Located within Yellowstone National Park in the northwest corner of Wyoming, Yellowstone Caldera, also known as the Yellowstone Supervolcano, is an active volcanic caldera. The site was home to three massive super-eruptions over the last 2. The magma in this plume contains gases that are kept dissolved by the immense pressure under which the magma is contained.
If the pressure is released to a sufficient degree by some geological shift, then some of the gases bubble out and cause the magma to expand. This can cause a chain reaction: if the expansion results in further relief of pressure, for example, by blowing crust material off the top of the chamber, the result is a very large gas explosion. The Earth is rumbling beneath Yellowstone National Park again, with swarms of more than 1, earthquakes recorded in the region in July , according to a new U.
This is the most seismic activity the park has seen in a single month since June , when a swarm of more than 1, rattled the area, the report said. Fortunately, these earthquakes were minor ones, with only four temblors measuring in the magnitude-3 range strong enough to be felt, but unlikely to cause any damage — and none of the quakes signal that the supervolcano underneath the park is likely to blow, park seismologists said.
Related: Rainbow Basin: Photos of Yellowstone's colorful grand prismatic hot spring. Throughout July , the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, which are responsible for monitoring and analyzing quakes in the Yellowstone park region, recorded a total of 1, earthquakes in the area. These quakes came in a series of seven swarms, with the most energetic event occurring on July According to the USGS, at least quakes rattled the ground deep below Yellowstone Lake that day, including a magnitude The month's remaining six swarms were all smaller, including between 12 and 40 earthquakes apiece, all measuring below magnitude 3, the report said.
Fortunately, with improvements in the Yellowstone monitoring network since , we could learn even more from similar swarms that might occur in the future. Each Yellowstone earthquake swarm is unique, lasting minutes to weeks and including a few to thousands of earthquakes that might or might not move around over time.
With long-term investments in seismic and deformation monitoring, we continue to learn more about the Yellowstone system by studying this common form of seismicity! Yellowstone, like many regions with hydrothermal activity, often exhibits earthquake swarms. But how do we define an earthquake swarm and distinguish it from other seismic activity? And what is the cause of such swarms. In June of , an earthquake swarm began beneath the western edge of Yellowstone National Park, just east of Hebgen Lake.
This swarm proved to be one of the more persistent swarms observed in Yellowstone, with the main episode lasting more than 3 months and producing thousands of recorded earthquakes. When earthquake swarms happen at Yellowstone, we receive a lot of questions about whether the volcano is headed toward eruption.
The swarm in June garnered the same reaction, so let's take a look back at what we learned from the previous swarm in , about 20 km SSE of the June activity. University of Utah researchers recently published two new articles in the journal Geophysical Research Letters that emphasize the active nature of the Yellowstone volcanic and hydrothermal system. As of January 8, , the seismic activity has markedly decreased. Skip to main content. Search Search.
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