Whats going on at yellowstone?

reply to post by dalloway


dalloway, his dogs are periodically "on him". And he's told me that when they are, they seem to be predicting quakes 2 or 3 hours in advance. Two nights ago he told me they were on him non-stop now.

I have a dog, and I know her behaviors well, but then I'm nowhere near the west. I'm in Valley Forge, PA. .

NO one can honestly say what sort of build up this volcano has. We've watched this thing escalate progressively from 2003 in through the "extraordinary caldera deformation" in 2010.The uplift has subsided.. somewhat. But I'm not sure that subsidence is from any quiescence, given other data I've seen. I don't have all the data, not even with my contact.

What I do know is that, if there were no cause for concern, my contact would be talking about what that data showed, and speaking freely. I wish I could tell you otherwise.

However even IF it were to erupt, it wont start out as a full, super eruption, and it never hurts to be prepared.


wc, I'm sorry I cannot respond to your PM.

Maybe this illustration of of the four major types of seismograms might cast some lights to the HT issue?

Just had to edit to include an update from Thu Feb 24 0:00:01 MST 2011

MAG DATE LOCAL-TIME LAT LON DEPTH LOCATION
y/m/d h:m:s deg deg km

0.5 2011/02/21 15:00:48 44.768N 110.788W 5.8 28 km (17 mi) ENE of West Yellowstone, MT
0.9 2011/02/20 21:40:22 44.777N 110.801W 5.7 27 km (17 mi) ENE of West Yellowstone, MT
1.1 2011/02/20 14:24:48 44.680N 111.862W 11.1 44 km (27 mi) NE of Spencer, ID
1.4 2011/02/20 08:02:58 44.596N 110.326W 0.8 56 km (35 mi) SSW of Cooke City-Silver Gate, MT
1.2 2011/02/20 00:09:19 44.709N 110.397W 2.2 44 km (27 mi) SE of Gardiner, MT
0.6 2011/02/19 15:41:50 44.748N 111.049W 6.8 11 km ( 7 mi) NNE of West Yellowstone, MT
1.0 2011/02/19 14:49:42 44.790N 110.940W 4.8 19 km (12 mi) NE of West Yellowstone, MT
0.9 2011/02/18 12:07:14 44.591N 110.378W 2.0 56 km (35 mi) SSE of Gardiner, MT
2.2 2011/02/18 04:26:17 44.594N 110.371W 1.5 56 km (35 mi) SSE of Gardiner, MT
0.1 2011/02/17 21:05:46 44.592N 110.420W 1.9 55 km (34 mi) SSE of Gardiner, MT
1.5 2011/02/17 18:30:56 44.786N 110.941W 4.3 19 km (12 mi) NE of West Yellowstone, MT
0.4 2011/02/17 12:33:18 44.788N 111.009W 7.2 16 km (10 mi) NNE of West Yellowstone, MT
1.7 2011/02/17 12:09:57 44.795N 111.014W 8.0 16 km (10 mi) NNE of West Yellowstone, MT

So it has been totally quiet since the 0.5 at 2011/02/21?

Here is the day in question:

Originally posted by Trip3
reply to post by dalloway

 

dalloway, his dogs are periodically "on him". And he's told me that when they are, they seem to be predicting quakes 2 or 3 hours in advance. Two nights ago he told me they were on him non-stop now.

I have a dog, and I know her behaviors well, but then I'm nowhere near the west. I'm in Valley Forge, PA. .

NO one can honestly say what sort of build up this volcano has. We've watched this thing escalate progressively from 2003 in through the "extraordinary caldera deformation" in 2010.The uplift has subsided.. somewhat. But I'm not sure that subsidence is from any quiescence, given other data I've seen. I don't have all the data, not even with my contact.

What I do know is that, if there were no cause for concern, my contact would be talking about what that data showed, and speaking freely. I wish I could tell you otherwise.

However even IF it were to erupt, it wont start out as a full, super eruption, and it never hurts to be prepared.


wc, I'm sorry I cannot respond to your PM.

edit on 24-2-2011 by Trip3 because: (no reason given)

I'm originally from PA myself, Williamsport. Such a nice, relatively quake free area. Wish we hadn't moved out here to ground zero for the end of the world. Before we moved here a couple of years ago, I was wholly unaware of Yellowstone and megavolcanoes in general. Research is my profession, so after we moved here and some of my colleagues brought it up in conversation, I was able to learn a lot about it from verified reliable sources in a very small amount of time.

My dog is still a puppy, and pretty affectionate anyways, so he's kind of all over us all the time. Last night, he all of a sudden started running around the house barking, as if there was someone or something outside that had riled him up. He does that once in a while. Maybe that is something to watch for with him and then check to see if his behavior is correlated to quakes.

