Whats going on at yellowstone?

Originally posted by SevenandFive

Thanks for that information.

Using the ANSS data, I discovered the number of 2.5 or higher quakes in the *general* Yellowstone area for the decade of the 1980s was 128. The number of 2.5 or higher quakes for the region directly around the lake in the *last 4 days* was 30.

Again, for 2.5 mag or greater quakes:
Entire region of Yellowstone for 10 years = 128 quakes
Area just around Yellowstone Lake last 4 Days = 30 quakes

I wonder how significant those statistics are? They certainly raised my brow!

reply to post by Knobee


Ok, then I'll stick with the first version for future videos.
I think it's got more visual impact than the second one too.

This station is boppin around a bit.

www.quake.utah.edu...

Nothing to see here. It's just the wind, right?

reply to post by logicalview



I was thinking the same thing, which is why I chose to share the information.

At the very least it proves this situation is unique enough to require a more thorough analysis!

reply to post by SevenandFive


Definately agree with you there. I guess the scientists must already have enough new data to keep them busy until next christmas!

Hopefully!

hmmm few stations YPP / YML and others have a gap in the black 8.00 line while LKWY has a tremor there...

Has anyone heard if any top flight seismologists, vulcanologists, or hydrologists have recently been called out to Yellowstone or the Univ of Utah?

Has anyone heard if any park personnel are taking unscheduled leave?

I have been reading this thread for four days...very interesting to say the least. I have some questions if you do not mind answering...

Honestly, if this volcano blows...I have watched the Specials and the Super Volcano movie...there are several things they do not mention...like our nuclear plants...our science labs...there is nothing to protect these places...what happens when these places are destroyed...do bombs go off...and wouldnt all other fault lines react to the enormous blast and seismic activity from this explosion. I believe it would set the world into turbulance. Not just an ash cloud effecting all of us. But tremors and large earthquakes across the US and the rest of the world. Please respond.

I have been reading this thread for four days...very interesting to say the least. I have some questions if you do not mind answering...

Honestly, if this volcano blows...I have watched the Specials and the Super Volcano movie...there are several things they do not mention...like our nuclear plants...our science labs...there is nothing to protect these places...what happens when these places are destroyed...do bombs go off...and wouldnt all other fault lines react to the enormous blast and seismic activity from this explosion. I believe it would set the world into turbulance. Not just an ash cloud effecting all of us. But tremors and large earthquakes across the US and the rest of the world. Please respond.

Originally posted by MoronMan
This station is boppin around a bit.

www.quake.utah.edu...

Nothing to see here. It's just the wind, right?

The wind is blowing at 7mph from the west.

Originally posted by BOTOH
Has anyone heard if any top flight seismologists, vulcanologists, or hydrologists have recently been called out to Yellowstone or the Univ of Utah?

Has anyone heard if any park personnel are taking unscheduled leave?

What I want to know is what's the animal behavior like!

I have seen blogs and forums with posts of bears out of hibernation and deer moving north. Nothing on park officials.

It's all kind of heresy at this point.

reply to post by Knobee

Thanks for the heads-up about that AK quake. It hasn't shown up on the USGS maps as yet.

To keep this germane to the topic and to answer your query, theoretically it would take around 8 or 9 minutes for the P waves from that quake to travel to Yellowstone. Just to illustrate, go to this mag 4.6 in Alaska, click on the "Scientific and Technical" tab then in the new page click on "Theoretical P-Wave Travel Times" and you'll get a world map showing the times. Very useful bit of data.

Regards,

Mike

I worked some math on the water outflow data. The issue is we don't know if increased flow volume is heat of deformation related.

If it is deformation we have gained a flow on average of about 20 cubic feet of water per second since the events started. That translates into roughly 45 cubic yards per minute. (Volume of ~5 standard dump trucks)

If you look at the Saint Helens dome building event of the past couple of years it was running roughly 9 cubic yards per minute when it was flowing clear. Ocasionally it would back up for several hours and then have a burp as the presure released.

My guess is this is not all deformation and heat could be escaping to the surface. At Saint Helens USGS extensivly used FLIR gear to pinpoint activity. The problem at Yellowstone for FLIR is how do you look through a frozen and snowcovered lake that is goging to return a near constant temp. You would have to go out on the ice drill and drop temperture sensors to detect what is really happening at the bottom of the lake.

I didn't find a direct link to a picture of one of the stations in earlier pages, but there are allot.

The link is to a picture of estentially the bunker LKWY is housed in.

Picture of LKWY

reply to post by BOTOH


There is this....

www.abovetopsecret.com...'


