2 months of Earthquakes at Yellowstone Super volcano..........whats next??

ongoing earthquake swarm.....The University of Utah Seismograph Stations (USGS) is monitoring an earthquake swarm which is currently active on the western edge of Yellowstone National Park. The swarm began on June 12th, 2017 and, as of 13:00 MDT on August 2nd, 2017, is composed of 1,562 events with the largest magnitude of ML 4.4 (MW 4.4) (Figure 1). The swarm consists of one earthquake in the magnitude 4 range, 8 earthquakes in the magnitude 3 range, 134 earthquakes in the magnitude 2 range, 505 earthquakes in the magnitude 1 range, 879 earthquakes in the magnitude 0 range, and 35 earthquakes with magnitudes of less than zero. These are under estimates... more along the lines of 3 times that total.............................come chat with us for more info....

At some point the super-volcano at Yellowstone will go off, and N.A., and maybe even the world, will have a real shoot storm on their hands, but when considering geological timelines, it's very unlikely that anyone in the near future will have to deal with this. I am grateful for people like you keeping tabs on situations like this (as well as major asteroid collisions etc.), because you never know, but it's certainly not something I'm going to waste my time worrying about.

a reply to: steve95988

Whatever is deep down there is slowly making its way to the surface. Could take another hundred thousand years to get there...

Just my opinion, but these swarms are magma chamber roof collapses. The 'magma chamber' deep below the earths surface produces an over pressure as gas builds in a bubble at the top of the chamber. It may be miles across, with a big cavern overhead. Periodically, sections of the roof collapse into the magma lake producing an earthquake, followed by minor ones in a 'swarm' as more pieces fall in and the lake boils, consuming the collapsed material. As the roof stabilizes after the cave in, the activity dies down until the next 'collapse', the magma chamber slowly climbs to the surface this way, if the heat energy is strong enough from beneath, in the 'Yellow stone hot spot'.

That could take a long time. They can tell how deep these tremors are occurring, the process is long lived, the next eruption could be centuries off.

originally posted by: TruMcCarthy
At some point the super-volcano at Yellowstone will go off, and N.A., and maybe even the world, will have a real shoot storm on their hands, but when considering geological timelines, it's very unlikely that anyone in the near future will have to deal with this. I am grateful for people like you keeping tabs on situations like this (as well as major asteroid collisions etc.), because you never know, but it's certainly not something I'm going to waste my time worrying about.

Lol, I hope you were touching a big slab of wood while you were saying that? Talk about tempting fate or what hey. Just because it doesn't go off very often doesn't mean it can't happen now.

a reply to: steve95988

I don't think there's much cause for alarm. As long as no total solar eclipses pass over the caldera, we should all be ok.

After plotting the data over several hundred quakes, there is a trend in an increase in magnitude of a little more than 1 but depth appears constant. Not sure what this means. May be something to be concerned about.

a reply to: steve95988

MMMM, i especially enjoyed that one, lets see whats next !

Just a solar eclipse..

AHH, time to relax,
and you know what that means,
glass of wine,
your favourite easy chair,
and this compact disc playin' on your home stereo...
Go on, indulge yourself, that's right, kick off your shoes n put your feet up,
lean back and just enjoy the melodies, after all , music soothes even the savage beast...

originally posted by: Slave2theTruth
a reply to: steve95988

I don't think there's much cause for alarm. As long as no total solar eclipses pass over the caldera, we should all be ok.

Folks in my part of Missouri are flipping out about this eclipse. They scream to the heavens that it's going to make the Madrid fault rumble and bring about the end of days. I keep telling them that if the eclipse was to have an effect on the country as it goes over, Yellowstone is far more worrisome than a localized fault line. My boss is a big time religious person and I think I freaked him out with it.

a reply to: Simon_Boudreaux

I think that if we are looking at anything about the eclipse, we are looking later on.

But I have my own private beliefs about what it could mean. I'm still digesting some things I've seen attached to this whole thing and adding in some dreams I had in the past that are now connected, and I'm getting a bit itchy myself.

I`m so worried about it I volunteer to spend as month there studying the park.I`ll fish and watch the animals to be sure they are acting normal-I only need funding-lol.Really,until the ground starts rising by feet a day I`m not worried.

a reply to: steve95988

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't a lot of smaller earthquakes (relatively speaking) a good thing, as that is the earth naturally relieving pressure at a constant rate instead of letting the pressure build up and build up until there is a massive explosion?

It's kind of like human emotions...it's when you see none for a long period of time when you need to start worrying that there's about to be a blow-up.