I wasn't aware of the possible scenario of it starting out as a small eruption and then growing into a super eruption. I've only ever seen the either or theory. Could it only be hydrothermal movement that is causing the change in status or are they 100% sure it's all magma? It is appalling that the government would not try to alert us of the probability of a near future eruption so we could make choices about staying or relocating. I suppose the Wyoming state gov is part of the lockdown too.

Gah, I am so shaken up by this (no pun intended)!

Looking at the images of the 4 major types of seismograms & then immediately afterwards the image of the seismograms from Jan 25....how are those NOT harmonic tremors?

Originally posted by dalloway

Originally posted by Trip3
reply to post by dalloway

 

dalloway, his dogs are periodically "on him". And he's told me that when they are, they seem to be predicting quakes 2 or 3 hours in advance. Two nights ago he told me they were on him non-stop now.

I have a dog, and I know her behaviors well, but then I'm nowhere near the west. I'm in Valley Forge, PA. .

NO one can honestly say what sort of build up this volcano has. We've watched this thing escalate progressively from 2003 in through the "extraordinary caldera deformation" in 2010.The uplift has subsided.. somewhat. But I'm not sure that subsidence is from any quiescence, given other data I've seen. I don't have all the data, not even with my contact.

What I do know is that, if there were no cause for concern, my contact would be talking about what that data showed, and speaking freely. I wish I could tell you otherwise.

However even IF it were to erupt, it wont start out as a full, super eruption, and it never hurts to be prepared.


wc, I'm sorry I cannot respond to your PM.

edit on 24-2-2011 by Trip3 because: (no reason given)

I'm originally from PA myself, Williamsport. Such a nice, relatively quake free area. Wish we hadn't moved out here to ground zero for the end of the world.

Before we moved here a couple of years ago, I was wholly unaware of Yellowstone and megavolcanoes in general. Research is my profession, so after we moved here and some of my colleagues brought it up in conversation, I was able to learn a lot about it from verified reliable sources in a very small amount of time.

My dog is still a puppy, and pretty affectionate anyways, so he's kind of all over us all the time. Last night, he all of a sudden started running around the house barking, as if there was someone or something outside that had riled him up. He does that once in a while. Maybe that is something to watch for with him and then check to see if his behavior is correlated to quakes.

I wasn't aware of the possible scenario of it starting out as a small eruption and then growing into a super eruption. I've only ever seen the either or theory. Could it only be geothermal movement that is causing the change in status or are they 100% sure it's all magma? It is appalling that the government would not try to alert us of the probability of a near future eruption so we could make choices about staying or relocating. I suppose the Wyoming state gov is part of the lockdown too.

Gah, I am so shaken up by this (no pun intended)!

I've been frustrated with the limited amount of recent data out in public circles. The more recent inSAR satellite interferometry mappings are 'cropped' to limit them to Yellowstone, which is not surprising given that the quake date indicate two areas of concern in Idaho. This corroborates the last seismic mapping done some years ago.(Magma Pocket 20% Larger Than Thought)



Then I find little things like this, which normally would not even register with me:

In Discovery Channel's: "Yellowstone's Super Volcano" 96-second podcast (1:17 mark), it shows an eruption beginning outside the park, outside Wyoming, in Idaho, in an area I've identified as an at-risk "Area of Concern" due to a focused area of shallowing quake activity.

Perhaps as an additional interest is this graphic is presented with the statement, regarding geologists:

"They research ways to relieve the super volcano's pressure, without triggering a catastrophic eruption."

"It's race against time that may soon expire!"

(fade, as camera engulfed by eruption)


What bothers me is that, quite obviously, the Discovery Channel did not come up with the idea that the magma plume has an "off-shoot" in that area of Idaho where they show the detonation, And if they spent the time or interest on presenting such a risky (and extreme) proposition, why would the Discovery Channel present it in a 96-second PODCAST? Apparently some information has managed to get to the Discovery Channel, but the question is whether it was intentionally, as in a leak by agreement, or by some accident.

reply to post by westcoast
It looks quite like the USG picture I uploaded showing HT, don't it?

Ahh, had to edit because you guys post too fast for me to catch up.

Originally posted by onthelookout
Looking at the images of the 4 major types of seismograms & then immediately afterwards the image of the seismograms from Jan 25....how are those NOT harmonic tremors?

edit on 24-2-2011 by onthelookout because: Spelling corrections

In all honesty, If I were to see the example of harmonic tremor in the "Four major types" depiction, I'm not sure I'd recognize it as harmonics. It's got no evident harmonic repetition. However in fairness I'm betting that example has been put through a band-pass filter to give it that saw-tooth look.

reply to post by Roald


yes.


Trip3, are these some of the quakes you are talking about? I was actually going to ask you about them before you brought it up. I had noticed this 'migration' lately:




Edit to add: I believe the reason the example looks odd is because it is zoomed in to only a 10-second trace

Do the scientist know the gas content of the plume and if you know is it high. Same question for the silica content? Also do they know if it is changing?

reply to post by Trip3


Ummmm.....yup. That would be Idaho. About where those quakes are.

