Yellowstone volcano: how a magnitude 7 earthquake rocked yellowstone

YELLOWSTONE: SCIENTISTS WERE 'NERVOUS' AFTER EARTHQUAKES Yellowstone volcano was the site of a cataclysmic incident on August 17, 1959, known today as the Hebgen Lake earthquake.

The Yellowstone earthquake, which peaked at magnitude 7.2, caused the national park to drop as much as 20ft (six metres) in places. The earthquake only lasted approximately 30 seconds but

the powerful tremors caused waters as far as Hawaii to rise up in wells. And as a result of the disaster, which killed 28 people, a large landslide swept over Madison River and created Quake

Lake in Montana, US. RELATED ARTICLES Now, nearly 60 years after the earthquake devastated Yellowstone volcano, geologists are still recording aftershocks in the Yellowstone area. According

to the University of Utah, a swarm of more than 3,000 aftershocks struck Yellowstone between June 2017 and March 2018. The earthquakes were recorded in the Maple Creek area in northwest

Yellowstone and can “at least partially” be traced back to the 1959 earthquake. The incredible discovery was published in a study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. READ MORE:

YELLOWSTONE ERUPTION MAP SHOWS NOWHERE IS SAFE FROM VOLCANIC BLAST Yellowstone volcano: An earthquake from 1959 is still producing aftershocks 60 years later (Image: USGS/I.J. WITKIND) Keith

Koper, director of the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, said: “These kinds of earthquakes in Yellowstone are very common. “These swarms happen very frequently. This one was a little

bit longer and had more events than normal.” A portion of the 3,000 Maple Creek earthquake fell along the same fault line as the Hebgen Lake cataclysm. Fault lines are fractures in the

Earth’s surface and are typically hotbeds of seismic activity. READ MORE: IS YELLOWSTONE OVERDUE ANOTHER SUPER-ERUPTION? RELATED ARTICLES According to the US National Park Service (NPS),

there is an “enormous number of faults associated with the volcano”, which result in 1,000 to 2,000 Yellowstone earthquakes each year. > These kinds of earthquakes in Yellowstone are very

 common >  > Keith Koper, University of Utah Thankfully, Dr Koper and study co-author Guanning Pang did not find any evidence of the earthquakes being triggered by magma moving beneath

the ground. Mr Pang, a PhD student and seismologist at Utah, said: “We don’t think it will increase the risk of an eruption.” The two geologists argued it is not unusual for an earthquake

as powerful as the one in Yellowstone to produce aftershocks for decades after the initial incident. READ MORE: OVERDUE ERUPTION FEARS ADDRESSED IN CRITICAL YELLOWSTONE VOLCANO UPDATE In

2017, for example, Mr Pang studied the aftershocks of an earthquake which erupted at Borah Peak in central Idaho, US, in 1983. Dr Koper said: “There are formulas to predict how many

aftershocks you should see. “For Hebgen Lake, there looked like a deficit in the number of aftershocks. “Now that we’ve had these, it has evened things out back up to the original

expectations.” Yellowstone volcano: The Hebgen earthquake peaked at magnitude 7.2 in 1959 (Image: GETTY) Yellowstone volcano: The 1959 earthquake caused waters in Hawaii to swell in wells

(Image: GETTY) WHEN WILL THE NEXT LARGE EARTHQUAKE STRIKE YELLOWSTONE? Simply put, there is no way for geologists to predict with any degree of certainty when the next cataclysm will strike.

However, Yellowstone volcano is intently monitored by the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO) branch of the US Geological Survey (USGS) agency. The USGS said: “Earthquakes cannot be

predicted yet, but modern surveillance conducted with seismographs – instruments that measure earthquake locations and magnitudes – and Global Positioning System (GPS) instruments that

measure slow ground movements help scientists understand the state of stress in the Earth's crust that could trigger earthquakes as well as magma movement.” GPS monitoring in the

Yellowstone area is accrued out in partnership with the University of Utah. YELLOWSTONE VOLCANO: A LOOK BACK AT PAST EARTHQUAKES QUICK FACTS ABOUT YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK: 1. Yellowstone

National Park in the northwest US was established as the world’s first national park on March 1, 1872. 2. The bast majority of the park lies across the state of Wyoming – about 96 percent –

and the remaining three percent is in Montana and one percent in Idaho. 3. There are more than 10,000 hydrothermal features, such as geysers and hot springs, throughout the park. 4. With

about 500 active geysers found in Yellowstone, the national park is home to more than half of the world’s geysers in total. 5. Apart from being known for its natural beauty, Yellowstone is

also home to more than 1,800 archaeological dig sites.