The Yellowstone caldera has awoken with unimaginable violence three times before: 2.1 million, 1.3 million and 640,000 years ago respectively. USGS scientists are understandably monitoring the Yellowstone area for signs the supervolcano will again erupt and inflict devastation on a global scale.
Dr Mike Poland, the USGS scientist-in-charge at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory tasked with monitoring the activity of its caldera, has now revealed how the University of Utah seismograph station recorded 107 earthquakes in the area, only in November.
There was also a very small swarm of earthquakes that began right at the end of November and continued into early December
Dr Mike Poland
The largest earthquake was 3.1 magnitude which took place outside Yellowstone.
Dr Poland said: “There was also a very small swarm of earthquakes that began right at the end of November and continued into early December right here on the west.
“The largest event of this sequence was a magnitude 2.1”, the researcher said in a video published by the USGS.
He added: “So over the last two years, there was an overall downward trend that suggests subsistence of the resurgent dome.
“But there’s been some variability here in the last few months caused by storms.
“Moving to the Mallard Lake Dome and the Old Faithful site, we see the same downward trend over time, over the two years of this plot, with some variations in the last few months again. Subsistence with a little bit of variability”.
The Norris Geyser Basin, which rose from 2015 until October 2018 but has remained steady for almost a year, also had a small subsistence event with a 2 centimetre uplift in autumn 2019.
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Yellowstone volcano: USGS tracks a magma hotspot cutting across Idaho
The USGS scientist’s news about the movement of the Yellowstone caldera and changes in the region coincides with continuing speculation another supereruption is imminent.
Yellowstone volcano erupted 2.1 million years ago, 1.3 million years ago, and 640,000 years ago, inflicting apocalyptic devastation on a global scale.
This is based on dubious estimates, as the interval between the devastating events is approximately 600,000 years, meaning a volcanic catastrophe is overdue.
However, these claims have been universally dismissed by experts.
Commenting on the issue three years ago, USGS scientist Jake Lowenstein, argued using such statistics on two eruptive intervals is “playing games”.
He said: “Because we don’t know. There’s no clock down there, the magma is going to erupt when it wants to erupt.
“There’s been a lot of things that have happened over the last 600,000 years that might indicate there’s less likely of an eruption.”
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