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."
Um, yah. Our 20% is about 3” deep. Gotta go sweep the dish... after I find my Cabela’s glacier tread fleece lined slippers. I think the kids left the satellite broom in the garage...
So what do you propose to do about it? The end of the world has been predicted so many times that you would think people would learn. If the damn thing blows up tommorow(my bet is it won't) you had a good life. If it doesn't blow up you wasted part of your life getting upset about it.
lava won’t be the issue, ash will be the issue for the entire SW.
Looking out the window is often better than weather forcasts. Old timers, I'm becoming one of those, See things better.
... a nice protective layer to save us from Algore’s global warming/cooling/climate change?
Have ya ever wondered why these global guys sound like Amway salescritters?
Why do you worry about this? I don't.
Sheesh. I went upstairs to sweep the snow off the dish, and ended up reheating limas and ham for the girls. Well, then we had to sample the Christmas piroulines. I thought the chocolate were the best, but the french vanilla got rave reviews too.
I’ve really got to find those snow slippers and clean the satellite dish.
BRB.
Lima beans are one of the nastiest foods on God's green earth.
Who said I am worried? I responded to the comment about lava, this will likely be an ash event, much worse than lava. As to worry, I feel it is only a matter of time before there is a major geologic event of some sort in the USA, it is the natural order of things, no need in worrying about it, but it is interesting to study and discuss.
They think we are all dumb as rocks.
Samantha Carter will figure out how to stop it.
The girls thanked me for them. Either I’m doing something right as a parent, or something very wrong. They also like asparagus, brussels sprouts and artichokes.
I came up on peas, corn and beans. What’s wrong with kids these days!?
If it’s like it was twenty years ago, it’s best to go early in the season. Late Mayish. The crowds build over the summer.
Wow, does this mean we won’t have to live through the BHO presidency?
It’s 1:30 AM Central Time and the world still has not ended yet.
I drove to the Weiser (Idaho) fiddler festival on the weekend following the eruption of Mt St Helens. Met some folks driving in the opposite direction who’d changed air and fuel filters multiple times... one particular dead head told me when I asked if he’d seen the ash... “Yah, been through all them changes man.”
I only had to replace the Honda air filter once, and we were a week out and 500 miles away...
My point is many are nervous when people post apocalyptic stuff that has little basis for concern. My opinion.
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