A Bit More Than the Usual Rumbling Hits Yellowstone
In the past week or so, some 400 earthquakes have added to the already precarious land at Yellowstone National Park. Although the area is the largest supervolcano in North America, the rumbling is a bit more than normal.
Like bees, when earthquakes occur in great amounts in one area, it’s called a swarm, reports NPR. But this swarm is bigger than the usual that would happen. The swarm has a magnitude of 3.9 on the Richter scale, and the quakes have happened at greater frequency than the norm.
And all of the earthquakes have occurred under Yellowstone Lake. The last time something like this happened was 20 years ago, reports Wyoming’s Local News 8. Said one geologist on the station: “We think it’s where more magma heat and steam escaped through cracks in the crust. That’s probably what’s causing the earthquakes.”
No one knows for sure why this is happening, though. But no worries to the people living around Yellowstone – the last huge volcano eruption was about 640,000 years ago.
Earlier in the year, around April, the same thing happened in Oregon, except it was 600 earthquakes in 10 days. That one, though, was different – it didn’t occur around any places where tectonic plates meet, the vast land areas that form the Earth’s crust. Three of those quakes had a magnitude of 5.0 or higher. Most, however, happened out at sea, and were barely felt on land.
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Casualties of global warming? Who knows. There’s not much anyone can really do about these, except wait them out.
Photo Credit: moonjazz at Flickr under a Creative Commons License
Global warming caused this? Seriously? Did any, actual scientist mention this as even being the slightest way involved?
And people wonder why a growing percentage of the population doesn’t take it seriously. You might just as well have said it was caused by a bunch of overweight children during a trampoline convention – you’d have just as much real data to back you up.
This has to be one of the most poorly written articles I have ever read. I’m not even going to start pointing out the sentence structure errors in this. I will just state that you learn in the 3rd grade that you don’t start a sentence with “and”.
“In the past week or so, some 400 earthquakes have added to the already precarious land at Yellowstone National Park. Although the area is the largest supervolcano in North America, the rumbling is a bit more than normal. // No one knows for sure why this is happening, though. But no worries to the people living around Yellowstone – the last huge volcano eruption was about 640,000 years ago.” … interesting downplay, but considering that the last three supervolcano eruptions occurring at Yellowstone were 2.1 million, 1.3 million and 640000 years ago, and that the last supervolcano eruption at Toba 73500 years ago nearly wiped out the human species, this story really shouldn’t be downplayed … then again, if Yellowstone does erupt with another VEI8, there’s very little that can be done, as the scale of the catastrophe will dwarf any other disaster that mankind has ever tackled before … the best that can be hoped for is that this event won’t occur in our lifetimes …
There’s a few errors and oddly-worded phrases in this article which I hope I can clear up.
Yellowstone National Park is not on an active fault margin between two separate tectonic plates. It is a common misconception that earthquakes are clustered exclusively at active margins–this is not true. For example, the New Madrid Seismic Zone at the border between Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas is very far from the nearest active plate boundary, but it caused a devastating 8.0 (Richter) quake in 1812. New Madrid is in fact a “scar” of an old fault that has been reactivated. The series of quakes off the Oregon coast to which you refer is on an active fault boundary; Yellowstone is not.
Also, global warming? The internal heat of the earth that drives plate tectonics (and thus earthquakes and volcanism) is leftover heat from the formation of the earth, the Late Heavy Bombardment, formation of the core, and radiogenic decay. Not from solar radiation. At least there’s ONE thing people can’t mess up. (Dr. Evil enters from stage right)
Global Warming? Are you serious? You’re an idiot.
LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE!
Hey guys, all I’m saying is that I’ve heard it before that global warming may be at fault. In no place did I say it actually was; in fact, I made it clear that the cause was unknown and an anomaly. I’m leaving that up to speculation, which I certainly have enough of!
As for the writing, it’s a blog. It’s supposed to be loose and spark debate and criticism. So thanks!
Hey Amanada,
Don’t feed the animals. That is all.
Apparently, the link between global warming and earthquakes is not as scientifically implausible as some of the above commentators assert. Russell McLendon at the Mother Nature Network points to a 2007 piece at Live Science that suggests possible linkages between warming, earthquakes and volcanoes.
Is the USGS hiding seismogram readings?
I would have been glad not to come on here and share this information.
Yellowstone, Jan. 9 2009, 11:17 am local time, a 3.3 magnitude earthquake was recorded. It was recorded on every monitor in the park. Except one. The monitor LKWY at Yellowstone Lake did not register the quake. Why? Also, the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology webicoders LKWY seismogram graph shows a huge gap in readings today. Why? http://www.seis.utah.edu/req2webdir/recenteqs/Maps/Yellowstone_full.html http://www.seis.utah.edu/helicorder/GIFs/misc/ynpwebcord.gif http://www.seis.utah.edu/helicorder/GIFs/misc/ynpwebcord.gif http://mbmgquake.mtech.edu/earthworm/wavef_disp/welcome.html
If the area at the lake is active why would they have a malfunctioning monitor at this site? It was not working properly during the last few days. The readings stop and start. I don’t want to believe that they are hiding something, but the graphs speak for themselves. What’s going on? Start making inquiries with the USGS and ask why the readings have discrepencies and large gaps in the data. I am not an American citizen, I cannot call up and demand to know what the hell is going on. Check the data and call a reporter if you think they are hiding something. I don’t want to believe it. Check for yourself.
Sincerely,
Robin Marks