Originally posted by westcoast
reply to post by Roald

 

yes.


Trip3, are these some of the quakes you are talking about? I was actually going to ask you about them before you brought it up. I had noticed this 'migration' lately:




Edit to add: I believe the reason the example looks odd is because it is zoomed in to only a 10-second trace

edit on 24-2-2011 by westcoast because: (no reason given)

Those quake mapes are frustrating. I can never get them to orient a map of decent size, and with recognizable details.


Here's a good way to to show it. In the two "Events" in the below graphic, there are several narrow areas of defined quake activity:



In December 2008,

1) on the eastern side of the caldera, there is one area of defined quake activity from depth.

2) Outside of Yellowstone, in Idaho, there is a second area of defined quake activity from depth, near Hebgen Lake. THIS is the area where Discovery Channel seems to be "detonating' an eruption in that 86-second podcast video. (See Image from video below)


In January 2010

1) There is one pronounced area of quake activity from depth, on the West side of the caldera.


Does that help define some of the areas?

reply to post by Trip3


Yes, that helps with orientation.

Can you say anything more about what types of tests you say were done there on the 27th? Or what any of the results were?

Originally posted by westcoast
reply to post by Trip3

 

Yes, that helps with orientation.

Can you say anything more about what types of tests you say were done there on the 27th? Or what any of the results were?

I'm quite certain they did seismic refraction to map magma chamber. This was confirmed by someone seeing the rigs leaving Yellowstone and on the way to Colorado. They weren't big drill rigs, just small track rigs with 3-inch diameter pipe, just what is needed to set seismic charges for refraction work. I cannot give the specifics of how I know this either. What I don't understand is why they were up there two weeks longer than the geologists (as far as I know)... unless someone else was overseeing further seismic work.

I wish I knew more about what the data shows, but my contact has been entirely close-lipped about this. And he remained quiet despite having won a Super Bowl bet. The silence is really unnerving, and honestly gives me a cold chill. I'm hoping time will find other avenues of communication.

Originally posted by standrewscross
Do the scientist know the gas content of the plume and if you know is it high. Same question for the silica content? Also do they know if it is changing?

With seismic refraction they can come up with a better estimate of the level of melt (Si content), which is obviously another important consideration.

I'm sure they know by now, they're just not talking.

reply to post by onthelookout


Take a closer look. The waveform is not the same at all. The second wave is regular.

For a comparison here is ten seconds of that signal. Compare that to Roald's image if HT.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/80dca157bab2.png[/atsimg]

Did you listen to the sound byte of the waveform? If not go to this post and listen to the difference.

I have now done 2 more sound bytes. Both of these are from about a 2 minute section of the waveform.

The first is @1000Hz which is 10x speed - about the lowest so you can here it. This is High bypass filtered for 25Hz which means that signals below 25Hx will be masked. Since HT is one of the lowest and earthquakes only go to under this, the effect should be to mask out all earthquake sounds.

High pass 25Hz

Taking the same signal I used a low pass filter of 6Hz. This is above HT and removes frequencies above that so if there is HT then it and earthquakes is about all that should be left.

Low pass 6Hz

I will give you a clue: There is a distant earthquake at about 1:52

Please listen to both and tell me what you heard in the second file.

reply to post by Trip3


Thank you for changing your tone. We are now able to focus on your contribution rather than on bickering between members. What you are saying is very believable. I for one believe the magma chamber extends at further distances than regularly documented. Despite the silent treatment you are getting, at least someone is out there getting valuable data, which, hopefully, will be used to benefit us all and be publicly released sooner rather than later.
Until that time (if it happens) it is up to us to keep informed, share what we know or share our fears and try to keep track of any and all changes that may occur.

Originally posted by Trip3

Originally posted by Robin Marks
reply to post by Shenon

 

Trip3 provided links which show harmonic tremors. And one of them shows Mt. St Helens. That's what they look like. The signatures that trip3 is pointing to are too regular and are interfernce. I've seen them many times. And at fist they bugged me. Puterman could give you the techincal explaination. The wiring is not my concern or interest. I've learned to read. I've learn to read the webicorders and recognize everything, including the mine blasts which are really wierd. Shirakawa first pointed them out. I've even learn to recognize the ice cracking on the lake.

If I saw something that looked like harmonic tremors. I would recheck and recheck and ask Puterman or the others whether they were seeing the same thing and ask for a second opinion.

Is Puterman a volcanologist? A geologist? Does he have a "box with rocks" somewhere?

Please show me another instance of harmonic tremmors similar to the 25th.

I texted a senior volcanologist on site the night of the 27th. He's pretty much convinced they're harmonic tremors, along with a whole range of other troubling evidences.

