Whats going on at yellowstone?

reply to post by quakewatcher


yeah , it must be an avalanche !!!! I had already forgot about them

reply to post by meagerhair


where can a person find this borehole info online ... ???

I am quite familiar with Yellowstone having been there five times for certain that I remember. As a result, the hydrology is better known and more readily understood. I have been concerned about the increasing outflow ever since it was initially noticed and I automatically assumed that it was due to uplift or fluid being introduced from beneath the surface as no other sources are reasonable to assume at this time of year.
Just now I decided to do a little math on the subject and I find that with a surface area of 131 square miles and the increased flow being 108cu ft/sec over the mean, it would take 32.6 days to lower the lake one inch. On the other hand, if the increased outflow was due solely to uplift, that would mean that the entire lake bottom was rising at the rate of 1" in 32.6 days or .0306 inches per day. If only 1/10 of the lake bottom was rising it would be doing so at the rate of .306" per day, and if only one square mile of the lake floor was rising it would have to do so at the rate of 4.008 " per day. HMMMMM!!
Interesting too that the lake water level gage height has increased approximately .9 inches during the last seven days.

On the other hand, water expands as it is converted to ice (that's why ice floats) yet the ice only displaces it's weight in water in doing so. I will let someone else analyze the volumetric displacement of replacing a cubic foot of water with it's equivalent weight of water after having been converted to the form of ice. When the analysis is completed then explain why the historical charts demonstrate that it doesn't increase the flow.


Although it may have been previously posted, here is a link to a study on "Natural Variability in Annual Maximum Water Level and Outflow of Yellowstone Lake" it is directed toward maximum outflow rate and lake elevation, but it also provides freeze up and ice-out dates.

It's long past bed time for an old geezer so "Nite Yogy and Nite ALL".



[edit on 11-1-2009 by Old Farmer]

reply to post by PuterMan

Thank you , For all your wonderful graphs
Your work is most impressive.

heres another strange thing maybe others have noticed...seems us.lkwy went out on the 8th?...check out these on the 8th then notice alot of 9th readings are weird also...

mbmgquake.mtech.edu...

All of this talk about stream flows into and out of Yellowstone Lake made me think that this information might be useful to everyone:

Yellowstone Lake freezes over completely in winter, with ice thicknesses varying from a few inches to more than two feet. The lake's basin has an estimated capacity of 12,095,264 acre-feet of water. Because its annual outflow is about 1,100,000 acre-feet, the lake's water is completely replaced only about every eight to ten years. Since 1952, the annual water level fluctuation has been less than six feet.

From here:
www.yellowstoneparknet.com...

Also, because I believe this came up a few pages back, everyone should note that the Yellowstone River begins in the high country to the south of Yellowstone Lake, passes through the lake, then exits the lake at its north end, and then makes its way roughly north, then turns to the east on its way down towards Billings.

So Billings is quite far downstream from Yellowstone Lake.

The elevation at Yellowstone Lake is about 7,733 feet while Billings has an elevation of around 3126 feet. So river flow rates at Billings would consist of not only what leaves Yellowstone Lake, but all of the streams that enter the river between Yellowstone Lake and Billings.

I just wanted to be sure everyone was clear about which direction things are flowing there.

Here is some interesting information about outflow from Yellowstone Lake over the years:

www.georgewright.org...


Underwater Domains in Yellowstone Lake Hydrothermal Vent Geochemistry and Bacterial Chemosynthesis:

www.georgewright.org...


Some figures about the lake:

www.yellowstonepark.com...

With this tidbit:

141 Streams that flow into Yellowstone Lake. The Yellowstone River is the largest inflow and only outflow to the lake.

All of this thinking about Yellowstone has made me more anxious to get back up there again. It's an amazing area and it's been too long since our family has gone.

My father spent a lot of time there during college. He did surveying during summers there. Something I appreciate now more than I did in the past is his encyclopedic knowledge of the area.

I'm ashamed to admit that I know so little about the geography there. He'd be able to answer virtually all of the questions that have been raised about much of this. His mind is like a virtual GPS of all of Wyoming.

I've read in your first link that Yellowstone lake completely freezes over in winter. What I'm wondering is if at the moment the lake surface is frozen, and if it isn't, if is it normal for it to not freeze sometimes?

Maybe we need a "What's Going on at the Geysers?" (CA) thread. There's been quite a swarm there, really picked up in the last hour. USGS doesn't have a special map for the area, it's getting hard to pick out the individual quakes since they're popping up one right on top of the other.

quake.usgs.gov...

