Helium 4 levels at yellowstone, are they cause for concern?

I have googled and read several scientific articles about how higher than normal levels of helium being released at a volcano can be a strong indicator of an upcoming eruption. Some say this is then most accurate predictor/ warning sign we have....

Yellowstone is currently expelling much higher levels of helium than usual.

Should we be worried?


I will include links in a min....coming soon

Ppl can just google helium and volcanic eruption if interested in meantime....

Do you have a link to a site that posts that data so the rest of us can look at it?

I don't really think it's going to blow it's top that a personal feeling not based on data, but that feeling only spans for a week or so. We've been getting lot more data in that area with all kinds of activity. I'm not sure if this is due to an up in activity in the area itself or just a result of having better equipment and more people looking.

I live about 500 miles from Yellowstone. I comfort myself that as long as she is belching, she won't blow a big one.

Yellowstone sits on a volcanic hotspot, and is well known for its geothermal features such as hot springs and geysers, where water heated by underlying magma is forced up through the surface, along with a mixture of gases. Among these is helium-4 – an isotope of helium produced by the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium in the Earth’s crust. Jacob Lowenstern and colleagues from the US Geological Survey, who were monitoring volcanic activity in the park, calculated that about 60 tons of helium is released every year. This is hundreds of times faster than helium-4 is generated in the crust, and the team say vast stores of the gas could have been building up underground for hundreds of millions – perhaps billions – of years. They estimate the gas began to escape around two million years ago during a series of volcanic eruptions. Despite helium’s scarcity, the researchers say it is unlikely that the gas released in Yellowstone could be harvested and put to use, as it is within a protected area and commercial extraction would not be economically viable.

Im not sure about the source, looks legit to me.

Yellowstone H4

reply to post by rapunzel222


Very hard to say as the latest models show super volcanoes have a different eruptive process to normal volcanoes. It is worth remembering though that even if Yellowstone does erupt, then the overwhelming odds are on a normal eruption rather than a super volcanic eruption - and, generally speaking. volcanic eruptions are not that costly in terms of lives lost.

Therefore perhaps the higher Helium levels suggest there may be a normal eruptive phase coming - or perhaps processes further down the volcano's plumbing have fractured rocks containing higher levels of Helium, hence the higher readings.

What is going on at Yellowstone? #2
Good ATS thread for current Yellowstone info.
PS: Don't worry about the helium 4, it is a non-issue. Been happening for years.

butcherguy
PS: Don't worry about the helium 4, it is a non-issue. Been happening for years.

edit on bu302014-04-09T08:23:56-05:0008America/ChicagoWed, 09 Apr 2014 08:23:56 -05008u14 by butcherguy because: (no reason given)

Yes, 200 million years they say...but the point of the concern now is that it's releasing "hundreds if not thousands of times more gas than they anticipated."

In a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey determined that the famed national park was releasing hundreds -- if not thousands -- of times more helium than anticipated.