Yellowstone National Park - Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association

Yellowstone volcano gas WARNING: USGS warns of poisonous gas emissions in National Park

Sebastian Kettley — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 05:23:07 +0000

YELLOWSTONE volcano is the subject of much speculation over whether there will be a major eruption in the future – but now National Park’s authorities have a more pressing issue to worry about as experts warned of toxic gases venting from the supervolcano.

Yellowstone National Park is home to thousands of hot springs and geysers spewing clouds of mostly harmless, rotten-smelling gases.

But in the deeper parts of the Yellowstone wilderness where tourists are told not to stray, toxic fumes of lethal gas are powerful enough to kill.

USGS scientists studying the Yellowstone volcano have warned of the ever-present danger in the latest issue of the weekly Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles.

USGS expert Jennifer Lewicki, who is based in California’s Menlo Park, said dozens of Yellowstone animals have dropped dead over the years as a result of inhaling toxic fumes.

The two killers are poisonous levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen sulphide (H2S), which are concentrating around ground levels.

Most of the gases emitted by Yellowstone’s network of hydrothermal pipes are harmless water vapour gases.

But hiding in these emissions could be concentrations of toxic gases, which have proven to be lethal to animals.

CO2 is particularly dangerous because it is an odourless and colourless gas.

H2S on the other hand is easier to spot thanks it to its distinctive smell of rotting-eggs but the gas is also colourless and flammable.

Both gases typical pool around ground levels because they are heavier than air.

This can be absolutely lethal to animal grazing in the parks fields with their noses close to the ground.

Ms Lewicki wrote: “In most circumstances, wind will dilute carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide to low concentrations that do not threaten the health of people and animals.

“In certain very stable atmospheric conditions, though, these relatively heavy gases can accumulate in low-lying areas and pose a serious hazard. “

This appears to have been the case in 2004 when a number of dead bison were found in the Norris Geyser Basin following a cold and still night.

The animals bore no physical markings of a predator attack and the animals appeared to have died suddenly – and as a group.

Yellowstone officials later surmised the atmospheric conditions on the night allowed for the toxic gases to pool around the animals’ grazing area, slowly killing the wild beasts.

Yellowstone volcano: Most of the gas is harmless steam vapour from the system (Image: GETTY)

A similar incident was observed more than 100 years earlier in the aptly named Death Gulch part of the park were eight bear carcasses were discovered in 1897.

Hawaii Volcano Observatory founder, geologist Thomas Jaggar, speculated upon the discovery the animals died as a result of inhaling CO2 and H2S.

The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns H2S is an irritating agent to the eyes and respiratory tract.

When exposed to H2S, the gas can cause damage to the nervous system, trigger unconsciousness and cause lung oedema.

Yellowstone volcano: Grazing animals are at risk of the poled toxic gases (Image: GETTY)

Inhaling the gas can be lethal and immediate medical attention is recommended.

CO2 can be equally harmful if inhaled, causing suffocation and unconsciousness.

The CDC said: “High concentrations in the air cause a deficiency of oxygen with the risk of unconsciousness or death.

“Check oxygen content before entering area. No odour warning if toxic concentrations are present.”

Yellowstone volcano: The first case of gas poisoning was documented in 1897 (Image: USGS)

Under most circumstances, the thousands of tourists who visit Yellowstone National Park on a daily basis have nothing to fear, however.

Ms Lewicki wrote: “Under most weather conditions, visitors will not be bothered by the gas emissions that are an integral part of Yellowstone’s fascinating hydrothermal areas.

“However, as recommended by the National Park Service, people should remain aware of potential gas hazards when exploring these areas and leave immediately if feeling sick.

“Even though there is no record of any human deaths due to exposure to gases at Yellowstone, the lessons of Death Gulch and the Norris bison provide warnings that should be heeded.”

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1003199/Yellowstone-volcano-gas-poison-USGS-warning-yellowstone-national-park

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Yellowstone Hotspot: Scientists Find Source Of Supervolcano’s Heat

Allan Adamson — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 03:59:24 +0000

Researchers used seismic tomography to find Yellowstone’s hotspot suspected to be part of a mantle plume originating from Earth’s mantle and core boundary. “Stealing” the supervolcano’s heat may prevent the next Yellowstone eruption. ( Mark Ralston | AFP/Getty Images )

A giant volcano lies beneath Yellowstone National Park and the heat it generates powers all the hot springs and geysers in the area, but where does this heat come from?

