Posted on 01/01/2009 3:14:27 PM PST by Flavius
Bookmarking for later...and yes, I do believe there will be a later.
Original link from uglybiker: yellowstone animation - all quakes...
http://quake.utah.edu/req2webdir/recenteqs/Anim/anim_yell.html
Check the historical ash distributions, and I think you'll find the plume tends more southward. All that heat released should create a low pressure system which would bring in a polar high (cold--very cold this time of year) clear air, wind from the north. For where I live (Western North Dakota) that means a lot of winter, but little or no ash, at least on the first lap around the planet.
New Madrid Fault activity is not a given, we'd notice spring was late (ice age), and who uses a compass anymore anyway? (whacks GPS cussing, 'whaddya mean no signal'?)
OTOH, think of all the jobs hauling ash...
That looks fairly frisky...
That one is the Mary Lake siesmograph. it is sitting right on the northern edge of the lake. (basically right on top of all the quakes.)
sure looks like classic harmonic tremor activity to me. Probably just magma moving around in the chambers under the lake, but a little unnerving to say the least.
Anyone seed anything on water temp changes in the lake, or on sulfur dioxide readings around the park?
Sheesh....seen. Though I guess if the tourists and/or other assorted critters start keeling over, that’ll be a clue...
Long period harmonics. Been showing up since at least 12/28, getting stronger.
ping
A bunch of data has indeed disappeared. I imported the earlier data from that site into Excel so that I could make plots of depths of the earthquakes. In the earlier data there were a large number of quakes between 2 and 3 km deep. There were clusters of quakes at those depths followed by quakes between 2 km and the surface. Kind of scary.
Perhaps what is going on is that automated equipment is interpreting individual quakes out of very noisy seismometer data. Maybe quakes disappeared from the link because vulcanologists have reviewed the data and decided a number of those machine interpreted quakes were just noise and not actual quakes.
...just not much later. LOL
LKW is the closest instrument to the current activity.
Looks like harmonic tremors, probably indicating magma movement to me too, but all the individual shock locations are stacked in or close to a vertical pipe under the north end of the lake, basically the west and northwest escarpment of the deepest part of the lake.
With 2004 to current showing the all time record uplift, centered immediately northwest of the current activity, I don’t think magma’s moving horizontally as much as vertically, and I strongly suspect magma’s moving up, not down.
You need to look at the seismograms themselves. I’ve suspected for days that the transcription to text was lagging behind realtime occurrance, and in the OP’s press release, they admit it.
b/c my understanding of geology is virtually nil, but at the same time do have an understanding that when Yellowstone “blows” its going to be real bad . . . my question is - what does this mean in English? Are we close to an “event”?
Yellowstone has high silica magma which is blocky, not liquid. It tends to clog old magma conduits, resulting in more violent eruptions.
However, the Yellowstone caldera has experienced MANY small eruptions before.
On the other hand, the location of the current activity under a lake opens the door to steam explosions which could open a much larger magma conduit. It’s a big lake, lots of water to work with. The magma chamber is orders of magnitude larger yet. If exposed, it would become depressurized, and de-gassification of the currently highly pressurized magma could dwarf steam explosion energy.
The geologists say they do not feel an eruption is close.
I am not a geologist.
I do not like to combination of the data I’ve seen,100 year record wide area uplifts over the past 4 years, recent swarms of quakes centered vetically under a large lake, and recent periods of constant activity, looking like harmonic tremors indicating magma movement, increasing in both frequency and amplitude since around December 28.
If these periods are indeed harmonic tremors, we are in one now, though the amplitude is down slightly since earlier this morning.
I am NOT a geologist, take my opinions with a large grain of salt.
Another link:
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2009/01/02/yellowstone-earthquake-swarm-updated.html
Still kind of scary.
Near the lake, not under it?
thanks, I appreciate the explanation.
It sounds like the clogging is part of what makes Yellowstone eruptions so violent, combined with the presence of the lake.
makes me kinda glad I live in Florida right now
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