Whats going on at yellowstone?

Originally posted by westcoast
What's up with all the action on YMR from 1630 to 1715? Looks like it's probably local surface noise?

I think they might be signals from large trucks. Signals like these (or smaller one) are rather common there and occur mostly during daytime.
YMR station is placed very close to one of the main roads in Yellowstone park.
I wouldn't be surprised if this station is routinely used to monitor vehicle park access.

Thnanks for the link to that paper Shirakawa. I'll read through that later when I have some time to devot to it.

That is a very interesting paper full of very interesting information you won't catch until you've read it fully several times!

I noticed the final version on the 2.9 quake was version 6. Is it normal to be reviewed so much? Seems odd...but maybe that is just how it is sometimes, depending on where they are located?

Usually it takes less versions.
I suspect it took so many ones because of the same difficulties I had in my locating attempt.

Has anyone checked the water levels lately, or the weather? Seems like things are rumbling a bit in other corners of the park now.

I've seen no particular changes. Even ground deformation appears to be following the usual trends, although for any effect deriving by this swarm more time might be needed.
For example, after the 2008/2009 Lake swarm ended, there has been a sudden visible change in LKWY GPS station east/west ground deformation.

Originally posted by winotka
reply to post by westcoast

 

The discharge data is still being affected by ice-

waterdata.usgs.gov...

I usually check back with it once or twice a week.

Gage height is still working though, it doesn't seem to be affected by ice.

[edit on 2010-1-31 by Shirakawa]

reply to post by TrueAmerican


You make a valid point. If the moon is causing earthquakes, then it should be as regular as the tides. I checked and looked for patterns in other swarms right after I noticed the moon cycle during the Lake swarm. The only similiar event was in 1985. And the moon during that swarm was reversed, there was an eclipse in the middle of the that swarm.

The reason I don't think the moon caused the other swarms is that the moon doesn't cause earthquakes directly. It is a factor in the conditions that lead to earthquakes. As the research is suggesting, they create small swarms by moving water which may be lubricating faults. It only pushes the cart down the hill, or over the edge. It's like the flick of the finger at the beginning of a domino chain. You can read through the last bunch of pages and find my stuff and there are three studies I found to support this.

The key thing that links 1985, 2008/09, and 2010 together is the condition of the crust during these times. In these cases the ground deformation was in an uplifted state near it's record levels. As the swarm hit in 2008, the uplift had been at a record rate due to a massive magma injection in 2004. The critical factor here is the ground was at maxium uplift due to the additional magma causing increased pressure from heat and increase volume. A balloon near maxium air pressure ruptures more easily than a balloon with low air pressure. The fuller balloon has a thinner skin and will pop at the slightest puncture. So it's a matter of the state of the uplift. I doubt the moon's pull is strong enough if the system isn't charged and that's why we don't see the correlation with all swarms. I don't believe the magma is being bulged and causing the crust to lift. Since it's not exactly a liquid, it's its density that changes. Moving zones would change thermal conditions as well. And I've mention it could be allowing gases to expand.
I think there's several things happening. So in order for the moon to start the engine.

Oh Mike, thanks for your observation. In my opinion, I can be brilliant at times. IMO.

The pheonix symbolism seemed so obvious after I made the connection. I'll be brief. Here's the story in point form.

The phoenix builds a nest. (island with volcano, trees=sticks, crater=nest shaped) It lays an egg.

The nest and fire ingite. (Eruption)

The egg hatches and arises from the ash (volcanic ash) and is born anew.
(islands form and mountains grow again after volcanoes erupt. Krakatoa was obliterated and now there is a new island forming from the crater. Mt. St Helens is a growing mountain. )

To be honest someone out there may have already made the connection. I was having a discussion with my six year old about a toy when the whole thing clicked. I told him the toy looked like a Pheonix. That meant I had to tell the story to satisify his curiousity and after I retold the legend, the whole thing seemed obvious.

www.nytimes.com...

Oh, crud. I just glanced at Shirakawa's information and I almost forgot something. After the 1985 swarm, the crust subsided. After the 2008 Lake swarm the uplift stalled and it may have stopped. But it didn't start to subside. The area north of the lake had an immediate susidence, but then when back to an uplifted state not long after. So the caldera crust is about in the same general state as last year. No major subsidence is being measured. It's in limbo if anything. Will this swarms relieve the pressure?

We have to let the GPS tell us, or just wait until Shirakawa posts the data here. Which is a whole lot easier 'cause sometimes I'm lazy.

[edit on 31-1-2010 by Robin Marks]

Originally posted by Shirakawa
By the way, regarding the correlation between the moon orbit and earthquake swarms at Yellowstone, if somebody wants to check it, at page 19 and 20 of the following pdf there's a list of every swarm occurred from 1985 to 2006:

www.uusatrg.utah.edu...