Yellowstone Hotspot

Scientists describe Yellowstone as a hotspot marked by anomalously high temperature. The intense heat produced by this hotspot is responsible for the melting of the crust and the formation of basaltic and rhyolitic magma.

The Yellowstone hotspot is fixed within the Earth’s mantle and has long been suspected to be part of a mantle plume, an upwelling of abnormally hot rock within the Earth’s mantle. Mantle plumes may originate from the boundary separating the mantle and the core about 1,850 miles beneath the surface.

To find evidence of a plume beneath the Yellowstone, Study researchers Peter Nelson and Stephen Grand, from the University of Texas, used seismic tomography, a technique for imaging Earth’s subsurface using seismic waves produced by earthquakes or explosions. The data provided evidence for plume extending from the core-mantle boundary all the way to the base of the crust at Yellowstone.

“The model reveals a single narrow, cylindrically shaped slow anomaly, approximately 350 km in diameter that we interpret as a whole-mantle plume. The anomaly is tilted to the northeast and extends from the core-mantle boundary to the surficial position of the Yellowstone hotspot,” the researchers wrote in their study, which was published in Nature Geoscience in March. “Our results strongly support a deep origin for the Yellowstone hotspot.”

Preventing Yellowstone Eruption By Stealing Supervolcano’s Heat

Yellowstone erupts about every 600,000 years and its next eruption could be catastrophic. A group of NASA scientists and engineers earlier revealed the idea of stealing the volcano’s heat to prevent an eruption.

If more heat could be extracted, the volcano may not erupt. NASA estimates that cooling the volcano on its brink of an eruption by 35 percent could ward off an explosion.

The idea is to drill a hole into the side of the volcano and pump water through it. The circulating water would come back out heated to over 600 degrees, which, given enough time, could slowly take enough heat from the volcano and prevent an explosion.

“You would have to give the geothermal companies incentives to drill somewhat deeper and use hotter water than they usually would,” said Brian Wilcox of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The long-term benefit is that you prevent a future supervolcano eruption which would devastate humanity.”

Scientists, however, acknowledged that this idea of saving Earth from a supervolcanic eruption is far from perfect.

Source: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/225865/20180421/yellowstone-hotspot-scientists-find-source-of-supervolcano-s-heat.htm

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The Yellowstone supervolcano is a disaster waiting to happen

Joel Achenbach — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 06:54:31 +0000

A caldera-forming volcano supplies the heat for the hydrothermal features in Yellowstone National Park. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

Yellowstone National Park sits squarely over a giant, active volcano. This requires attention.

Yellowstone has been a national park since 1872, but it was only in the 1960s that scientists realized the scale of the volcano — it’s 44 miles across — and not until the 1980s did they grasp that this thing is fully alive and still threatens to erupt catastrophically.

Yellowstone is capable of eruptions thousands of times more violent than the Mount St. Helens eruption of 1980. The northern Rockies would be buried in multiple feet of ash. Ash would rain on almost everyone in the United States. It’d be a bad day. Thus geologists are eager to understand what, exactly, is happening below all those volcano-fueled hot springs and geysers.

Obviously they would like to know if and when Yellowstone will blow again, and with what level of explosiveness. A major eruption would be a low-probability, high-consequence event, a proverbial Black Swan, something that could have societal and planetary effects. The problem for scientists is that these big “supervolcano” eruptions rarely happen, and the most important action is out of sight, many miles below the surface, involving chaotic forces, complex chemistry and enigmatic geological features.

One new study has offered insight on Yellowstone’s hidden architecture. It modeled the way magma rises from deep in Earth’s interior and creates two large chambers of partially melted rock beneath the surface of the national park.

These two magma chambers are stacked, and they are separated by a layer (called a “sill,” like a window sill) of non-melted rock. The magma rising from Earth’s mantle flows easily and doesn’t hold much gas. It cools and solidifies as it collides with relatively cold crust, forming the sill, the top of which is about six miles below the surface.

