Whats going on at yellowstone?

reply to post by cbxer55


I just tried it and it seems to be working and show a live view.

For some reason, it is not working for me! Hmmmmm?

anyone noticed that the webicorders are a lot less sensitive??

YDC was 50 mv, now 800 mv
YHB was 83.33 mv, now 1333.33 mv
YMC was 100 mv, now 1600 mv
YMR was 125 mv, now 2000 mv
MCID was 100 mv, now 1600 mv
YHH was 83.33 mv, now 1333.33 mv
YFT was 125 mv, now 2000 mv
YPP was 50 mv, now 800 mv
YMV was 100 mv, now 1600
YNR was 166.67 mw, now 166.67 (unchanged)
YML was 100 mv, now 1600 mv
YLT was 66.67 mw, now 1066.55 mv
YUF was 1428.67 mw, now 1428.67 (unchanged)
LKWY was 500 mw, now 8000 mv (!)
YJC was 83.33 mv, now 1333.33 mv
YLA was 100 mv, now 1600 mv
YTP was 100 mv, now 1600 mv
YSB was 83.33 mv, now 1333.33 mv
YMP was 66.67 mw, now 1066.67mv
YPK was 166.67 mw, now 166.67 mv (unchanged)

sensitivity 16 times less for 17 stations ???

Are they expecting something big?

reply to post by Caveman122


You're right about the new webicorder charts. Some of them didn't even register the 7 magnitude quake this morning. Usually the Old Faithful shows the waves prominently.

Maybe they're still tweeking them. But you never know. Maybe you should email the USGS and ask them to explain.

And 4 more new webicorders:

YWB, YBM, YMS and YPC shown on www.isthisthingon.org.
However not available on the www.quake.utah.edu... site

In the news today. Something already talked about on this thread but now it's in mainstream news



New Supervolcano

I'll start getting ready for the magma death -- DC literally collapsing right away

reply to post by Caveman122
This makes me angry!!! What is the reasone for this??? Why don't they give some kind of explanation???? It really makes me think something is being coverd up!!! I have read the thread since day 1 and a lot of good info has come out of it. A while back I saw a site listed under the old faithfull web cam that said all info from yellowstone runs through the white house before being released to the public. I cant find it anymore.Has anyone else seen this?

reply to post by Blibitz


Well, maybe we know more at 1 november when they come out with a new update on volcanoes.usgs.gov...

I think the usgs or the utah university has the right to change without notification, but it would be better when they left a message or somekind.

For the moment the webicorders are still changing. For example: LKWY back to 500 mv and YFT back to 125 mv. Didn't check out the others.

The four new webicorders I reported are now gone again?? Whats even more odd is that i cant find them anymore on www.isthisthingon.org.

I'am sure there were four new stations but not showing any data...

reply to post by Caveman122


Being a bit concerned about the recalibration myself, I wrote an email to a couple of the YVO scientists to ask why they did this. Following is the complete exchange (contact info deleted):

My question:

Hello Esteemed Gentlemen,

Many of us were wondering why recently most of the Yellowstone Webicorder displays were calibrated down to such a low sensitivity. Rather than speculate, it would be nice to know why, if either of you would be so kind as to enlighten us. Thanks much!

The reply:

We are happy to answer your inquiry.

I presume you are asking about the amplification scale of our Yellowstone webicorders. In which case their amplifications have not been changed. The amplification value depends on multiple factors including the sensitivity and amplification of the seismometers, amplification of the telemetry and recording systems, ground noise including geothermal, human and wind induced noise, etc. that all lead to what we call the system sensitivity and related magnification. And on occasion station signals are lost due various technical glitches that we fix as soon as possible.

The Yellowstone area as you may expect has a high level of natural noise related to ground shaking from the widespread geothermal features. Thus each station is tuned, like an AM/FM radio station, to show the best signal keeping in mind that we want provide images of small and larger earthquakes that do not go off scale on the recording system.

In more detail, calibrations of display systems depend the amplification levels set on the preamp, seismometers, etc., that depend on natural ground noise conditions. Then the amplification levels are set on the webicorders for optimum viewing and implicitly take into account the system calibration. This means that each station webicorder is tuned to its own condition.

