WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.063 --> 00:00:03.230 (gentle upbeat music) 2 00:00:05.820 --> 00:00:08.010 line:15% Hi everybody, I'm Mike Poland scientist-in-charge 3 00:00:08.010 --> 00:00:09.650 line:15% of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. 4 00:00:09.650 --> 00:00:11.220 This is the YVO monthly update 5 00:00:11.220 --> 00:00:14.370 for April 1st of 2021, no fooling. 6 00:00:14.370 --> 00:00:16.090 Now, before we talk about what happened in Yellowstone 7 00:00:16.090 --> 00:00:17.730 over the past month, I thought it might be fun 8 00:00:17.730 --> 00:00:19.664 to talk about what else YVO looks 9 00:00:19.664 --> 00:00:22.010 at in terms of volcanic activity even though we're 10 00:00:22.010 --> 00:00:23.740 the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. 11 00:00:23.740 --> 00:00:26.350 We also have the responsibility for monitoring the volcanoes 12 00:00:26.350 --> 00:00:27.880 of the Southwestern United States 13 00:00:27.880 --> 00:00:29.830 in the four corners region, Utah, 14 00:00:29.830 --> 00:00:31.880 Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. 15 00:00:31.880 --> 00:00:34.320 And in fact, there is young volcanism in this area. 16 00:00:34.320 --> 00:00:37.030 For example, the Black Rock Desert Volcanic Field 17 00:00:37.030 --> 00:00:39.200 in central south central Utah has had an eruption 18 00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:42.070 about 10,000 years ago or so. 19 00:00:42.070 --> 00:00:44.930 The Zuni Bandera volcanic field West of Albuquerque 20 00:00:44.930 --> 00:00:47.720 in New Mexico had an eruption about 3000 years ago. 21 00:00:47.720 --> 00:00:48.670 And the youngest eruption 22 00:00:48.670 --> 00:00:51.220 in the region was out of Sunset Crater near Flagstaff 23 00:00:51.220 --> 00:00:52.700 in the San Francisco Volcanic Field. 24 00:00:52.700 --> 00:00:55.010 And that was just a little over 900 years ago. 25 00:00:55.010 --> 00:00:56.950 So in fact, it's more likely that magma will reach 26 00:00:56.950 --> 00:00:59.490 the surface in the Four Corners area than it will 27 00:00:59.490 --> 00:01:00.323 in the Yellowstone area. 28 00:01:00.323 --> 00:01:01.980 Where the most recent magmatic eruption 29 00:01:01.980 --> 00:01:03.940 was 70,000 years ago. 30 00:01:03.940 --> 00:01:05.810 So we do keep an eye on these volcanoes down 31 00:01:05.810 --> 00:01:08.070 here using a combination of techniques. 32 00:01:08.070 --> 00:01:10.410 And we do see activity from time to time. 33 00:01:10.410 --> 00:01:11.840 Although we haven't seen anything 34 00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:13.740 that suggests that magma is on the move. 35 00:01:13.740 --> 00:01:16.050 Now, for example, this is a map of seismicity 36 00:01:16.050 --> 00:01:21.010 in Utah over the last week, basically late March of 2021. 37 00:01:21.010 --> 00:01:22.810 And there's this seismic swarm right down here 38 00:01:22.810 --> 00:01:24.270 in sort of southern Utah. 39 00:01:24.270 --> 00:01:25.860 This is sort of on the border 40 00:01:25.860 --> 00:01:27.420 of the Black Rock Volcanic Field, 41 00:01:27.420 --> 00:01:29.090 but it has all of the characteristics 42 00:01:29.090 --> 00:01:30.950 of a tectonic earthquake swarm. 43 00:01:30.950 --> 00:01:32.750 And that's because this entire area 44 00:01:32.750 --> 00:01:34.240 of the western U.S. is stretching. 45 00:01:34.240 --> 00:01:36.000 You can see it in the topography 46 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:38.630 with all these alternating valleys and mountain ranges. 47 00:01:38.630 --> 00:01:39.463 And that's a sign 48 00:01:39.463 --> 00:01:41.200 that the whole region is being pulled apart. 49 00:01:41.200 --> 00:01:42.830 We see lots and lots of earthquakes. 50 00:01:42.830 --> 00:01:45.560 In fact, just a year ago, almost a year ago today 51 00:01:45.560 --> 00:01:49.100 we had the magnitude 6.5 earthquake in central Idaho. 52 00:01:49.100 --> 00:01:50.450 And that was also related 53 00:01:50.450 --> 00:01:53.820 to this tectonic extension of the western United States. 54 00:01:53.820 --> 00:01:55.800 So we can tell from the type of seismicity 55 00:01:55.800 --> 00:01:58.630 this is tectonic seismicity, tectonic earthquakes 56 00:01:58.630 --> 00:01:59.880 but of course we keep an eye on it 57 00:01:59.880 --> 00:02:03.340 just to make sure that there's no magmatic component to it. 58 00:02:03.340 --> 00:02:05.020 Okay, well, now that you know a little bit more 59 00:02:05.020 --> 00:02:07.420 about YVO's background and what else we monitor, 60 00:02:07.420 --> 00:02:08.720 let's talk about what happened 61 00:02:08.720 --> 00:02:10.763 in Yellowstone during the month of March. 62 00:02:11.920 --> 00:02:13.850 There was no particularly noteworthy activity 63 00:02:13.850 --> 00:02:16.250 in the Yellowstone region during the month of March. 