Another point that might need to be pointed out, is that in the last few years they have seen many smaller lakes and streams disappear. The USGS and UofU have had an ongoing study of the rapid decrease in the smaller lakes and streams due to "ground heat" causing a more rapid loss of the waters and habitat for the wildlife.
I was poking around trying to find data about the loss of the many species of frogs and salamanders ( post from mod about a UC Berkley students findings over several summers) I found the reports of the findings where mixed in with some of the ones on the larger lakes. They where wondering if the steady loss of the smaller lakes and streams was going to cause more problems over at the LKWY lake areas. Some of the smaller streams up from Yellowstone may not actually be there now, unless you are on a "very" up to date map the data might be wrong. I think the most recent one is from this past July of 2008.

reply to post by quakewatcher


I live an hour and a half south of the Calistoga geysers it actually has done that MANY times in the past. The geyser they have there is always setting off recorders. Also it tends to spout off more when it gets really cold here and its 32 and dropping outside right now.


to add: had son go look its 29 out right now, hub said its only 40 minutes we just have to drive through the mountains so seems farther.

[edit on 11-1-2009 by xoxo stacie]

[edit on 11-1-2009 by xoxo stacie]

reply to post by quakewatcher


If it's going to continue maybe it's better to start a new thread.
By the way, we can always use the Google Earth Earthquake layer kml file from USGS, which is automatically updated every 5 minutes:

reply to post by geogeek


Somewhere back a "few" pages this info was posted I think.
I can't find it to save my life!
Here is some info that might help track it down.
These are the instruments used:
www.earthscope.org...

Everyone there are great links for this thread in another thread here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Great Work!



[edit on 11-1-2009 by dodadoom]

reply to post by Shirakawa


I really wish we could find that out! From what I gather,
usually by the middle of this month it's froze over.
I also heard a report things will be monitored from the
air when conditions allow.
I'm anxious to SEE whats going on there too!
Wonder how hard it would be to get in there...hmm

Or even some see some current pics!??
Maps/Road Reports and Winter Schedule is here:
www.nps.gov...

Edit to add more idle thinking:
You could drive in from Gardiner, then maybe catch a ride
somehow in to the lake, that may be a long shot.
Possibly rent some ski-doos. (snowmoblies are regulated)
Lake may be closed to everyone right now, not sure.
There sure are alot of people out here that are wondering
what in the blanks going on there though! IMHO
Please for heavens sake if you go there be smart and
obey park rules, they are there to save your keister!
It's not a little place, it can be an extremelly harsh and unforgiven
wilderness as many of these states can be in the winter. BE SAFE!


[edit on 11-1-2009 by dodadoom]

Originally posted by Shirakawa somewhere a few dozen pages ago
Actually a 1-bit (black and white) or even 2 bit (4 color) compressed PNG image would do the job with many less bandwidth problems if you're going to make a mimalistic map of Yellowstone park with just the outlines. Just try and see, you will be surprised at the filesize. PNG is better than GIF by the way (and intended as its substitute), I wonder why you haven't switched!

I tried both PNG with max compression and plain ol' GIF. The GIF looks the same and is half the size (153K). Anyway, it's ready, but the positioning is sensitive to font size. If you set your browser's "text zoom" to normal, the thumbnails should fall right onto the right spots on the background. And for those of you wondering what I'm talking about, it's the seismometer thumbnails page on my site. The background shows the fault map now; I just hope the fairly-advanced CSS works for everybody.

I should take this opportunity to evangelize a bit about the GoogleEarth™ KML exporter built into my quake display page. If you have GoogleEarth™ on your computer, and if not why not, you can just click a link and get a floating 3-D map of, say, all the quakes in the latest swarm. You just set the report options, submit it, then click the GoogleEarth™ link and open it with GoogleEarth™. The various elements can be turned on or off; each provides insight into various aspects of the quakes, like its rough epicenter (their data's not all that accurate or regularly-updated), lines showing the chronological order they happened in, and different sizes and colors depending on magnitude. It's a little overwhelming with all of the layers on at once, so mix and match to your heart's content. Twirl it around, zoom in and out, look at it from below and above. I think it's one of the best ways to visualize quakes on the web; it exists, in fact, because I couldn't find any interactive 3-D quake viewer out there (despite all the tax money that goes to the guys who are supposed to use it to develop handy toys like that for us). Curiosity is invention's other mother...

Originally posted by Thought Provoker
I tried both PNG with max compression and plain ol' GIF. The GIF looks the same and is half the size (153K).

I think you forgot to decrease color depth. PNG outputs by default to 24 bit format, while GIF is 8 bit.
I tried to convert (using Irfanview) a 91.1 KB seismograph trace (from a calm station from yesterday) to a 6 color compressed PNG file and the result was a 60.5 KB image with exactly the same image quality and colors. Ok, size decrease is not as dramatic as I thought, but it's not bad for a lossless copy of the same image. In black/white, filesize decreases to 41.7 KB. The more white space (or better, areas of the same color) there is, the smaller is the resulting file.

Anyway, it's ready, but the positioning is sensitive to font size. If you set your browser's "text zoom" to normal, the thumbnails should fall right onto the right spots on the background. And for those of you wondering what I'm talking about, it's the seismometer thumbnails page on my site. The background shows the fault map now; I just hope the fairly-advanced CSS works for everybody.