Perhaps I should tell him he wasted two weeks up there in the cold and gave some bad info to DHS. said so"? Perhaps the 6 terabytes of data and put on a secured server was a waste of time. I'm certain the fiber optic control line to Houston was a bad idea too.

I'll let them know this is all true because "Puterman says so".

No PuterMan is not a volcanologist, but by your own admission neither are you. Neither I am I a qualified geologist although I have been through college at what would now be considered undergraduate level studying geology. Yes I do have a box of rocks.

If you want to see similar to the signal on the 25th I would suggest that you look at pretty much any day. Today for example.

6 terabytes eh? OK let us assume for the moment that they are storing 1 year of data on that server and that this is being kept from 20 instruments. Let's be generous then and say that these are all 100Hz instruments and that each 24 hour waveform takes up 30Mb (By the way that is a gross overestimate as that is for a short period instrument which is not much use for the purpose of detecting HT/long period volcanic tremor.

365 days * 30 Mb * 3 channels * 20 instruments = 657,000 MB = 0.624 TB.

Meah! That is wrong, let's add S, E and L configurations as well. Still only 2.5 TB.

In fact if this was long period recorder then that would be somewhere around 0.025 TB so there is a questionable value in storing 100 years of data even if they had it.

No, still does not get there. You know what? I don't think I believe you. Maybe you can do the calculations and tell me how you arrive at that figure?

By the way what does the fibre optic control line do? Considering that the park is waiting to get "another T1 line at Mount Washburn" to the instruments the story about fibre optic (with a much higher capacity) does not sound true either. Why would they want a T1 line when they have fibre optic? The information is currently microwaved to the UUSS as far as I am aware and any problems with transmission are very likely to affect all recorders in the park that use this telemetry retrieval method.

You say LKWY did not go off line. Could that be that it uses a land line? Could this explain why last year in the cold weather when all the instruments went down we were still getting some sort of signal off LKWY. Could that also explain that last year when LKWY went down all the other instruments were functional. Possibly I think. It seems to be a reasonable explanation.

You know whilst I accept that you appear to have geological knowledge, and believe me I would be VERY happy to see a geologist participating on this thread, I have the distinct feeling that you sound familiar. You sound very like the person that rattled so many during the swarm 2 years ago with tales of telling people to evacuate.

I will also say this that I have good reason to believe that at least as far as the recognition of harmonic tremor on YSB you are incorrect and do not actually know what you are looking at and I also have good reason to believe that you do not know how the Park works when it comes to getting work carried out.

Whether I am right or wrong will remain to be seen but in the meantime I would suggest to you that making reference to things that you cannot back up with what appears to be the intention of getting people worried is not a way to treat people who are less knowledgeable than yourself.

From another post:

I'll make you a deal, PuterDude, when you establish how your telemetry audio file, with an audible cycle might be explained as a repeated seismic signature with a 30 second duration at .15hz, then maybe I'll believe you've doing something more than playing a dumbass game.

Tell me, why would I want to explain that? Perhaps you don't read so well. Let me repeat for you. That sound came from the raw waveform and was completely unaltered - well actually not quite true - it was a 2000Hz so 20 x speed. I have subsequently submitted files which show clearly that as far as that recorder is concerned at least that was NOT HT.

A microseism is defined as a faint earth tremor caused by natural phenomena, such as winds and ocean waves. [1] [2]Thus a microseism is a small and long-continuing oscillation of the ground.[3] The term is most commonly used to refer to the dominant background seismic noise signal on Earth, which arises from wave action in the oceans, i.e. the low-frequency part of the Ambient Vibrations.

Source: Wikipedia

I would suggest that what we are seeing is microseisms, which would be explained by their removal on the 6Hz low pass filtered sound I believe. Isn't it strange that microseisms also have a regular 4 to 30 second occurrence.

Dominant microseism signals from the oceans are linked to characteristic ocean swell periods, and thus occur between approximately 4 to 30 seconds

Source: As above.

Edit: By the way I freely admit that my interpretation of these as telemetry or interference was in fact incorrect and I have learnt something new today. I have also learnt that those are NOT HT. I had a good input from someone who is a geologist and is very knowledgeable on the subject.

Need a better graph, especially for YSB, as it's impossible to find out what it's all about with the posted ones. Need a bigger "zoom" the evaluate the "denting" and shape of the tremors.

YSB as whatever happend it was closest to that station. Would also be nice to see the graphs for YJC and YPK for 24 and 25 January.

Robin,
I am not convinced YMR would show HT if magma was rising on the other side of the caldera.

Something unusual happened there, that's for sure.
But what?

Actually,

This looks to me like tremors caused by some kind of drilling operation. Realy would like to see the YPK graph lol. Could be that they were drilling a new shaft or corridor in those mining operations.

Just a guess of course. ;-)