As for the animal behavior, that many have brought up.... Just a thought, but perhaps we have a bit of tunnel vision. We are all looking for the right now. Something as big as Yellowstone would have those animals acting weird a long time ago. Animals usually get things way before we do. So why dont we look at the past year or two as a whole and see if there are any differences there. Not just restricting ourselves to Yellowstone, but the entire would-be-effected area. Birds, bears, and mountain lions have been in the news a lot the past two years for instance.

reply to post by logicalview

That data sounds highly significant. However, while I think we're all agreed that what's happening now in Yellowstone is quite out of the ordinary, I think we also need to bear in mind that back in the 80's there were probably not as many helicorder stations in place in that region (or elsewhere) as there are now. I say "probably" and am happy to be corrected, but if my assumption is correct, then less stations would likely mean less quakes would get picked up. Even so, there is no doubt that this ongoing event in Yellowstone is probably the most significant activity there in some years.

On the subject of significance, I mentioned earlier that I've been looking at any correlations between discharge (outflow) from Yellowstone Lake and the activity on the helicorders in the park, especially those three around the lake and also YML, and there sure seems to be a significant increase in discharge at the times when that activity went "Pollock" on the helicorders.

Right now my head is splitting and tablets aren't doing much, so I'll have to leave the work on making a set of tables/graphs until I can see straight. If anyone else has some time and the inclination, check out the real-time water discharge data here and see what you can make of it. If you prefer to use the tabulated numbers (cu. ft/second discharge), then you can find them here.

Summary for anyone who'd like it: the peak outflow from Yellowstone lake has occurred at just prior to midnight on Dec 29, then at around 7p.m. on Dec 31, and finally today at about 2.15 a.m (which was the greatest outflow of all), with tapering off and increasing between those times. A look at the helicorders for those days will show you what I mean by correlation -- and not with the number of individual quakes, but that (possibly) harmonic activity that gives what we have come to call a "Pollock" trace.

There's no way the wind did it... The lake surface is covered in ice I should think as it's minus 18 deg Celsius there now, and ditto no influx of rain. So most likely, something within the lake's topography is making that water egress.

Anywho I need a break. Catch you later, folks.

Mike

Just had a look at the latest water table information for Yellowstone River at Yellowstone Lk Outlet YNP and there is a definate upward trend in both discharge and height of the water table which would be consistent with a displacement theory regarding the "bulge".

Slightly off topic but nonetheless, seeing as how we are dealing with "Mother Earth" can we call the "bulge" the "Lady of the Lake" it sounds a little more, i guess romantic, rather than "The Bulge" hehe sorry guys it's a girl thing

reply to post by mrsdudara


Good point.

That would be interesting to find out.

Does anybody know what studies have been conducted wrt animal behavior and earthquake/volcanic activity.

Is there a specific level of activity or threshold before animals sense or react to it? Or is it something else entirely?

Neat, our collective conscience seems to be moving in the same way as observed in the last few posts.

Well one of the nice things about monitoring two different networks (TA in Gee and WY from the UoU seismographs) is that when one of the WY goes screwy, and there is not a corresponding event in Gee, then you can reasonably ascertain that it is a malfunction of some kind in the WY recorder. So that's why anything like that doesn't phase me anymore, when I check the corresponding time location in Gee and there is nothing.

After reading a pretty good bit more (and thanks to all you guys providing links) it has become clear that any major quake (6.0+) up to 1200 km away from Yellowstone may have an interactive effect with the caldera, and could potentially cause much further damage. So we better hope and pray this does not happen. And interestingly, the Aleutian Islands, Alaska have been very active lately, with several 3.0+ quakes. And the activity in the California area is notable as well.

The effects of dynamic interaction of such an event may not be evident for years though, so if one does happen close by it doesn't necessarily mean that Yellowstone is going to erupt. It will not likely help matters any though, and the effects could be evident immediately to days, weeks or years. So that is one thing concerning me right now: watching out for other large events within that 1200 km zone while there is clearly a disturbance of some kind going on at Yellowstone. The most worrisome to me would be a large event (6.0+) anywhere within a 100 mile radius as far as immediate dynamic interaction is concerned.

Another possibility is dynamic interaction with the known faults that lie close by. Should the activity at the caldera trigger or upset one of those faults, it is possible then that a fault based quake could occur, which would then by sheer intensity pose a threat to the nearby caldera- potentially rupturing something that would otherwise stay intact. So there's certainly a lot to consider, and much much more than this.

While volcanologists ponder the meaning of this swarm, a larger event within that perimeter may initially be overlooked as to significance. They are no doubt monitoring gas emissions as well as ground deformation and other factors. So far from what I have gathered, there is not enough correlating evidence, other than the swarm, that indicate an imminent eruption- and therefore the reason they have not raised the alert level. But another problem is that the unique location of this swarm underneath the lake poses some unknowns.

Also, so did anyone get a good explanation of how to quickly convert from amplitude in microns/sec into Richter magnitude? Maybe RussianScientists could offer up an explanation.

When the last 2.7 hit, I noticed in Gee that at H17A the scales on the left had to expand to 100 to display the wave. When the 2.5 hit shortly thereafter, the scales expanded to 80. So as long as any new quake hits in that same area close by, it is reasonable to assume that the scale needs to show at least 100 if the magnitude is beyond 2.7. Makes me wonder what the 3.9 looked like, and how far it expanded the scale.

[edit on 2-1-2009 by TrueAmerican]