An example of our seismic station metadata with sensor information can be seen from:

www.quake.utah.edu...

Station metadata and quality information including calibration response can be accessed in a station by station mode at:

www.quake.utah.edu...

This information is required to manage the network in terms of calibration data for all stations and display of such data, but it is in technical seismology terminology.

The bottom line is that if we turn up a station magnification it may cause loss or over saturation of a signal from larger the daily earthquakes. Thus our staff works at keeping the webicorder at optimum levels for best fidelity over the average daily magnitude range expected for a specific station.

Hope that helps.

I'll leave you all to interpret what you want from that exchange, but to me it is interesting that daily expectations of activity play a role here in determining at what display sensitivity they choose. Why? Because I can't recall that being an issue before. We watched those webicorders all through the January swarm, and there were ongoing discussions about that in this thread. Anyone ever remember seeing the calibrations change before to that extent? Especially in LKWY's case, from 500 mv to 8000 mv??? I don't.

So yeah, I thought that was pretty strange alright.

That seems to me a very generic reply which doesn't really answer your question. I don't remember any webicorder changing vertical scale in the last 10 months since the end of the Yellowstone Lake earthquake swarm.

[edit on 2009-10-29 by Shirakawa]

reply to post by Shirakawa


Well, I think I remember one or two changing, but it was nothing like what just happened. The changes were minor.

I agree it was a bit vague. Have to really wonder if they are, or were, expecting bigger quakes to start happening. Otherwise, why would they decrease the sensitivity that far? Clearly they are concerned about over saturation of the webicorder displays. And that means to me that they changed them to accommodate bigger quakes. Dunno. *shrug*

ummm...that article that was just releases was a little mind blowing.
what the heck??
we have an electromagnetic anamoly under Washington state???
The Southern Washington Cascades Conductor.
WTF?? I never heard anything like that outside of LOST.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


The previous scaling for most webicorders seemed fine to me, though. Webicorders appeared to clip data (they probably did, but not by much), but that's mainly because data from seismometers is already clipped (if you've catched big earthquakes on GEE from WY network seismometers you have probably seen that their signals appear saturated for several seconds, then slowly decay) probably because of the limited range of the analog telemetry used by them.

So increasing the vertical scaling of webicorders seems to me a bit strange. Seismic data will still appear clipped. The difference is that now smaller signals will be hard to see, if at all.

[edit on 2009-10-29 by Shirakawa]

Originally posted by Shirakawa
The difference is that now smaller signals will be hard to see, if at all.

Yeah true, but I would guess only on the webicorders. In GEE, everything still appears the same, although given that reply from YVO, they may have changed the sensitivity of the system as a whole for some or all of the stations.

If they did though, it was probably only for the US and WY networks. Maybe IW too, but I am pretty sure the TA network stations are displaying the same. And the reason I feel that way is the TA network strives to provide a consistently calibrated and uniform array with similar sensitivities. Something I always liked about their network.

do I detect an swarm in california right now???????

How long do earthquake aftershocks last?

Well according to this article at least 200 years. The Mississippi Valley is still reeling from the 8.0 New Madrid EQs that struck the central US between December 1811 and February 1812. Aftershocks as large as 5.2 were felt in 2008.

Recent Midwest Quakes Called Aftershocks from 1800s

www.livescience.com...

[edit on 4-11-2009 by manotick]

YS is too quiet this week for my likeing . and i dont like the fact that shes stopped uplifting her ground as well.
could this be the calm before the storm ?

At HLWY uplift deformation appears to have stopped, but on nearby stations LKWY, HVWY and P716, after a brief period of downlift following the 2008/2009 Lake EQ swarm, it appears to be currently continuing at a rate similar, if not higher, to that of past two years.

I don't think it's the calm before the storm, but it will be interesting to see how things will develop over next months. Note that the uplift began in 2004 and apparently recently stopped has been one of the fastest ever recorded since Yellowstone has been monitored.

[edit on 2009-11-5 by Shirakawa]

www.seis.utah.edu...


3.0 today .
for those who care .