Whats going on at yellowstone?

reply to post by tarifa37

Wow, what find! Star for you! If that is an accurate representation and I'd guess it would be, then it's very informative indeed. That thing is really bubbling around. It's analogous to watching a saucepan with a lid on it and a bit too much heat under it.

reply to post by tarifa37


indeed; star for you.
still...
does anyone know when those quakes in the upper left area occured?
Let's hope that they do not intensify...

EDIT: ah nvm; found them on the utah map...
1-2 days old... still... rather alarming. what's up in that area?

[edit on 31-12-2008 by th0br0]

New reports of activity today............

At 4:32 am EST USGS, Yellowstone reports a 3.5mag quake.

At 11:22 am EST USGS, Yellowstone reports a 3.6mag quake.

I recieved these via RSS directly from the USGS.

Link provided by USGS shakemap:

earthquake.usgs.gov...


[edit on 12/31/2008 by MadDogtheHunter]

Also keeping an eye on the bigger picture..
there was a 3.2 in Quebec last 24 hours.

reply to post by JustMike


This is just my translation, I know little of the science behind it.

My main sticking point is that we have never monitored a massive H.E. before, so we don't know what to look for. And my gut tells me that if the caldera was about to blow, the warning would be a lot shorter than it has been and a lot more violent.

If there have been several H.E's of a massive scale (and we can assume that all the evidence of these is since the last massive eruption of the caldera, because the evidence would have been destroyed in the blast) they are more likely and more probable than an eruption.

How does a H.E. reading differ from magma chamber though.

We do really need an expert in on this. Someone call the USGS and ask them to pop in here, if they're not too busy of course!

reply to post by tarifa37

Yeah, I like his comment near the end. After telling us about the devastation that he says will sweep the world he adds: "This will be an interesting era for the beginning of 2009."

I'm glad he finds it "interesting"...

However, like you and hopefully everyone else, I'm not taking his assessment too seriously. He says Monday, but also says Tuesday, so basically what's he's telling us is (to use a quote from Sam Goldwyn): "I can give you a definite maybe."

Let's hope he's wrong.

GEE software also indicated activity off the shore of California sometime during the night. It looked to be a couple hundred miles NNW of San Francisco. Not sure about the scale. Anyone else see it?

We lived in Jackson Hole for several years.
A close relative still is there. In the 80's, the book Playing God In Yellowstone laid out what was going to happen - not IF, but WHEN.
They predicted within 30 years, and this is year 22. The Jackson Hole community is small and tight-knit. There has been no mention of the earthquake swarms in either newspaper, nor is it being talked about on the street. Wrote a letter of inquiry to the editor this morning, basically:What's going on in Yellowstone? The fires of '87 generated a LOT more interest, and information. We've not spoken of this to many, don't want to be a Sky Is Falling quite yet, but then, what can we do? Jackson is iced in, a near record snowfall, and leaving would be difficult, if not impossible, especially with animals. We are 480 miles away, iced in, cannot load up and go get anyone for a "visit", in case all turns out well. And, if it doesn't, it wouldn't make much difference anyway, would it? I do believe that the news is being either suppressed or tamped down. I heard Paul Harvey say "Yellowstone" this morning, but missed what he said, if anyone else might know. By the way, this site is not only amazing, but addictive. Scary, but amazing.

[edit on 31-12-2008 by silvertooth]

I can't seem to figure out how to post the actual image into this thread - so if someone else could that would be great -

YML is not where all the EQs are - it's off to the left - and yet it had the harmonics on 29 and 30 - so what does that mean?

www.earthmountainview.com...


see the one yellow square to the left that's YML
quake.wr.usgs.gov...

LKWY has lots of quakes (stronger than YML sometimes - but it didn't have the harmonics)

ideas folks? We've been going on the assumption the YML was Mary Bay in LKWY but I don't think so according to the above map


Sorry - fixed it - so you see the map GIF not the whole site.

[edit on 12/31/2008 by trusername]

[edit on 12/31/2008 by trusername]

I found this graph comparing the energy released by an earthquake with the energy released by a quantity of TNT.

Full Size

Looks like the largest quake 3.9 released almost as much energy as a small nuclear weapon.

reply to post by LazyGuy


For every full degree on the Richter scale, the earthquake size grows by a factor of 10, while the amount of energy involved grows by a factor of 32.

