Whats going on at yellowstone?

Well is anyone near Yellowstone? U2U me
TrueAmerican,.. your source is out also,. Yeah I know this is said to be non- concerning. but whats the logical reason.. weekend maint??

Originally posted by Lil Drummerboy
Well is anyone near Yellowstone? U2U me
TrueAmerican,.. your source is out also,. Yeah I know this is said to be non- concerning. but whats the logical reason.. weekend maint??

Well, if I had to guess, the PB network is either undergoing maintenance, or got slammed so hard from our publishing ways to get to it on this thread that the server crashed with so many hits. Also could be they decided to pull it, seeing as it has become a primary source of information for the USGS as PB.B207 is probably the closest station to the swarm, along with YMR. I frankly really do not know. We'll see if it comes back up in the next day or two. In the meantime, YPM and YWB, with further corroboration from all other available stations is just going to have to do.

Whoa. Holy crap. Now that, coming in right now on GEE on multiple stations is looking like a low level HT to me. First time I have actually seen one in GEE that matches the very sigs we are talking about on all stations. Umm, ummm.... Stay tuned folks, let's hope these don't start becoming more frequent.

Also, I just got in a couple of PB stations, but not PB.B207 yet.



ETA: Yup, just got back PB.B207 too, so we're back up! Yay. Interestingly, if that or those were indeed HT's, they don't seem to be coming from the same location as the swarm.

[edit on Sun Jan 24th 2010 by TrueAmerican]

reply to post by TrueAmerican


That's what I was asking about somewhere around 15 minutes ago. Looked unusual to my untrained eye though...

Can anyone explain this to me?

www.quake.utah.edu...

To me those certainly look like harmonic tremors to me

Yes, the signature that starts just after 22:52 is another, smaller blob very similar to the earlier one I noted.

I found it on stations all over the park, probably the strongest at YMR and that's not particularly strong.
(I prefer to refer to them as "blobs" right now for piece of mind.)

Ummmm...there's a lot stuff going on with B207 right now. I am having a hard time getting to 'settle down' .....seems like it's trying to filter or something?

Should I have any fear of eruption? With 900+ Earthquakes that must be a sign of something going on... maybe not an eruption.

Well, look at the bright side of things... Even if they are HT's, it may be an indication of some magma on the move finding new caverns, but as weak and infrequent as they are, I doubt they are going to alert over just this. They can subside and disappear just like the swarms. And they probably will. Mega huge place that park is. But you can bet your sweet buns those have got to be raising some eyebrows right about now at the YVO and USGS, even as small as they are.

I tried YVO, real slow loading, finally came in, but no update:

volcanoes.usgs.gov...

Originally posted by Robin Marks
reply to post by RickinVa

 

Lets check our history books and see if the largest swarm ever recorded was affected by the moon.

It started slowly on Oct 85 after a few minor quakes over the first days. The action really picked up on on the 12th, in three days on the 15th the moon was at perigee and there is a peak of earthquakes. The quakes continue for a few weeks at a lower intensity. This lasts until Nov11/12 when there is another spike in activity. November 12 1985 had a new moon at maximum perigee. November 12 1985 had a total solar eclipse as well. At that moment Yellowstone was experiencing a spike in activity. The quakes carried on for many more weeks in decreasing intensity.

The swarm of 1985 happened when the caldera was at maxium uplift. The earth was closer to the perihilion. The moon was at it's closest perigee and near it's maxium apogees. During the whole swarm of 1985. The moon was playing an active part with it's gravity on earth. A New moon at closest perigee, a solar eclipse, followed by a full moon near maxium apogee and all the while Yellowstone was having a swarm. Coincidense?

In 1895 Yellowstone's caldera was full. Of hot molten magma, a liquid. The moon moves oceans of water.

In 2008/09 Yellowstone's caldera was reaching a maxium uplift. Full from a massive molten injection the size of Los Angleas a few years before. The moon made an exteme trip around the planet and shook up the molten mass of red hot liquid. In 2010, one year later, the caldera still near full, the moon made the nearly same extreme cycle and the same thing happened. Another swarm.

Enough correllation for ya. The moon was in a dynamic orbit on all three occasions. And the other swarms don't compare much to these. Wrong seasons, wrong areas of the park, and smaller sizes when the caldera wasn't near maximum uplift.

Not all swarms are created equal.

[edit on 23-1-2010 by Robin Marks]

So any swarm that doesn't meet your moon criteria gets thrown out because wrong seasons wrong areas and smaller sizes.... that isn't scientific evidence, that is trying to make the facts fit your theory and isn't valid... its no more valid than my theory that a red headed woman who weighs 350 pounds jumps at a certain time in Wisconsin and it causes swarms in Yellowstone.... if the swarm doesnt fit my theory then it must be because she didn't jump high enough or she jumped in the wrong part of Wisconsin, etc..

