Posted on 05/27/2009 11:54:02 AM PDT by TaraP
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) - A geologist at Yellowstone National Park was in the middle of a lecturing a group of colleagues on the rarity of hydrothermal explosions earlier this month when, all of a sudden, one went off just behind him.
Geologist Hank Heasler was giving a lecture in the Biscuit Basin on May 17 when a hot pool behind him exploded. It spewed mud, rocks and hot water about 50 feet in the air.
Geologists only know of only a handful of such unpredictable explosions in YellowstoneÂ’s recorded history. Heasler and the others were just out of reach of the hot showering hot water and other debris.
yellowstone is building...
at 125 microvolts these are significant quakes today madison river valley [link to www.isthisthingon.org]
at 500mv....THESE ARE significant...quakes lake yellowstone [link to www.isthisthingon.org]
Ping...
If an explosion goes off when know one is there, is it still an explosion.
Who is swayed by the argument ‘never seen before’ anymore.
Christopher C. Sanders on January 1, 2009.
“I am advising all State officials around Yellowstone National Park for a potential State of Emergency. In the last week over 252 earthquakes have been observed by the USGS. We have a 3D view on the movement of magma rising underground. We have all of the pre warning signs of a major eruption from a super volcano. - I want everyone to leave Yellowstone National Park and for 200 miles around the volcano caldera.”
[link to www.earthmountainview.com]
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Here is an excellent link to view current earthquake info at Yellowstone:
[link to earthquake.usgs.gov]
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[link to www.earthmountainview.com]
Monitoring Yellowstone earthquake swarms
The Seismological Society of America (SSA) is an international scientific society devoted to the advancement of seismology and its applications in understanding and mitigating earthquake hazards and in imaging the structure of the earth.
The second largest earthquake swarm ever recorded in Yellowstone National Park occurred during the two weeks from 27 December 2008 and 7 January 2009 and included more than 1000 earthquakes. Analysis of the swarm suggests epicenters migrated north over the 12 day period and maximum hypocenter depths abruptly shallowed from 12 km to 3 km depth at the time of rapid cessation of activity on Jan. 7. Source properties of the swarm earthquakes suggest that the swarm may be due to the movement of hydrothermal fluids through pre-existing cracks, as suggested by recent analysis by University of Utah scientists.
Goos thing I am prepared for lovely financial mess in this country, I am just as well prepared for a super volcano.
See, God does have a sense of humor.
“A geologist at Yellowstone National Park was in the middle of a lecturing a group of colleagues on the rarity of hydrothermal explosions earlier this month when, all of a sudden, one went off just behind him. “
Wow, he’s good.
Oh, swell. We’re travelling to Farmington, NM next week. I wonder if it’s in the serious/certain death range...
I wonder how startled the Geo guy giving the talk was.
Pics? Anywhere.
Yellowstone is one of two places on earth (if I remember that correctly, now... LOL) that has magma as close to the surface of the earth as it is (in these two places). So, in Yellowstone, that magma is about as close as it comes to the surface.
It’s always been a “hotspot” so that’s nothing new. And it’s the site of a super explosion from years past (out of our historical records, at least). The ash from that super explosion from Yellowstone was deposited as far away as Texas, in a layer so deep that they still use it in Texas for road material (dig it up and use it for road material... LOL...).
When I was there in years past, they had, on the average about (at least) 1,000 earthquakes a year, mostly small ones, but a significant number that would knock you down to the ground if you were standing. And while I was there, I did encounter the earthquakes, too.
In addition, in years past, the geologists have been monitoring an “uprise” in some of the land around Yellowstone, indicating a filling of a certain part of the magma chamber, below the surface of the earth. So, that’s been going on for a very long time.
I mean, it’s not like our earth has *ever* been “quiet” in all these years, in the millennia into the past. It continually quakes and erupts and blows up, all over the place and always has.
Remember Krakatoa? And that’s not the only one...
The best-known eruption of Krakatoa culminated in a series of massive explosions on August 26–27, 1883, which was among the most violent volcanic events in modern and recorded history.
With a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 6,[2] the eruption was equivalent to 200 megatons (MT) of TNT—about 13,000 times the nuclear yield of the Little Boy bomb (13 to 16 kT) that devastated Hiroshima, Japan during World War II and four times the yield of the Tsar Bomba (50 MT), the largest nuclear device ever detonated.
The 1883 eruption ejected approximately 21 cubic kilometres (5.0 cu mi) of rock, ash, and pumice.[3]
The cataclysmic explosion was distinctly heard as far away as Perth in Western Australia, about 1,930 miles (3,110 km) away, and the island of Rodrigues near Mauritius, about 3,000 miles (5,000 km) away.
