a fault line. So I guess our best hope is faith in Jesus—to save us or take us home quickly.


30 posted on 01/02/2009 10:28:57 PM PST by pankot
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To: gogov
"San Andreas' fault"

Photobucket

31 posted on 01/02/2009 10:32:54 PM PST by Cobra64
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To: pankot
"You forgot about the Madrid (MO) Fault. They say the last one rang bells in Boston churches. And the Mississippi really did run backwards due to land lift and blockages from rockfalls, etc. Manhattan, NY is on a fault line."

People still live there so I guess it wasn't too bad.

32 posted on 01/02/2009 10:33:30 PM PST by blackbart.223 (I live in Northern Nevada. Reid doesn't represent me.)
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To: blackbart.223; Pete-R-Bilt
OMG. I have received the error of death:

Channel:110
Satellite:119
Transponder:6

The signal has been lost, signal acquisition is in progress, Please wait, or press the UP or DOWN key to change channels.

This can only mean one thing.

It's snowing all out tin can over ... well, it's gotta be time to go outside and look.

BRB.

33 posted on 01/02/2009 10:34:08 PM PST by glock rocks (Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time...)
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To: glock rocks
"well, it's gotta be time to go outside and look."

Most weather forecasters should take that advice.

34 posted on 01/02/2009 10:37:52 PM PST by blackbart.223 (I live in Northern Nevada. Reid doesn't represent me.)
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To: pankot

Someone said Jesus told then to get away from the Pacific Ocean. Said if the quake don’t kill you the tsunami will...


35 posted on 01/02/2009 10:38:18 PM PST by tubebender (Looks like I lost another tag line to Bo ...)
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To: Pete-R-Bilt
With FRiends like you it's pretty dam hard to get over my fear of nightmares but I AM going out to the Toy dealer and buy a Pious tomorrow and put the drive train in my Silverado...
36 posted on 01/02/2009 10:47:36 PM PST by tubebender (Looks like I lost another tag line to Bo ...)
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To: All
Except for the bears, I'd wonder how many of different kinds of animals haven't been seen in awhile. If there were a lot of bison in and around the park in the summer, and then all of the sudden they're nowhere to be seen, or they moved away from the lake, I'd take that as an indication that things could be interesting in a short while. It is documented that animals go nuts prior to an earthquake or a volcanic eruption. Same might hold here.
37 posted on 01/02/2009 10:50:41 PM PST by Othniel (Kirk: Don't trust them. Don't believe them. Spock: They're dying. Kirk: LET THEM DIE.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
"Ain't no time to wonder why.
Whoopie! We're all gonna' die!"

38 posted on 01/02/2009 10:51:10 PM PST by bannie
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To: tubebender

Dude, I’ll email you a link for the K&N cold air intake. What year Silverado/Pious ??


39 posted on 01/02/2009 10:56:01 PM PST by glock rocks (Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time...)
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To: tubebender
"Said if the quake don’t kill you the tsunami will..."

We all get it at some point. But why are so many preoccupied with that fact. Live to the best of your ability and nature will take it's course.

40 posted on 01/02/2009 10:57:06 PM PST by blackbart.223 (I live in Northern Nevada. Reid doesn't represent me.)
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