Whats going on at yellowstone?

reply to post by Spypants



Along this lines... There has been a recent investment in geothermal energy from ARRA funds. If you were following the quake watch 2010 thread before the Yellowstone swarm distracted me, you might remember the Coso swarm that was going on a few weeks back. This correlated to fluid injection at the Coso geothermal plant. Induced seismicity from such projects is pretty widely recognized. I bring it up, because that activity seemed to include a lot of those "double bang" quakes we are seeing in this swarm. Incidentally, that swarm seems to be over. I wonder if they stopped the fluid injection after the US Govt decided to step back and revise geothermal safety guidelines a few weeks back. (A similar project at the Geysers in CA has been completely shut down, as were projects in Switzerland and Germany.)

www.nytimes.com...
www.nytimes.com...


Yellowstone itself is protected from such projects, but there are a large number currently under development in Idaho, including one in the Raft River area (which is - I think - along the historic path of the hot spot?) that I believe is just getting underway. I wonder if there is fluid injection going on, and when that started. Probably completely unrelated, but it seems we're constantly hearing how little is understood about the Yellowstone hot spot.

reply to post by butcherguy


I don't think that small fluctuations in barometric air pressure could influence earthquakes occurring a few kilometers under it. If they did, then cars, bisons or any other kind of ground activity involving movement of heavy bodies/objects would regularly cause earthquakes.

Originally posted by Shirakawa
reply to post by butcherguy

 

I don't think that small fluctuations in barometric air pressure could influence earthquakes occurring a few kilometers under it. If they did, then cars, bisons or any other kind of ground activity involving movement of heavy bodies/objects would regularly cause earthquakes.

I respect that, but a bison's weight is only affecting the ground immediately under it's hooves. If you place just a slight differential in the air on a door, amounting to less than 1"w.c., it effectively makes the door impossible for the normal person to open. Let's say you increase or decrease the barometric pressure over a given geographical area, how much force would we be looking at? What does the caldera measure? 45 miles by 36 miles? I honestly don't know. But it is a lot of square miles, though. Multiply the area by the change in barometric pressure, could be a large force put into the mix.

reply to post by butcherguy


That's true, but, in random order:

- YNP is at about 2000 meters A.S.L.
- At 2000 meters A.S.L. the atmospheric pressure on the ground is roughly 800 Kg/m2
- I don't think extreme variations in a day would be greater than 3-4%, that's 32 Kg per square meter, from about 800 Kg of air column force.
- Rock layers are somewhat "elastic", especially at great depths. This would damp external forces.
- Faults don't go from one side to another of the caldera, they're not that large.
- I think the uplift force of the caldera is many orders of magnitude greater than barometric fluctuations (unfortunately I don't have direct data to back this).

Maybe there could be some effect if all the atmosphere above YNP was instantaneously removed or completely displaced, a bit like what has already occurred in the past with Yellowstone Lake water (strong earthquakes occurring in the lake displacing large amounts of water caused stronger ones because of the sudden lack of lake bed pressure caused by the water column), but that would unlikely happen.

[edit on 2010-1-26 by Shirakawa]

reply to post by Shirakawa
I really don't believe that atmospheric pressure will be found to be connected to earthquakes. I just wanted to stick it up there for someone else to run with if they think the earthquake frequency is affected by air temperatures.

A few years back I was following a well at Long Valley. One day I noticed a rise and then significant drop in the barometric pressure in the well and moments after that there was a larger quake. I contacted USGS and asked them their thinking on barometric pressure within the well. I was told there was no link between the drop in pressure and the quake. I was not and am not convinced of this. So I am going to step way far out on a thin limb here and wonder/question while we are on this subject. When a geyser discharges pressurized water and after the water in said discharge is exhausted air must fill the gap until the next such event. Could the pressure of the air that is sucked back into the vent if high or low trigger a quake? Is anyone watching to see if there is any relationship to the timing of the geysers’ intake of air and the quality of the air and the earthquakes that are occurring? Just a thought out on a limb

seems worldwide quit with EQ's.....