On top of the sill is the upper magma chamber, with thick, sticky magma that holds a great deal of gas — which makes the magma in the upper chamber explosive. It’s like an unopened can of soda that has been shaken. Open the can at your peril.

The new study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, explains how this two-tiered, geochemically diverse architecture might have come about over the course of time.

“Someday we might have a model snapshot saying this is what the system looks like when there’s enough melt for there to be a large eruption,” lead author Dylan Colón, an earth sciences doctoral candidate at the University of Oregon, told The Washington Post.

The study won praise from Michael Poland, scientist-in-charge at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Yellowstone Volcano Observatory: “What’s neat about their model is they can go back in time with it and see how it might have influenced eruption rates many millions of years ago.”

The new study bolsters earlier research on the dual magma chambers. It used sensors arrayed around Yellowstone to record the speed at which seismic waves from small earthquakes pass through the subsurface rock. Such waves move more slowly through hot and/or partially melted rock formations. That data gave scientists the equivalent of an MRI showing the two magma chambers.

A 2015 study revealed a gigantic magma reservoir beneath the previously known Yellowstone magma chamber. This cross-section illustration cutting southwest-northeast under Yellowstone depicts the view revealed by seismic imaging. (Hsin-Hua Huang/University of Utah)

“Supervolcano,” we should note, is not a technical term. The experts refer to Yellowstone as a “caldera” or a “caldera-forming volcano.” Some volcanoes form conical mountains. A caldera is a volcano that creates a vast crater. These are mountain-swallowing events. Visitors to Yellowstone are given a map showing the outline of the most recent caldera, and if they go to the right vantage point, it’s possible to see that the heart of the park is remarkably free of mountains. They were either blown away or fell into the big hole.

The Yellowstone region has seen three big eruptions, the first one 2.1 million years ago, the most recent 630,000 years ago. Contrary to Internet rumor-mongering, as well as conspiracy theories about government coverups, there’s no sign that a fourth cataclysmic event is about to happen.

It’s possible, in fact, that Yellowstone is getting a bit old and tired. It may be ready for a long nap rather than a major eruption.

Ilya Bindeman, a University of Oregon geochemist and co-author of the new paper, said that Yellowstone may be “approaching the end of its evolution” because so much of the material in the upper magma chamber is recycled and re-melted after previous eruptions.

As Poland said: “How many times do you want to reheat your leftovers? At some point you’re going to say, ‘I’m not going to reheat this.’ You’ve microwaved it six times, and it’s no longer food.”

Intellectual humility is called for here: No one can say with great confidence how much magma it takes to trigger a caldera-forming eruption. Moreover, relatively small eruptions creating lava flows can happen within the Yellowstone system. The most recent was 70,000 years ago. The experts say one of these smaller eruptions is much more likely than a giant explosion. Speculation that Yellowstone is “due” to erupt catastrophically implies that the volcano behaves predictably, like a machine. Geologists know otherwise.

Yellowstone, it should be noted, isn’t the only caldera in the United States. One of the others that’s worth keeping an eye on — and the U.S. Geological Survey does just that — is the Long Valley caldera in California, near the popular ski resort of Mammoth Mountain, just east of Yosemite National Park. It erupted 700,000 years ago. A major eruption is extremely unlikely, but it could produce smaller eruptions that would be highly disruptive and dangerous, said Margaret Mangan, scientist-in-charge at the USGS California Volcano Observatory.

angan said there are seven volcanic regions in California with zones of molten rock beneath the surface. A volcanic eruption in California is roughly as likely as a magnitude 6 or greater earthquake on the San Andreas Fault, she said.

But Californians don’t worry about volcanoes. They worry about earthquakes, tsunamis and wildfires, she said. She has tried to raise public awareness of volcano hazards but says that it is hard to get much attention.

“The awareness level and preparedness level is quite low in this state,” she said. “We prepare for those large earthquake events, and we need to prepare for volcanic eruptions.”