Well, considering that the moon is at perigee and apogee about once a month each, and considering that earthquake swarms at Yellowstone have skipped up to three-year periods at once- I can see why scientists insist that the moon has no measurable effect on earthquakes, swarms, or magma movement there. If anything, it would have the most effect at perigee (closest to the earth), but that has simply just not been the case.

According to your very chart in that document (very interesting reading, thanks for that) there were no swarms at all from 3/9/1990 to 5/2/1994 for example, which was well into a point where monitoring equipment was sufficient to detect them. I skipped the first swarmless period of '85-'89 to allow for that.

Curiously, from about 1994 until now, we have had at least one swarm a year. But there are still many monthly gaps even all the way up to current times, which pose a real problem for those seeking to correlate moon activity with Yellowstone activity. Is it possible they could have missed some small swarms, due to monitoring problems/lack of capability/manpower? Maybe, but at this point, highly unlikely. That entire park is covered with monitoring equipment across many networks, and has been for quite some time. With perigees occurring so frequently, I could see how it would be easy to try and associate the two, but to me any correlation is unlikely. I said unlikely. Not impossible.

Anyway, it seems that according to the definition of a swarm:

A swarm is defined if the following criteria are met: (i) the
maximum of the daily number of events in the sequence (Nd) is greater
than twice the square root of the swarm duration in days
and (ii) the total number of earthquakes in a sequence ET is at least 10.
Swarms were identified using an ET value of 10, 30, and 50 to see
which criteria best identified both large and small swarms.

this swarm as we knew it, is over. Yeah still getting the occasional shock, but PB.B207 (nearest the swarm) has really calmed way down overall.

[edit on Sun Jan 31st 2010 by TrueAmerican]

Originally posted by Robin Marks
As the swarm hit in 2008, the uplift had been at a record rate due to a massive magma injection in 2004.

Hmm, it would seem from this then if at any time harmonic tremors were to be detected, they would have been detected then, during such an injection. So now the question is were HT's detected during this supposed time of massive magma movement?

Because if they weren't, and that magma was moving on such a massive scale, then we're in trouble. Could be all we get for warnings is earthquake swarms with this beast.

Overall though, you raise some interesting points about the water movement and max ground uplift/lubricating joints that would otherwise hold. I am open to all of it- sorry to seem so "devil's advocate."

ETA: Here's a webicorder from 2003 at YMR, apparently showing harmonic tremors:

www.zetatalk.com...

YMR ring a bell?

[edit on Sun Jan 31st 2010 by TrueAmerican]

Seems a bit unclear to me what you guys think is the reason for the quakes. As I think I said before, I think that those swarms is caused by stress changes due to the injection or withdrawal of magma. What we might call volcano-tectonic earthquakes. And these earthquakes can cause land to subside or rise as we have seen in parts of Yellowstone. I do not believe that the activity there are "just" shifting plate tectonics as they say at (YVO).

That type of activity do not change the surface temperature in any part of Yellowstone.

Anyway, as long as we do not see long period earthquakes where there is injection of magma into surrounding rock, then we might not worry too much yet. ???

reply to post by TrueAmerican

Oh cool, I didn't have that day's trace image for YMR yet Now I'm only missing 6 days from YMR's Sep. 2003... thanks! I wish there was somewhere to find the earlier ones... like, Jan 3rd, 2003, where there was a small swarm in virtually the same spot as the current one which isn't over yet believe me... or Sep 29th, 1998, where there were two simultaneous swarms fifty miles apart where the quakes just went back and forth from spot to spot over and over, that'd be very interesting to see seismograms for... anyone know of an historical archive of them that old? Once I put them in the Yellowstoner, they become clickable to see which spike corresponds to which quake. Like this for the one in your link. There were 11 quakes that day...

hummm - What's going on in Yellowstone? Is it my computer or is all of UofU seismic stations out??? I hope it is just routine maintenance - or a technical glitch - please advise

Originally posted by Roald
Anyway, as long as we do not see long period earthquakes where there is injection of magma into surrounding rock, then we might not worry too much yet. ???

Well, even if we DO see HTs, as shown in the trace above at YMR, it's not necessarily the end, or a reason to get worried. HTs can also be caused by water, so discerning between the two at Yellowstone has got to be pretty tough considering the vast hydrothermal system. Is the frequency different? Is the period different? What distinguishes the two types?

Lol, ok, so it's going to take off the chart HTs all over the park at once, a zillion huge earthquakes, old faithful erupting 1000 times in an hour, animals running, gas emissions killing people, water table data gone bizerk, and the moon and sun closest to earth before anyone is going to sound any alarm. Even THEN they probably won't.

I think I am going to retreat again for a while- have fun folks. Call me when it blows- if you're still alive!