[edit on 2008/12/31 by Shirakawa]

reply to post by LazyGuy



swell - earlier in this thread it was mentioned someone found a blog or media mention about putting a nuke down there - "to help"

either their idiots or brilliant - who knows

reply to post by detachedindividual

Yes, it's a tough one for even the top experts to figure and I can bet they're trying and no doubt having very..errrrmmm... heated discussions right now. Truth is (as you said), we have nothing to really compare it with. Fundamentally a volcano is a volcano is a volcano... but... this is not just any ordinary little volcano that might blow a couple of cubic miles of stuff into the sky. Maybe it'll rumble along for decades on and off then go quiet again, maybe it'll build up over days or weeks... Maybe this, maybe that.

With Yellowstone, we even have to consider the possible effects of the Juan de Fuca plate's rate of subduction beneath the Nth American plate, because it might be supplying some of the incoming magma in addition to what it does in terms of volcano-building in the PNW. We may have to consider oddities such as the volcano in Kamchatka that gave everyone a surprise there yesterday when it erupted for the first time in 3,000 years, and whether the new activity there has any relation at all to what's begun to happen in Yellowstone.

So many maybes...and the trouble is, there is not a darned thing that anyone can do about it. It'll either quieten down and maybe even stay quiet for another several thousand years (which would be great), or it could let go in five minutes or next Monday (or Tuesday). Yes, the "bulge" or "dome") is rising, but it's done that before and then gone down again. Several times, just in the 80-odd years it's been closely monitored. Yes, there's a swarm and it's in an unusual place that hasn't had swarms before in the geological mini-eyeblink that we've been watching it, but for all we know it's had such swarms in previous centuries or millennia and we've been none the wiser. After all, something created that dome/bulge on the lakebed.

And yes, we still need to keep our eyes peeled for what else is going on, as who knows what else might happen and take us all completely by surprise?

Regards,

Mike


[edit on 31/12/08 by JustMike]

Originally posted by trusername
I can't seem to figure out how to post the actual image into this thread - so if someone else could that would be great -

YML is not where all the EQs are - it's off to the left - and yet it had the harmonics on 29 and 30 - so what does that mean?

www.earthmountainview.com...


see the one yellow square to the left that's YML
quake.wr.usgs.gov...

LKWY has lots of quakes (stronger than YML sometimes - but it didn't have the harmonics)

ideas folks? We've been going on the assumption the YML was Mary Bay in LKWY but I don't think so according to the above map


Sorry - fixed it - so you see the map GIF not the whole site.

[edit on 12/31/2008 by trusername]

[edit on 12/31/2008 by trusername]

I think the harmonics DID show up on the Lake graph, just to a lesser degree. I think they showed up in all graphs, but a few truely went "Pollock"

On a side note, did anyone else just see the live Old Faithful cam shake about 2 minutes ago??? I am now waiting for the graphs to catch up to see if it was an event or not.

I have been following this thread with great interest and after checking the webcam on the page that you posted, I have seen some people who seem to be "working" at the Geyser.

Link to the webcam here
(take a look before they leave)

Did you notice this?

Besides the usual tourists, we can see 3 men taking pictures or measurements... Who knows what of the Geyser...

By the way, congratulations for the topic. I found it highly interesting, sincere and informative.
Regards,
Ptolomeo.

reply to post by WSPfan




Yes - but do you see on the gif where the YML is really?

www.earthmountainview.com...

I think its odd that we have only 3 quakes there in the last 4 days considering the seismic chart

Originally posted by WSPfan
On a side note, did anyone else just see the live Old Faithful cam shake about 2 minutes ago??? I am now waiting for the graphs to catch up to see if it was an event or not.

Nope, I missed it (darn)! By the way, why does it say at the top of that webcam image "Next Prediction 9:41 AM" but the current time now there is just after 11 am? Did it miss doing its thing or something?

Just wondering...

I saw the Old Faithfull cam shaking... and it wasn't wind blowing thats for sure, because the steam was steady. I have been watching that live cam for a while and it has been shaking few times.

reply to post by trusername


Mary Bay location:East of Grand Loop Rd on 14, East entrace rd.
almost smack dab between LKWY and YLA