Silent Yellowstone geyser erupts

Hmmm, it makes me wonder if Yellowstone is about ready to blow !

A few years back there was a report that the Culdara under the park was starting to rise, some of the lakes in Yellowstone moved out of their banks and flooded forests and grasslands, after site surveys on the culdara at Yellowstone, officals said the was a rise or bubble of magma under the park.

I hope it's just indigestion!

"from Yahoo news"

news.yahoo.com...

Wed Jun 14, 9:12 AM ET



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. - A large geyser that hadn't erupted since 1998 surprised two hikers near the edge of Norris Geyser Basin with a roar and burst of steam.

Scott Bryan, author of "The Geysers of Yellowstone," said Ledge was active in the early 1970s until a thermal disturbance in 1974. After that, eruptions were less frequent until 1979, when it quieted down completely

Mod Edit: New External Source Tags – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 2006/6/15 by Hellmutt]

Let's hope you are wrong....

Given the recent activity in the West, you never know...

[edit on 15-6-2006 by loam]

But isnt a geyser erupting a good thing? Doesnt that take some of the pressure

off this ? Just asking, i dont know anything about how this works.

Actually, I think in this case, it's a sign of new and building pressure...

Here is an interesting article I just finished reading on the pressure concept:

Small earthquakes indicate seismic trouble

Couldn't this somehow be related to the pressure that is going on with the earthquakes in Alaska, and now the west coast?

Over FIFTY earthquakes in the last several hours in Alaska

Seems like there has just been so much activity, something is going to break somewhere, and I feel sorry for those caught in it.

Different volcanoes increase activity or start erupting...

Quakes everywhere, above all in Alaska

Yellowstone starts activity

Planets and stars alignment...

Geomagnetic storm

The Ring of Fire increases activity

...etc


Shall we start worrying?

Originally posted by dgtempe
But isnt a geyser erupting a good thing? Doesnt that take some of the pressure
off this ?

Just asking, i dont know anything about how this works.

Not quite. Geysers are powered by steam and hot water from underground heat sources like magma, so the eruption of a geyser doesn't relief the pressure provided by the magma chamber, it just means that the local ground water is hot. The fact that the geyser has been silent since 1978 might not mean anything either. Steamboat Geyser is the biggest in the park, but it erupts sporadically at best, sometimes about once a decade.
We've only been studying Yellowstone properly for a few decades anyway, so we have no idea what constitutes normal background activity. It might be the current state of the park, or it might be experiencing a period of slightly heightened - or even lowered - activity. The uplift measured in the park has been decreasing recently in some areas, which might or might not be a good sign. I was talking to Professor Bill McGuire from the Benfield Hazard Research Centre last years about a new area of steam vents that had opened up (God, I love my job!) and he was saying that it didn't mean much as the internal plumbing under the park is constantly shifting.
Let's not forget that we've only known that Yellowstone is a supervolcano for a decade or so, which isn't very long in terms of understanding the phenomenon. Ten years might seem like a long time for us humans, but geologically speaking it's less than a millisecond in the age of the earth. We need continued monitoring of the park.

After I read this story I thought hmmm, an old gyser that errupts only so often and one thing a gyser needs is water.

It has been pretty dry in the west over the past decade.

Just wondering if there was a change in rain amounts or possibly more snow melt this year than in the past 10 years?

Could additional snow melt be providing an underground supply of water to the gyser this year and thats why it's blowing off steam ?

I hope that yellowstone is not going volcanic, it is such a beautiful area and I would hate to see the wildlife and the forests gone forever.

Originally posted by SIRR1
...
I hope that yellowstone is not going volcanic, it is such a beautiful area and I would hate to see the wildlife and the forests gone forever.

Though not only Yellowstone´s forests and wildlife would be gone forever... the whole planet would suffer a great change...



Let´s hope it is not going to happen and that all these unusual events will stop soon, with no further complications.

Though I am still worried...

It was mentioned that Yellowstone is a 'Supervolcano'.

Would Krakatoa have been a 'super' volcano or just a large volcanic eruption.

Just trying to get perspective on what the 'super' implies.

Originally posted by Grailkeeper
It was mentioned that Yellowstone is a 'Supervolcano'.

Would Krakatoa have been a 'super' volcano or just a large volcanic eruption.

Just trying to get perspective on what the 'super' implies.

Krakatau (the other spelling is the result of a typo by the Times) was a large eruption, but it was still not as large as the Tambora eruption of 1815, which caused the @year without a summer' the following year.
A supervolcano is hard to spot because there is no cone. It is basically a large caldera with a magma chamber below filled with highly pressurised magma. When the magma erupts it weakens the roof of the chamber above it, so that when it is empty it collapses down into it, forming a new caldera. These things can be massive, tens of miles across, like Yellowstone. Other massive ones include Toba in Indonesia, Long Valley in California, and Valles Caldera, in New Mexico.