TP:
Glad you were able to add one there- I found it in a search reading through stuff. As far as this swarm though, to me it's way over. Anything from this point would have to be considered another swarm imo. PB.B207 is near dead, totally calm. And has been really for days.

reply to post by Anmarie96

Everything looks fine to me... data servers are serving live data, seismo pages look fairly current, the USGS page is up, their quake list is working... What looks like it's down?

try any location
quake.utah.edu...

cheched montana - something is way off

mbmgquake.mtech.edu...

above is just one of a few that look like that

reply to post by Anmarie96

I don't know about that RLMT one, it's in a different network (US instead of WY) so anything could be up with it. All the WY ones look okay to me, the ones that are up that is. YNR, YFT, and LKWY all have dead telemetry now, apparently. YUF does look pretty strange, I grant you, but it's more likely equipment failure, like the signal's cutting out randomly. Bad things happen in winter and it takes a while to fix 'em. And my little application gets its images right from that source, too. That page wouldn't look like that if they were down...

all of WY at this point is down when I try to pull up the stations. my home computer is on dail-up and can not handle the direct feeds so i have to go to the seismo's though UofU direct at home - which at this point are ALL giving me the X -

Thanks for the information

Ahhh...GEE B207 is showing some of those common 'double-hits' again just now. Small scale at the moment, but if it follows the pattern of the past days it may lead to something bigger again.

We shall see!!

[edit on 1-2-2010 by westcoast]

Okay....so it IS getting predictable.

Looks like a 2.8 or 2.9 just hit. (maybe even 3.0)

Hmmmm......

Edit to add: USGS is saying 2.5, but I think it will be adjusted up

Edit to add: Yup, adjusted to 2.8 at 7.5km RIGHT on the rim.

[edit on 1-2-2010 by westcoast]

[edit on 1-2-2010 by westcoast]

[edit on 1-2-2010 by westcoast]

I hate to say it, but I don't think it's over yet. That looks like a 2.5 -2.7 just occurred.

EDIT: Ohh, close - USGS has it at 2.8

.8
Date-Time

* Monday, February 01, 2010 at 08:10:42 UTC
* Monday, February 01, 2010 at 01:10:42 AM at epicenter

Location 44.588°N, 110.985°W
Depth 7.5 km (4.7 miles)
Region YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, WYOMING
Distances

* 13 km (8 miles) SE (131°) from West Yellowstone, MT
* 30 km (18 miles) ENE (71°) from Island Park, ID
* 54 km (34 miles) SSW (203°) from Gardiner, MT
* 433 km (269 miles) ENE (74°) from Boise, ID
* 433 km (269 miles) N (10°) from Salt Lake City, UT

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 0.3 km (0.2 miles); depth +/- 2 km (1.2 miles)
Parameters NST= 26, Nph= 26, Dmin=9 km, Rmss=0.14 sec, Gp= 83°,
M-type=local magnitude (ML), Version=

[edit on 1-2-2010 by MoorfNZ]

No, I don't think it's over either. Another. smaller quake now. Maybe a 2.3 or 2.4??

Am I noticing a trend now of more shallow quakes spreding out from the swarm???

reply to post by westcoast


Looks more like a 2.0 to me... but still, she's chattering again.

Here is a link to the most recent update at RSOE. It is a decent write-up:

RSOE

some exerpts:

Researchers say that for now, the earthquake cluster, or swarm — the second-largest ever recorded in the park — is more a cause for curiosity than alarm.

scientists say that the Yellowstone swarm, if only because of its volume, bears close observation: as of Sunday, there had been 1,608 quakes since Jan. 17. “We’re not seeing a pattern that is really discernible yet,” said Henry Heasler, a coordinating scientist for the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory

Dr. Heasler said plans were in place to intensify observations in case the swarm continued for a long time or got larger. “We’re ready to ramp up,” he said, including using flights to monitor the area.

I think it is safe to say that all you have to do is look at the start of todays seismographs to learn that this swarm has not yet expelled all of its energy.

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
this swarm as we knew it, is over. Yeah still getting the occasional shock, but PB.B207 (nearest the swarm) has really calmed way down overall.

Please note that there they're referring to the minimum criteria for a sequence of earthquakes to be defined swarm.

A swarm is defined if the following criteria are met: (i) the
maximum of the daily number of events in the sequence (Nd) is greater
than twice the square root of the swarm duration in days
and (ii) the total number of earthquakes in a sequence ET is at least 10.
Swarms were identified using an ET value of 10, 30, and 50 to see
which criteria best identified both large and small swarms.

They keyword here is maximum of the daily number of events. That is, a sequence of events occurring in T days, must reach at any point a number of daily events greater than twice the square root of its total duration to be defined swarm. So the longer time the sequence of earthquakes spans, the higher should be the maximum daily number of earthquakes for it to be called swarm.

ETA: Here's a webicorder from 2003 at YMR, apparently showing harmonic tremors:

Note also that YMR is very close to a road:

Link

Vehicle traffic when the park is not covered by snow should be rather high.
Those are not harmonic tremors, but the result of what is called "cultural noise".
If you check, they occur the most during daytime in summer holidays. You can verify this by looking at past years.