Swarm of Low-Magnitude Earthquakes Rumble Yellowstone Grounds

Multiple low-magnitude earthquakes, including more than 20 in the last two hours, shook Yellowstone National Park on Monday.

Due to its distinct shallow magma source and shifting tectonic plates, Yellowstone is well known for its seismic activity.

The 20 earthquakes that occurred on Monday had magnitudes ranging from 0.6 to 2.4, with many of the quakes exceeding two.

On the park's western edge, near the Wyoming - Idaho border, the majority of the seismic activity appeared to take place, KSL TV5 reported.

Yellowstone and Earthquakes

One of the seismically active regions in the US is the Yellowstone region.

Each year, it averages of between 1,500 and 2,500 earthquakes that can be located.

Most of these earthquakes are too small for people to feel, but the Yellowstone Seismic Network (YSN), an advanced network of about 50 seismometers, can detect them.

While earthquake swarms, which are earthquakes that happen in close proximity in terms of time and space, can occur anywhere in the Yellowstone region, they are most frequent in the east-west seismic band between Hebgen Lake and the Norris Geyser Basin.

Earthquake swarms make up about 50% of the total seismicity in Yellowstone.

The majority of swarms are brief-lasting only one to two days-and small, with 10 to 20 earthquakes each.

Large swarms, which can contain thousands of earthquakes and last for months, do occasionally occur, but they are rare, USGS reported.

Historic Swarms

The Yellowstone region has experienced more than 48,000 earthquakes since 1973.

One cannot feel more than 99% of those earthquakes because their magnitude is 2 or lower.

The largest swarm, according to the National Park Service, occurred in 1985, when more than 3,000 earthquakes were registered on the park's northwest side over the course of three months.

During the 2009 swarms near Lake Village and 2010 between the Old Faithful area and West Yellowstone, hundreds of earthquakes were noted.

According to scientists, the pressures in the Earth's crust are shifting and changing as a result of the movement of hydrothermal fluids, which is a normal occurrence of volcanoes.

On June 12, 2017, the Maple Creek Swarm started, and it persisted through October.

On the west side of the park, six miles north of West Yellowstone in Montana, a cluster of more than 2,475 earthquakes was noted.

These kinds of earthquake sequences are frequent and makeup about 50% of all the seismic activity in the Yellowstone region.

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Earthquake Tracker

Although the current technology has not been able to accurately pinpoint or predict earthquakes before it happens, there are many ways to track the most recent earthquakes.

One earthquake tracker is from KSL TV5 and another is developed by the University of Utah.

A radio and satellite telemetry system is used to transmit earthquake data from Yellowstone to the University of Utah Seismograph Stations (UUSS), which runs YSN.

Scientists at UUSS review seismic data and publish information online.

Since many of the transmission sites are located on high peaks that are subject to severe winter weather, it is difficult to keep data flowing during these months.

Because of snow and ice buildup on the solar panels or antennas, seismometers occasionally experience brief outages.

It might take until the spring to access seismometers that shut down in the winter.