Post by Paddy by Grace on Jan 29, 2010 20:59:26 GMT -7
SEE VIDEO ABOVE
GOLDEN - Paul Earle knows the ground underneath Yellowstone National Park is restless once again. However, the seismologist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) is pretty realistic about it.
"Nothing to worry about," he said.
It is a good thing, considering seismographs have registered 1,497 earthquakes in the area since Jan. 17.
"There has certainly been a swarm of earthquakes there," Earle said.
A year ago, a similar swarm in another section of Yellowstone shook the earth on 900 separate occasions.
"Most of the earthquakes [this time around] have been too small to be felt, but there have been about a dozen magnitude 3 or higher. A 3 is when you can feel it and you know you have been in an earthquake," he said, but a 3 is not enough to do any real damage. "You're not even going to really see things knocked off shelves."
The latest plus 3 magnitude quake occurred Thursday morning. All of the earthquakes have been roughly centered about 9 miles southeast of West Yellowstone or 10 miles to the northwest of Old Faithful.
The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory considers "the swarm events are likely the result of slip on pre-existing faults and are not thought to be caused by underground movement of magma."
That is a good thing considering Yellowstone has a history of cataclysmic eruptions. The Yellowstone area is considered a super-volcano.
"These are volcanoes that, should they explode, would impact the entire planet," Earle said.
The last super-volcanic eruption at Yellowstone was roughly 640,000 years ago.
GOLDEN - Paul Earle knows the ground underneath Yellowstone National Park is restless once again. However, the seismologist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) is pretty realistic about it.
"Nothing to worry about," he said.
It is a good thing, considering seismographs have registered 1,497 earthquakes in the area since Jan. 17.
"There has certainly been a swarm of earthquakes there," Earle said.
A year ago, a similar swarm in another section of Yellowstone shook the earth on 900 separate occasions.
"Most of the earthquakes [this time around] have been too small to be felt, but there have been about a dozen magnitude 3 or higher. A 3 is when you can feel it and you know you have been in an earthquake," he said, but a 3 is not enough to do any real damage. "You're not even going to really see things knocked off shelves."
The latest plus 3 magnitude quake occurred Thursday morning. All of the earthquakes have been roughly centered about 9 miles southeast of West Yellowstone or 10 miles to the northwest of Old Faithful.
The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory considers "the swarm events are likely the result of slip on pre-existing faults and are not thought to be caused by underground movement of magma."
That is a good thing considering Yellowstone has a history of cataclysmic eruptions. The Yellowstone area is considered a super-volcano.
"These are volcanoes that, should they explode, would impact the entire planet," Earle said.
The last super-volcanic eruption at Yellowstone was roughly 640,000 years ago.