2/20/2024 0 Comments Yellowstone landscape centralThis was the largest earthquake at Yellowstone since the early 1980s. The M4.8 earthquake was felt in Yellowstone National Park, in the towns of Gardiner and West Yellowstone, Montana, and throughout the region. ![]() On March 30, 2014, at 6:34 AM Mountain Daylight Time, an earthquake of magnitude 4.8 occurred four miles north-northeast of Norris Geyser Basin. Episodes of uplift and subsidence have been correlated with changes in the frequency of earthquakes in the park. The largest vertical movement was recorded at the White Lake GPS station, inside the caldera ’ s began to subside during the first half of 2010, about five centimeters (2 in) at White Lake so far. These measurements indicated that parts of the Yellowstone caldera were rising at an unprecedented rate of up to seven centimeters (2.75 in) per year (2006), while an area near the northern caldera boundary started to subside. ![]() ![]() Scientists continue to improve our capacity to monitor the Yellowstone volcano through the deployment of new technology.īeginning in 2004, scientists implemented very precise Global Positioning Systems (GPS), capable of accurately measuring vertical and horizontal groundmotions to within a centimeter, and satellite radar imagery of ground movements called InSAR. Yellowstone’s seismograph stations, monitored by the by the University of Utah for the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, detect several hundreds to thousands of earthquakes in the park each year. The volcanism that has so greatly shaped today’s Yellowstone is a product of plate movement combined with convective upwellings of hotter, semi-molten rock we call mantle plumes.Īlthough a cataclysmic eruption of the Yellowstone volcano is unlikely in the foreseeable future, real-time monitoring of seismic activity, volcanic gas concentrations, geothermal activity, and ground deformation helps ensure public safety. Scientific evidence shows that convection currents in the partially molten asthenosphere (the zone of mantle beneath the lithosphere)move the rigid crustal plates above. Many theories have been proposed to explain crustal plate movement. At divergent plate boundaries, such as midocean ridges, the upwelling of magma pulls plates apart from each other. Subduction is possible because continental plates are made of less dense rocks (granites) that are more buoyant than oceanic plates (basalts) and, thus, “ride” higher than oceanic plates. When plates collide, one plate is commonly driven beneath another (subduction). Where plate edges meet, they may slide past one another, pull apart from each other, or collide into each other. In the key principles of Plate Tectonics, Earth’s crust and upper mantle (lithosphere) is divided into many plates, which are in constant motion. Above the mantle is the relatively thin crust, three to 48 miles thick, forming the continents and ocean floors. ![]() The mantle (1,800 miles thick) is a dense, hot, semi-solid layer of rock. The iron and nickel outer core (1,400 miles thick) is hot and molten. The mostly iron and nickel inner core (about 750 miles in diameter) is extremely hot but solid due to immense pressure. The core of the earth is divided into two parts. The distance from Earth’s surface to its center or core is approximately 4,000 miles. The foundation to understanding this story begins with the structure of the Earth and how this structure shapes the planet’s surface.Įarth is frequently depicted as a ball with a central core surrounded by concentric layers that culminate in the crust or outer shell. Yellowstone’s geologic story provides examples of how geologic processes work on a planetary scale.
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