reply to post by Anmarie96
I am not a geologist. What is a well? like a geyser? This stuff is amongst the most interesting that I have found on ATS. Thank you in advance.

reply to post by quakewatcher
Interesting with the fluid injection thing. I spoke to someone recently concerning water injection into bedrock to get more natural gas out of the ground in Northern Pennsylvania. They are going to try something different now, filling cracks in the bedrock with propane gas, then igniting it. The explosion of the gas underground is supposed to fracture the bedrock further to increase the amount of natural gas they can get out of the well. My concern would be with what could happen even with forcing the water down there under high enough pressure to fracture the bedrock, much less exploding gas/air mixture.

waterdata.usgs.gov...
doesn't this look like it picked up a bit. what is the temp out there? I know a recent storm went through the area. thoughts.?

reply to post by Lil Drummerboy


That is as flat as a pancake with ice so I would not take too much notice of that.

reply to post by Anmarie96


I like this thinking and despite the fact that Shirakawa has calculated not much effect I think that a deeper look at this might be a good idea.

(Slightly later note: The area of the old caldera where the swarm is happening is about 34km across - maybe a bit more. 32kg/sqm over this sort of area is a mere 30 MILLION tonnes - now shoot me down 'cos my math is not that good! )

reply to post by butcherguy

They are going to try something different now, filling cracks in the bedrock with propane gas, then igniting it. The explosion of the gas underground is supposed to fracture the bedrock further to increase the amount of natural gas they can get out of the well.

Are they completely mad!!!! So how about if that ignites the natural gas as well???

[edit on 26/1/2010 by PuterMan]

reply to post by butcherguy


lvo.wr.usgs.gov...

reply to post by Anmarie96


I find the last line on the page that you flagged very intersting and i quote...

Barometric pressure and earth tides: Water-level data from the continuously monitored wells are filtered to remove the effects of barometric pressure and earth tides.

So there is an effect on water levels, and therefore presumably other fluid bodies, due to atmospheric pressure?

[edit on 26/1/2010 by PuterMan]

I would like to point out the very last line in my previous post at:

lvo.wr.usgs.gov...

States.: Barometric pressure and earth tides: Water-level data from the continuously monitored wells are filtered to remove the effects of barometric pressure and earth tides.

Question/Thought = Why = so, therefore, we must have a portion of a riddle solved = yes barometric pressure and earth tides (Robin this is you now) which are driven by the moon DO play a part in the workings of a volcano and their earthquakes.

maybe they did look into this the last time I mentioned it to them - idk

I finally had a chance to look back over the day...seems to be a little less excitement so far, but we ARE approaching the nightime hours. (The moon is BIG out there at 4:00 PST.....washington state)

I am wondering why only one of the many quakes today is being listed on the USGS site? I know they have many to log but come on. Only one 2.4 is being listed. Out of how many? This is slow even by the past weeks standards.

Also, I am again seeing some more quake activity in the NE of the park. Flip back and forth between YMR and YSB, you'll see what I'm talking about.

reply to post by Anmarie96


Have you seen their chart?

lvo.wr.usgs.gov...

They remove them because they are not very significant variations (in fact, they're very small). In this way they have cleaner charts with the only data that counts.

The following three clips may seem completely off topic. But I promise you they're completely applicable. If you disagree and think they are, ignore this, it's for the best. Watch them in order.

www.collegehumor.com...:1902812

www.bareknucks.com...

www.fox4kc.com...

ok this last clip may be streching it, but it's too cool to ignore.

sports.yahoo.com...,215300




[edit on 26-1-2010 by Robin Marks]

reply to post by Robin Marks


Am I missing something here Robin? What point is it that you are trying to make with these videos?

I COULD however, see a quake dropping the barametric pressure, but not barometric pressure causing a quake, so I could see the opposite making sense, hence the link.

2.5 mag quake just now.

Seems that once again it may pick up as night falls!