Well that's good nough for me, good job

I should take this opportunity to evangelize a bit about the GoogleEarth™ KML exporter built into my quake display page. If you have GoogleEarth™ on your computer, and if not why not, you can just click a link and get a floating 3-D map of [...]

Thanks for the tool, I'll check it out.

[edit on 2009/1/11 by Shirakawa]

www.ngs.noaa.gov...

Looking at the GPS data in the mountains N of Yellowstone lake, it almost appears to coincide with outflow data. Perhaps the whole area is continuously tilting back and forth as the North American plate slowly moves to the SW over the stationary hot spot. We already know that the caldera rises and falls. If you look at the height sample closely from around the 30th of Dec., it almost directly correlates with the outflow data.

Again, there certainly may be other factors to explain the sudden deviation from the 79 year mean that I'm not understanding correctly. Perhaps precipitation, and melting of snow from underneath accounts for the increase. For now we can just assume this coincidental observation is just a wild speculative guess. You can also see that the long term outflow average starts to make an up-turn around the 8th of Jan. Another week , or so, should give a better picture of what happens this time of year. Maybe the snow just came a little early.





waterdata.usgs.gov...





Geology and earth changes is a subject I'll never tire of, and there's been a heap of great information added to this thread. Everyone that reads it is sure to come away with something. For those of you who feel the need to jump in mid-stream and tell everyone to calm down, I suggest you read through it a bit more, you'll find out that nobody's jumping up and down in a panic.



Peace

reply to post by quakewatcher


its a big hydrothermal generation area (as U know ).. has a lot of earthquakes, and always has had, at least since I have been watching the earthquake websites in say 1998ish ... the people in USGS California, when I queried them years ago said basically SNSRS (situation normal, situation remains the same ) ; as u know its magma related ,,,, with some older volcanic features on south WEST side of Clear Lake; non recent

I also recall the USGS person also telling me that there was a gold-mining operation ongoing in the immediate area( perhaps she also said that the gold deposits were related to Hydrothermal deposition ... not clear to me (so far away in time now) whether she was implying that the gold mining operation was generating some of the seismic noise or not)

[edit on 11/1/09 by geogeek]

[edit on 11/1/09 by geogeek]

[edit on 11/1/09 by geogeek]

[edit on 11/1/09 by geogeek]

Originally posted by Shirakawa
I think you forgot to decrease color depth. PNG outputs to default to 24 bit format, while GIF is 8 bit.

Hmmm... optimizing indexed palette... now the PNG is 111K. Hey, I'll take all the bandwidth savings I can get; thanks...

Well that's good nough for me, good job

Thanks again. I wish I had time to work on these tools full-time; it's fun...

reply to post by lernmore


The "panic" part reminds me of something I put on the front page of the Yellowstoner. I'm sure almost nobody looks at the front page of it, so I'd like to share it here...

Every time there's a swarm of quakes, half the world starts worrying and the other half tells them to shut up about it already. Every time so far, the worrying has led nowhere, because nothing bad ended up happening. However, when it finally does blow (and it will), the symptoms leading up to it will look exactly like these swarm incidents that worry everyone so much, but perhaps a bit larger and stronger, and we'll warn everyone that time too, but they still won't listen. What does it matter if the skeptics are right 999,999 times out of a million? That one time that they're wrong will be the worst day of everyone's life. We're right to worry. We're right to keep a close eye on it, and on the Long Valley caldera, which too many people simply ignore because Yellowstone's got more star recognition. It's very likely, since they're connected way down deep somewhere, that when one of them goes, they both will. Imagine two supervolcanoes erupting at once so close together. Even one such eruption would change everything on earth. Damn right we worry, and maybe us doing it will save a few skeptics' lives someday because of the warning we'll provide. So stop trying to keep us from saving you, because the "experts" sure won't. Their only purpose, it seems, is to prevent panic, and no warnings will be forthcoming from them even when it actually happens. Your best hope is to watch this space and spaces like it for the only warning you're likely to get, and try to enjoy life in the meantime. There won't be much enjoyment afterwards.

Originally posted by Hx3_1963
heres another strange thing maybe others have noticed...seems us.lkwy went out on the 8th?...check out these on the 8th then notice alot of 9th readings are weird also...

mbmgquake.mtech.edu...

i still maintain that the solar panel got covered in snow and cannot maintain much charge in LKWYs battery ... note that in the last image the recorder went dead at 4:00 pm... just about sundown .... this phenomena is very common in geophone/remote instrment installations in nothern N.A. ...
some stations in Northern Canada/Alaska basically die for part of the winter because on the short daylight hours ... and long drain time @ night .... snow on the solar panels .. low angle of panel to the sun [(in winter) panel is optimized for a Sun higher in the sky ... which it isn't in winter]

[edit on 11/1/09 by geogeek]