Near Krakatoa, according to official records, 165 villages and towns were destroyed and 132 seriously damaged, at least 36,417 (official toll) people died, and many thousands were injured by the eruption, mostly from the tsunamis that followed the explosion. The eruption destroyed two-thirds of the island of Krakatoa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa
We could produce a very long list of these kinds of eruptions. How about the *continuous* volcanic eruption in Hawaii, which has been going on since 1983 — that is..., erupting continuously for about 26 years — non-stop.
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The current Kilauea eruption began on January 3, 1983, along the East rift zone from the Pu-u O-o vent and also the Kupaianaha vent, and continues to produce lava flows that travel 11 to 12 km from these vents through tube networks that discharge into the sea to two sites, Wahaula and Kamokuna.[4] This eruption has covered over 117 km² of land on the southern flank of Kilauea and has built out into the sea 2 km² (230 hectares) of new land. Since 1983 more than 2.7 km³ of lava has been erupted, making the 1983-to-present eruption the largest historically known for Kilauea. 189 structures have been destroyed. In the early to middle 1980s Kilauea was known as “The Drive-By Volcano” because anyone could ride by and see the lava fountains — some as much as 1,000 feet (300 m) in the air — from their car.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilauea_Volcano
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There’s a lot of stuff that has been “going on” out there for quite a long time in human history...
Soooo this is Bush's fault?
after the eruption, from O-bambi "we've inherited this mess from the last administration so we must raise taxes in order calm the - cue Dr. Evil- molten hot magma"
Also the new Magma Czar and staff of 10,000 will report directly to the President
Boy, that graphic is sure misleading about Mt. St. Helens... LOL...
It shows a small area around the volcano as the volcanic debris area. Actually, it spread all the way across the State of Washington and into Idaho and beyond. They had ash really deep over that way.
So, while it wasn’t anything like the Yellowstone volcanic eruptions — it sure was a *whole lot bigger* than that graphic depicts.. LOL...
Global Warming proved!
???
We are all going to die. Run into the streets, run around in circles, run diagonally, then run octagonally, then try a dodecahedron, run run run, the sky is falling and it is going to fall on YOU!
They should have been taping an episode of the “So you think you are smarter than a 5th grader” show?
This is the big one, Elizabeth!
True. Trying to find it but while doing geology field work at Mt Mazama (Crater Lake Oregon) we had area effect maps comparing Mazama’s explosion to St Helens. St Helens area of effect is much larger than what’s shown above. Mazama was somewhere between Helens and Yellowstone.
Mazama is dead though so nobody really talks about it except for past geological records.
If God ever wants to punish our nation for idiocy against Israel, Yellowstone burping or even exploding would certainly do it.
Hey, as long as it doesn't cut back on the bread and circuses...
For all the trips I've taken to Yellowstone, I've never felt an earthquake while walking around in the park. I have been nearly at the epicenter of a 5.5 magnitude quake in the Federal Way, WA area in 1964. It very nearly knocked over all the furniture in the living room. The Landers quake dumped all my wife's shoe boxes off their perch in the closet and onto my sleeping hide. What a wake up.
Hey! Joe Biden! Good to see you on FR finally!
coo-el! :-D
Why, is God on the edge of reality?
That would do it, but probably to the wrong people.
Better still if the swamp that Washington DC was built on would open up and swallow it whole.
“The Landers quake dumped all my wife’s shoe boxes off their perch in the closet and onto my sleeping hide. What a wake up. “
Sleeping in the closet? This outta be good.........
I live in a dodecahedron. Heheh.
...and as a Star Traveler, you would know! ;-)
THX
WILL CHECK IT OUT.
See post #9. Are you sure?
This map (post #34) is like the maps I recall seeing. It reflects more of the reality of people actually seeing an ashfall in their areas, from Mt. St. Helens, even if it might have been 1/2 an inch and below.
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“A volcanic ash column rose 80,000 feet (24,400 m) into the atmosphere and deposited ash in 11 U.S. states.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_eruption_of_Mount_St._Helens
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And let me tell you, even an ashfall of 1/10 of an inch can be heck to be around. Something like that fell in Portland (some weeks or months later, when the wind was going to the south, and thus hit us) — and boy, there were swirls of ash-clouds for every car that drove down the road. And everyone in town went out and got those masks... LOL...
Now, the interesting thing about this map is that you see an isolated yellow circle — all by itself (around the Tulsa, OK area and somewhat into the Oklahoma City surroundings, too (slightly).
Now, this is very interesting, because there is not a continuous cloud from St. Helens to this area. It’s just isolated and all by itself.