I googled super volcano and came up with site.

www.solcomhouse.com...

It lists 7 known super volcanos on earth and 3 are in the western U.S.

The way it looks is that we are sitting on a ticking time bomb.

One might go off tomorrow or they all might blow in the next 1000 years, no one knows for sure.

The recent rise in tremors and volcanic activity throughout the globe sure makes me wonder if mother earth is having growing pains at this time on the geologic clock.

Earth Quakes in San Fran and Alaska today and the Volcano in Indonesia errupting, I read somewhere that Mt. St Helen spuded ash yesterday, so possibly we are moving into a peroid of geologic unstability.

There is really nothing we can do but be prepared to survive the blast and then rebuild after one of these puppies go off !

Look how nice and peaceful. This is Lake Toba, home of the largest super eruption in the last 2 million years. No "wildlife and forests gone forever" here...


Photographers A.M. & K.D.Hollitzer

Source: Toba, Sumatra, Indonesia

Relaxing picture, Helmutt

Yellostone's got loads of geysers, one just going off after inactivity is probably nothing. You might want to worry if there was a hydrothermal explosion, as that would probably mean magma was close to the surface, rather than just the hot rocks.

According to the YVO report, the rate of uplift is 10cm in the last 20 months at maximum. There were 130 minor earthquakes, not many of these were on the Earthquake page of USGS.

volcanoes.usgs.gov...

Here is additional information on the gysers at Yellowstone

By MIKE STARK
Billings Gazette Friday, June 02, 2006

BILLINGS, Mont. -- The fiery engine that drives the spectacular geysers and other features at Yellowstone National Park extends at least 240 miles beneath the Earth's surface, according to a new study.

The findings lend weight to the argument that a plume of hot rock rising from deep within the Earth fuels Yellowstone's churning geothermal features.

www.casperstartribune.net...

Originally posted by SIRR1
Here is additional information on the gysers at Yellowstone

By MIKE STARK
Billings Gazette Friday, June 02, 2006

BILLINGS, Mont. -- The fiery engine that drives the spectacular geysers and other features at Yellowstone National Park extends at least 240 miles beneath the Earth's surface, according to a new study.

The findings lend weight to the argument that a plume of hot rock rising from deep within the Earth fuels Yellowstone's churning geothermal features.

www.casperstartribune.net...

Good spot, Sirr. It just goes to show that we know very little about what's under our feet. The exact status of the magma chamber is something that people have been wondering for ages. Is the current chamber cooling and crystallising, in which case the supervolcano is getting ready to shift position again? Or is it just biding its time for another eruption? How strong will that eruption be? A small one, where it just emits enough magma to dribble up and form some lava domes, or a larger one, where the caldera unzips to form a new crater? We just don't know. And that's the scary thing about Yellowstone.

I've been interested in Yellowstone for awhile, there is evidence that it has exploded two times. The second not being as powerful as the first, but still devastating. I think if it exploded again it would effect mainly north america. And I believe that yellowstone blows every 600k years and that we are due for the next explosion, so that could be the reason why yellowstone seems more active in recent years. However it's also a slow process, it could take another few hundred years for it to explode....but I'm no optimist

Originally posted by Ptolomeo
Different volcanoes increase activity or start erupting...
Quakes everywhere, above all in Alaska
Yellowstone starts activity
Planets and stars alignment...

If planets and stars have an effect..have you looked up in the sky lately? You can see Mars, Venus and Mercury pretty much in a triangle very close to each other, the 15th being the day they were probably closer in alignment. Wonder if that had any effects.


Pie

Originally posted by laiguana
I've been interested in Yellowstone for awhile, there is evidence that it has exploded two times. The second not being as powerful as the first, but still devastating. I think if it exploded again it would effect mainly north america. And I believe that yellowstone blows every 600k years and that we are due for the next explosion, so that could be the reason why yellowstone seems more active in recent years. However it's also a slow process, it could take another few hundred years for it to explode....but I'm no optimist

Actually it's 3 times, and the power varied. 2 million years ago the Huckleberry Tuff event vented 2500 km of ash. 1.3 million years ago we had the Mesa Falls Tuff, which vented 280 km of ash, and 600,000 years ago there was the Lava Creek Tuff, which sent out 1000km of ash. That's a lot of ash in each event. here's a link to the USGS page on Yellowstone, which gives you links to other pages. It's excellent. vulcan.wr.usgs.gov...