• March 28, 2024

Earthquakes Hit Yellowstone Is Eruption At Hand

 Earthquakes Hit Yellowstone Is Eruption At Hand

Most Americans are unaware that one of the biggest dangers facing our nation is Yellowstone National Park. That’s right, one of the most beautiful places in our county also has the ability to destroy most life in the United States from the southern half of California to the Atlantic coast. You see, Yellowstone is located mostly in the collapsed crater of one of the worlds largest super-volcanoes.

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But what is the chance that the Yellowstone volcano could actually erupt and engulf most of the United States in a massive pyroclastic cloud? Well it might surprise you know that the odds, when all things are considered, are not that bad. But what is worse yet, is that recently there have been signs that the volcano could be waking up.

Experts say that the Yellowstone super-volcano has been hit in recent months by a series of earthquakes, more that 400 of them June 12, 2017. The latest was recorded June 19, with a magnitude 3 earthquake striking 8.6 miles north northeast of West Yellowstone, Montana. The latest swarm began last week, and on June 15 a magnitude 4.5 quake rocked the park. “The epicenter of the shock was located in Yellowstone National Park,” scientists from the University of Utah, which monitors Yellowstone Volcanosaid in a statement.

This earthquake was the largest to have hit Yellowstone since March 30, 2014, when a magnitude 4.8 earthquake was recorded 18 miles to the east, near the Norris Geyser Basin. “[The 4.5] earthquake is part of an energetic sequence of earthquakes in the same area that began on June 12,” the statement continued. “This sequence has included approximately thirty earthquakes of magnitude 2 and larger and four earthquakes of magnitude 3 and larger, including today’s magnitude 4.5 event.”

As of June 19, 464 events had been recorded. “This is the highest number of earthquakes at Yellowstone within a single week in the past five years, but is fewer than weekly counts during similar earthquakes swarms in 2002, 2004, 2008 and 2010,” scientists said. 

A spokesperson from the USGS and YVO tells Newsweek the probability of a large eruption at Yellowstone in the next year is currently calculated at one in 730,000. They arrive at that figure because the super-volcano has erupted on average once every 600,000 to 800,000 years with the last one happening some 640,000 years ago. The last big eruption occurred just 70,000 years ago, but that type of eruption is much more frequent while not near as devastating.

If a full eruption did occur, scientists with the USGS published a report that contained a model of what would happen if a major, explosive eruption happened. Their findings showed most of the country would be covered in a blanket of ash, with some areas being buried up to a meter deep. Such an ash-fall would devastate crops and all plant life to the Atlantic ocean, fires would burn out of control and even breathing would become impossible for millions of people.

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