64 00:02:16.250 --> 00:02:18.200 The University of Utah Seismograph Stations 65 00:02:18.200 --> 00:02:19.790 which is responsible for the maintenance 66 00:02:19.790 --> 00:02:22.390 and operation of the Yellowstone seismic network located 67 00:02:22.390 --> 00:02:24.110 105 earthquakes during the month, 68 00:02:24.110 --> 00:02:25.680 which is pretty much average. 69 00:02:25.680 --> 00:02:29.550 The largest was only a magnitude 2.4 located right here 70 00:02:29.550 --> 00:02:31.490 in the northern part of the Park. 71 00:02:31.490 --> 00:02:33.310 There were also a couple of small swarms 72 00:02:33.310 --> 00:02:35.200 in the Old Faithful region, 73 00:02:35.200 --> 00:02:37.630 but that's again pretty average about 50% 74 00:02:37.630 --> 00:02:38.680 of all the seismicity 75 00:02:38.680 --> 00:02:41.053 in Yellowstone occurs as part of swarms. 76 00:02:41.920 --> 00:02:43.484 In terms of deformation we haven't seen changes 77 00:02:43.484 --> 00:02:45.590 in several years now. 78 00:02:45.590 --> 00:02:48.760 This is the last two years of vertical deformation 79 00:02:48.760 --> 00:02:50.470 at the White Lake GPS station, 80 00:02:50.470 --> 00:02:52.450 which is on the east side of the caldera 81 00:02:52.450 --> 00:02:53.950 at the Sour Creek resurgent dome. 82 00:02:53.950 --> 00:02:56.090 Each one of these dots is a day of data. 83 00:02:56.090 --> 00:02:59.100 And when you see the trend going down that means subsidence 84 00:02:59.100 --> 00:03:01.720 and up means inflation or uplift. 85 00:03:01.720 --> 00:03:03.610 And you can see over the last two years 86 00:03:03.610 --> 00:03:05.990 there's been this overall subsidence trend of 87 00:03:05.990 --> 00:03:08.740 just a couple of centimeters about an inch 88 00:03:08.740 --> 00:03:12.040 so per year interrupted by little seasonal variations 89 00:03:12.040 --> 00:03:13.570 which we see every year. 90 00:03:13.570 --> 00:03:16.450 And this has been ongoing since 2015. 91 00:03:16.450 --> 00:03:17.680 If we go over to the west side 92 00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:19.660 of the caldera and the Mallard Lake resurgent dome 93 00:03:19.660 --> 00:03:22.140 this is a GPS station located near Old Faithful. 94 00:03:22.140 --> 00:03:24.600 And that same pattern of overall subsidence 95 00:03:24.600 --> 00:03:27.180 for the last couple of years is apparent there as well. 96 00:03:27.180 --> 00:03:29.440 Again, happening at couple of centimeters 97 00:03:29.440 --> 00:03:31.950 about an inch or so per year. 98 00:03:31.950 --> 00:03:34.400 Finally, if we go over to the Norris Geyser basin 99 00:03:34.400 --> 00:03:37.760 that had been uplifting between 2015 and 2018, 100 00:03:37.760 --> 00:03:41.210 but that paused in late 2018, we didn't see much change 101 00:03:41.210 --> 00:03:43.327 through 2019 bit of subsidence at the end of 2019 102 00:03:43.327 --> 00:03:47.500 and there's been really nothing since the beginning of 2020. 103 00:03:47.500 --> 00:03:49.582 So deformation at Norris continues 104 00:03:49.582 --> 00:03:53.203 to be pretty flat, no real changes there. 105 00:03:54.110 --> 00:03:56.120 And then of course, turning to everyone's favorite geyser, 106 00:03:56.120 --> 00:03:59.118 Steamboat Geyser in the Norris Geyser basin 107 00:03:59.118 --> 00:04:00.940 that has had three water eruptions 108 00:04:00.940 --> 00:04:04.410 in the month of March, one here on March 3rd 109 00:04:04.410 --> 00:04:08.050 one here on March 18th and another on March 27th. 110 00:04:08.050 --> 00:04:09.660 This is the temperature record 111 00:04:09.660 --> 00:04:11.040 in the Steamboat outlet channel. 112 00:04:11.040 --> 00:04:13.400 All of this minor activity leads up to a major 113 00:04:13.400 --> 00:04:14.920 and then everything decreases 114 00:04:14.920 --> 00:04:17.000 as there's no more eruptive activity all. 115 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:18.946 Then we get to more minor activity. 116 00:04:18.946 --> 00:04:20.160 And this pattern has been going on now 117 00:04:20.160 --> 00:04:23.310 for a couple of years with these three eruptions in March 118 00:04:23.310 --> 00:04:25.660 that brings the total number of eruptions of Steamboat 119 00:04:25.660 --> 00:04:28.043 for 2021 to seven. 120 00:04:29.350 --> 00:04:31.240 Well, that does it for the YVO monthly update 121 00:04:31.240 --> 00:04:32.610 for April 1st of 2020. 122 00:04:32.610 --> 00:04:34.040 line:15% Now, remember if you have any questions 123 00:04:34.040 --> 00:04:39.040 line:15% you can email us anytime yvowebteam@usgs.gov. 124 00:04:39.670 --> 00:04:41.150 Take care, stay safe, 125 00:04:41.150 --> 00:04:43.218 and we'll see you next month, bye bye. 126 00:04:43.218 --> 00:04:46.218 (soft upbeat music)