re: #268 Teukka

Great, just when you thought 2017 couldn’t possibly suck an order magnitude worse…
Yellowstone supervolcano hit by a swarm of earthquakes
Please, prayers/positive vibes/positive thoughts/whatever works that this isn’t a precursor to a VEI-8 kabloie.

Sweet Meteor o’Death is pissed that it’ll be eclipsed by the Great One Below.

Seriously though, Yellowstone has gone through a couple of swarm cycles over the past 2 decades:

Earthquake swarms are common in Yellowstone and, on average, comprise about 50% of the total seismicity in the Yellowstone region.

Related figures can be viewed on the original post: quake.utah.edu

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.

Past performance is no predictor of future behavior, and this is especially true of volcanoes, especially one that has the potential to wipe out life as we know it in North America (and beyond).

What’s far more likely than a VEI-8 quake at this point is another quake along the lines of the 1959 Hebgen Lake quake (~7.3). That could potentially significantly alter the magma chamber/plumbing and initiate an eruptive phase.

Smaller quakes allow subtle shifts in the magma chamber and reduce stresses on certain parts of the caldera (but add stresses elsewhere).