SO..., this appears to be the *initial blast* of the Mt. St. Helens, when it “uncorked”. That initial blast, when it started going straight up into the stratosphere, would have “punched a hole” in the sky and shot that initial amount of ash *further away*, and then it would have “settled back” into a “continuous eruption” for the next 9 hours... or so...
That isolated area appears to be the ashfall from that initial “punching a hole” in the sky from that first blast.
You said — For all the trips I’ve taken to Yellowstone, I’ve never felt an earthquake while walking around in the park.
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I was just getting back in the car with my daughter (a youngster at the time) and she hopped in and I got in after her and then the car started rocking back and forth. I thought, at first, that she was jumping up and down in the back seat of the car (she did that sometimes... :-) ...). So, I turned around and was going to tell her to stop it, but she wasn’t doing it.
People who had been in their cars, at the time, jumped out of them and were looking around. My car was rocking back and forth, and I got out, too. When I had been in the car, just before getting out, I could hear the gas in the tank really sloshing around.
It wasn’t too long of one, but it was definitely one of the bigger ones. Most of them are very small (of those 1,000 or so a year that hit Yellowstone, normally). But, on the material that tourists get, I did notice a warning about being on the boardwalks when an earthquake hit. It was possible that someone could lose their balance and fall off the boardwalk, and into the surrounding area, which could be really hot water or mud or whatever (for whatever the boardwalk was going around in).
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You mentioned an earthquake in 1964, well there was one not too many years ago, that I remember quite well, the “effects” felt in the Portland area, in the year 2001.
A blurb from an earthquake website — “The earthquake most widely felt in Oregon was the February 28 Nisqually earthquake, centered near Olympia, Washington. The deep-seated, magnitude 6.8 event was felt throughout most of Oregon and as far away as Salt Lake City.”
Now that one rocked the building I was in, a Condo unit, third floor up, for a full minute. The building was really rocking on that one, and being up on the third floor, I was starting to think that this earthquake was going to go into a full-blown all-out one, since it had not quit for about a minute. I was thinking that, at any second, it could go “big”, because of how long it was going and going... LOL... I was just about ready to get out of the building, because I thought it was going to come down... :-)
Of course, at the time it happened, I didn’t know it was centered in Olympia, Washington.
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Then there was the “Spring Break Quake” in Portland, in 1993...
Quote from Wikipedia — The Scotts Mills earthquake (often referred to locally as the “Spring Break Quake”), which occurred in the U.S. state of Oregon on March 25, 1993 at 5:34 a.m. PST, with ML = 5.6, was the largest earthquake in the Pacific Northwest since the Elk Lake and Goat Rocks earthquakes of 1981.
I happened to have gone to work early and was in the office of a three-story building, on the bottom floor and it hit the building, two times, really hard, like some big semi-truck had smashed into the building and then things started rocking. Well, that was one time that I didn’t wait two seconds and I was out of the building as fast as I could go. I stood in the street looking around and there were a few other people around in the streets, too, even though it was early in the morning...
That’s not all the earthquakes that have been in the Portland area or felt there, so it gets a bit interesting at times.
They say that Portland could be in for the “big one” at some time in the future (within possibly 50 years), with up to a potential 10.0 magnitude quake..., since it’s in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. I’ve seen them say 9.0 and a few articles I’ve read have said 10.0. I guess they produce really big ones, and it could possibly go up that large. Also, it can possibly produce a tsunami, off the Oregon Coast of possibly 100 foot tall. I wouldn’t want to be on the Oregon Coast for that one... :-)
A couple years later I was working at the new data center. We had 6 ft racks with 4 Fujitsu Eagle drives (about 150 lbs each). The racks were lined up into multiple aisles about 30 ft long with a 2 ft aisle between the drive lineups. It was decided that a U shaped bar over the aisle would be advisable for earthquake bracing. The bars were installed and during the night there was a 5.8 earthquake in El Centro. The morning status message proclaimed the earthquake bracing was installed and successfully tested.
Another year later, I was working on some awful LU6.2 interface code between an HP-UX machine and an IBM mainframe. There was only one test machine in San Francisco, so I had to wait 3 weeks between my 1 hour test windows. My test window started at 5 PM. The IBM techs had a bunch of things to modify before we could start. Just as they were ready to start, the clock read 5:08 PM. The Loma Prieta earthquake was underway. My test window was lost for another 3 weeks. One of my co-workers was sitting in a dentist's chair on the 10th floor of a building in downtown San Francisco. The lights went out. He walked to street level in the fire escape stairs, then walked all the way back to his car...15 miles...because BART was out of service.
I had a college friend whose house was completely demolished by an earthquake in the Morgan Hill area.
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