BEN FERRAIUOLO
  • Home
  • Yellowstone
    • Yellowstone Blog
    • 2008-2009 Yellowstone Lake Dike Intrusion
    • Rapid-Fire Swarms 2014-2018
    • Steamboat Geyser Eruptions >
      • Steamboat Eruptions 2020
      • Steamboat Eruptions 2019
      • Steamboat Eruptions 2018
  • Hawaii
    • Hawaii Blog
    • Hawaii Spasmodic Tremor
    • 2018 Kilauea-LERZ Eruptions
  • How To...
    • ...Retrieve Seismic Data
    • ...read webicorders/helicorders and seismic plots
    • ...Understand Spectrograms
    • ...USE SWARM Software
    • ...use jamaseis program
    • ...use waves program
    • ...understand UTC
    • ...Read/Create GPS Deformation Charts
    • ...use s.w.a.r.m. program (OLD)
  • Seismic Events
    • Event Examples
    • Exotic Events
    • Whale Calls
    • Cascade Volcanoes' Low Frequency Events
  • Seismo-Blog
  • Other Seismic Blogs
    • Quake Swarms
    • United States
    • East Coast, USA
    • World
  • