WEBVTT

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(spectators laughing)
(happy music)

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When people come to Old Faithful,

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sometimes they accidentally get a little wet.

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It might be because of the geyser,

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it might be because of the weather.

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But there was a time when you could come

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to Old Faithful and intentionally get wet.

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That's right, there used to be

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a hot swimming pool located here.

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The pool was built in 1914,

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and it was located just behind me on the bank

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of the Firehole River in that flat area there.

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The water for the pool came from Solitary Geyser,

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which is in the hills up above the geyser basin.

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It was actually fed down to the pool.

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Now, in 1933, the pools changed hands.

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It was expanded into a huge wooden structure.

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It could hold 135 people

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and it even had a lifeguard tower that was 25 feet tall.

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As you can imagine, though,

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there were some changing perceptions about having this pool

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in this geyser basin, maybe some health concerns as well.

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And in 1951, the pool was closed and it was removed.

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But you can still see the site where it was located today

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and its effects are still felt

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in the behavior of Solitary Geyser.

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That geyser, when the water level lowered,

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it started having small eruptions every few minutes.

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And now even though all of that material has been removed,

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all the piping is gone, the water levels have come back up,

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Solitary continues to have these small eruptions

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that weren't really present

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prior to the pool being installed.

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So that's the story of the Old Faithful swimming pool.

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Now let's talk about earthquake activity,

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ground deformation, and geyser eruptions

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that occurred over the course of the past month.

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It was a pretty quiet month in terms

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of earthquake activity in the Yellowstone region.

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The University of Utah Seismograph Stations

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located 62 earthquakes during May.

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As usual, most of them occurred in this band

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between Hebgen Lake and the north central part

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of Yellowstone National Park.

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Now that included a small swarm of 20 earthquakes

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just to the north of West Yellowstone, Montana.

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This swarm actually started in late April,

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but continued throughout the month and it included

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the largest earthquake of the month, a magnitude 1.8.

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There were two other 1.8s in the park during the month.

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One in the southwest part of the park,

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and another between Shoshone Lake and West Thumb.

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So all in all, pretty quiet seismically

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during the month of May.

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Turning now to ground deformation,

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this is vertical defamation measured at

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the White Lake GPS station on the east side of the Caldera.

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The entire plot spans the last two years,

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and each one of these blue dots is one day of data.

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Upward trends are uplift

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and downward trends indicate subsidence.

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Since 2015, the Caldera has been subsiding at a rate

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of a few centimeters, an inch or so per year.

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It's interrupted in the summer months by a pause

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or a little bit of uplift, and that's due

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to seasonal changes in groundwater and snow melt conditions.

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Now, since September, October of last year,

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we've seen subsidence, but it looks like

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that's starting to flatten out.

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So we may be beginning to transition

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to our summertime pause or a little bit of uplift,

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which we see, of course, every year.

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And now looking at the tallest geyser in the world,

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Steamboat Geyser, this is temperature measured

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in the geyser's outflow channel.

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These high temperatures and rapid fluctuations

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are indicating minor eruptive activity of the geyser

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that culminated on the early morning hours

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of May 30th with a major eruption.

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This is the third major eruption of 2024.

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Immediately afterwards, the geyser stopped erupting,

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not even minor activity,

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and we went down to background temperature changes.

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So Steamboat is still active.

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It just experienced its third eruption of 2024.

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Well, that's the June 2024 update

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from the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory

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coming from snowy Old Faithful.

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Now remember, if you enjoyed this video,

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please hit like and subscribe down below.

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And if you have any questions, drop us a line.

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Either email us at yvowebteam@usgs.gov

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or put a note in the comments down below.

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Well, until next month, stay safe and stay healthy.

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We will be back from Yellowstone in July. Bye bye.

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(light music)