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/04/20/the-yellowstone-supervolcano-is-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.91fd33a9c902

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Yellowstone volcano eruption: Steamboat geyser starts to BLOW underneath supervolcano

John Thalassites — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 02:55:58 +0000

YELLOWSTONE could be erupting from underground after experts recorded signs of activity from a powerful geyser in the national park which is home to a terrifying super volcano.

Experts at Yellowstone National Park claim to have seen the Steamboat Geyser erupt on Thursday night.

The park service made the announcement about the world’s tallest active geyser on Friday, as geologists compared the accounts to thermal sensors in the area.

It was determined that it “could be a series of minor eruptions”.

The geyser can shoot water more than 300 feet during significant eruptions.

A New Zealand geyser has sent water higher still, albeit not for more than 100 years.

The activity will have sent fears among volcano watchers who worry for the supervolcano, located about 15 miles south of the geyser, is due to erupt.

Yellowstone National Park has more than 10,000 thermal features, sitting atop the world’s largest volcano.

It can send 2,000 times more matter into the sky than the Mount St Helens eruption.

A series of earthquakes have been rumbling underground over the past few months, with as many as 200 recorded in a matter of days.

The volcano is “under strain” according to some experts.

But researchers said steamboat eruptions had little connection to a volcano like Yellowstone.

Jacob Lowenstern, former scientist in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, told the Casper Star and Tribune: “Their plumbing systems are in the upper few hundred feet of the Earth.

“As you get hotter and hotter and deeper and deeper, the permeability and ability of water to move around shuts off. There’s not a whole lot of connectivity of the reservoirs once you get deep.

And Meteorologist Tom Skilling told WGN news: “Minor earthquakes occur in the Yellowstone area 50 or more times per week, but a major eruption is not expected in the foreseeable future.”

Steamboat Geyser is in the Norris Geyser Basin, which is closed to vehicle access at the moment for spring plowing.

Later in the spring, the road will be open to bicycles.

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Yellowstone eruption: The Steamboat geyser is about to blow

Another geyser, Old Faithful, erupts at fairly predictable intervals – but geologists believe that Steamboat Geyser is almost impossible to anticipate.

Between 2005 and mid-2013, the geyser did not erupt once.

Steamboat Geyser then erupted on July 31 2013 and again on Sept 3 2014 according to a report published by the United States Geological Survey.

In the past, gaps as short as four days and as long as 50 years have been recorded between Steamboat Geyser’s eruptions.

The last Yellowstone volcanic eruption was 700,000 years ago and experts say it should blow every one million years or so.

Earlier this year seismologists from UNAVCO, a nonprofit university-governed consortium, revealed the volcano was “under strain”.

Using Global Positioning System, borehole tiltmeters, and borehole strainmeters to measure minute changes in deformation at Yellowstone, David Mencin and Glen Mattioli said “the strain signal is larger than would be expected if the crust under Yellowstone were completely solid”.

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Evidence Of Vast Mantle Plume Discovered Stretching From The Yellowstone Supervolcano To Mexico

Madison Dapcevich — Wed, 21 Mar 2018 00:28:28 +0000

The supervolcano may have last erupted 630,000 years ago, but its presence still strikes fear in some and it’s easy to see why.

Yes, the caldera is changing shape. Sure, eruptions might prime over just a few decades. Alright, there was that earthquake swarm last month. Now, we’ve got a new one for you. Yellowstone’s heat source could be coming from much deeper in the Earth than previously believed.

Researchers from the University of Texas discovered fresh evidence of a gigantic plume that extends from the core-mantle boundary (CMB) – the solid Earth between the core and mantle – beneath the park to the California-Mexico border.

If accurate, it backs up the hotly debated plume theory developed in the 1970s, which says the heat that drives activity – like geysers and hot springs – comes from magma rising upward from within the Earth to its crust.

But finding these deep mantle plumes is no easy task. Typically, scientists measure the arrival of seismic waves from earthquakes to measure the Earth’s interior. Different arrival times lets them see the type of material waves pass through. Here’s the catch: Seismic waves travel horizontally through thin, vertical plumes, which means the waves aren’t really affected by the plume’s presence.