I am not saying the moon doesnt play a factor in some earthquake events... I am just saying that if the moon causes swarms for the reasons you state, then theory would summerize that there must be a swarm everytime these conditions are met.... there isn't.

Oh yeah the red headed woman's name is Mabel in case you were wondering



[edit on 24-1-2010 by RickinVa]

[edit on 24-1-2010 by RickinVa]

Mabel and the Blobs seem to be rockin the house this-afternoon. Shirakawa??? HT's??? You don't think you're allowed to take a break from the forum to do things like EAT now do you?

FYI - this morning shorly after the rumbling settled down I checked the web cam at Old Faithful (would really be nice if those in charge would let us all access YFT - I don't want to hear for once minute maintance, updating, weather, server - they have us blocked!) anyway, webcam showed major discharge from old faithful as well as the other vents all around it in varing color from white to black - very onmious. I frequently watch the web cam to get a visual. The only other times I came across such discharge as appeared this morning was the other times there were swarms in the park. The web cam is only visable during daylilght hours. Now that I have said this they will most likely shut it down - as usual.

www.yellowstone.net...

reply to post by RickinVa


When you are comparing you use similiar examples. When studying lungs to find similiarities with human lungs you wouldn't use alligator lungs. Alligator lungs are like birds lungs. You would want to study pigs lungs.

Not every swarm is the same. Many were well outside the park, and may occured when the magma chamber was not causing uplift.

The three example I used were three of the biggest swarms ever. All the swarms happened when the caldera was in a period of maxium uplift. And all three had strong influences from the lunar cycle. Two the had eclipses during the swarm.

The moon may not have an effect when the caldera is in subsidence. A less than full chamber doesnt' exert the same pressures or move the same way. And water may be a factor. In a maxium uplift, this restrict aquifers increasing pressure. When the caldera is in subsidence. There would not be the same capacity as when the systems. Full.

Not every situtation that casuses a swarm falls under the same set of circumstances.

I really don't think the webcam is going to tell us anything. It's normal for the color of the steam to vary according to volume, lighting conditions, temperature of the air and the ground etc. It's all just a trick of the light and the way it hits the steam.

I was going to tell you to watch the live stream cam but that's down.

My opinion is that some of those "harmonic-tremor"-like signals, after examining more in detail WY.YMC.EHZ stations, are distant earthquakes, some others are groups of may very small earthquakes in rapid succession. These earthquakes are so small that they can barely be seen on a spectrogram of YMC. They must be occurring extremely close to YMR station.

* * *

After analyzing PB.207.EHZ now I'm 100% sure that they're groups of very small earthquakes. Here is the spectrogram from a 2009-01-24 23:00 - 2009-01-25 00:00 section. The timestamps are in real time, so 13:00 means 23:13.00:

(use scrollbars to see more)

So micro-swarms of micro earthquakes are still continuing. Those aren't harmonic tremors, but the result of these very closely spaced together instrumental earthquakes.

reply to post by quakewatcher


The page says its down but I'm watching now. Click the link and it comes up.

Hoping it goes to 2 lines.

reply to post by quakewatcher


I get the lighting, temp. ect. all plays a roll. the important part was the number of vents surounding with all the discharge put together - yes the live cam which we can't access - ummm it's down - what a concept ;-)

Oh, thanks for the tip TXTriker. The sun is going down now and the blue light is very beautiful.

www.nps.gov...

Maybe we'll still have a little light left for that Old Faithful eruption at the top of the hour.

Shirakawa: thank you for that "blob" analysis, it's very helpful.

reply to post by quakewatcher


I think those groups of very small earthquakes won't make me sleep though.
I have a hunch that something sensibly bigger will happen soon.
Of course, I may be wrong.
Right now I'm monitoring PB.B207.EHZ.

Originally posted by Anmarie96
FYI - this morning shorly after the rumbling settled down I checked the web cam at Old Faithful (would really be nice if those in charge would let us all access YFT - I don't want to hear for once minute maintance, updating, weather, server - they have us blocked!) anyway, webcam showed major discharge from old faithful as well as the other vents all around it in varing color from white to black - very onmious. I frequently watch the web cam to get a visual. The only other times I came across such discharge as appeared this morning was the other times there were swarms in the park. The web cam is only visable during daylilght hours. Now that I have said this they will most likely shut it down - as usual.

www.yellowstone.net...

You should have recorded it!! Anyone that watches this kind of stuff needs to get a web recorder to put it on youtube.