This time around, researchers gathered data from EarthScope’s USArray that records how a seismic wave reflects off and travels through the Earth’s core. These waves traveled slower in a “long, thin, sloping zone,” suggesting a section of the mantle is between 600 and 800°C warmer than the surrounding area. And voila! A 350-kilometer (215-mile) cylinder emerged beneath Yellowstone that runs all the way to Mexico.

Courtesy of Nature Geoscience

The volcanic island chain that makes up the Hawaiian archipelago is a classic example of a plume story. Tectonic plates gradually drift over the malleable part of the mantle, but the superheated mantle plumes remain in a fixed position. This means that you get a chain of volcanoes, with old ones losing their heat source as new ones emerge further along the line.

“There are many suspected plumes, or hot spots, around the Earth,” said Michael Poland, scientist-in-charge at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, who was not part of the study, in an interview with IFLScience. “Yellowstone is one of them, but it’s a bit more complex.”

Yellowstone isn’t so different from other hotspots in general, but as the authors note in their paper, it does possess “features not in accord with classical plume theory,” including, but not limited to, a second hotspot track “propagating in the opposite direction” to the primary one.

You may be asking yourself: What does this new research, which constrains the dimensions of the suspected plume somewhat, mean for the Yellowstone supervolcano?

Well, we have good news.

“It means nothing at all. The plume has always been there, it’s just that we haven’t been able to see it very well,” Poland told IFLScience. He continued that the research gives more insight into what’s driving the whole process.

“This kind of structure works on the order of millions and millions of years and has no impact on our understanding of how Yellowstone works in terms of eruptive cycles, just their driving forces,” he says. “It doesn’t change our perception of volcanic activity at all.”

Poland and the researchers agree: The study raises more questions than it does answers. They hope further research and new methods for imaging the Earth’s core will help clarify some of them.

The study was published in Nature Geoscience.

Source: http://www.iflscience.com/environment/evidence-of-vast-magma-plume-discovered-stretching-from-the-yellowstone-supervolcano-to-mexico/all/

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Yellowstone volcano eruption warning: Huge earthquake swarm is now longest ever recorded

Sean Martin — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 05:50:36 +0000

The usually peaceful volcano has now experienced some 2,750 tremors since June 12 which could indicate that it is ready to burst back into life.

This is the second most active swarm of quakes since records began.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has said that during September, there were 115 tremors – the biggest of these being a 2.3 quake.

A statement from the earthquake trackers read: “Including the events from the prior three monthly reports beginning on June 12, total swarm seismicity includes one earthquake of magnitude 4.4, 12 in the magnitude 3 range, and 185 earthquakes in the magnitude two range.”

GETTY

Is Yellowstone about to blow?

GETTY

The eruption would be catastrophic

USGS scientist Mike Poland says that the swarm is likely nothing to worry about, but it will help experts learn more about the powerful supervolcano.

He told Newsweek: “This is the sort of work that will happen in the months to come, as we gather up all of the available data and start crunching numbers.

“What we can say now is that through the end of September, the University of Utah has located 2,475 earthquakes in the swarm.

GETTY

There have been more than 2,700 earthquakes around Yellowstone

“This puts the 2017 swarm on par with that of 1985, which lasted three months and had over 3,000 located events.

“[This is] certainly a fascinating event and one that we hope to learn more about through some post-swarm analysis.”

The Yellowstone Caldera supervolcano last erupted 70,000 years ago but a spike in seismic activity around the national park has unsettled nerves.

GETTY

Yellowstone could wipe out America

If the Wyoming volcano were to erupt it would kill an estimated 87,000 people immediately and make two-thirds of the USA immediately uninhabitable.

The large spew of ash into the atmosphere would block out sunlight and directly affect life beneath it creating a “nuclear winter”.

The massive eruption could be a staggering 6,000 times as powerful as the one from Washington’s Mount St Helens in 1980 which killed 57 people and deposited ash in 11 different states and five Canadian provinces.

If the volcano explodes, a climate shift would ensue as the volcano would spew massive amounts of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, which can form a sulfur aerosol that reflects and absorbs sunlight.

Source: http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/863154/Volcano-eruption-2017-yellowstone-caldera-national-park-erupt

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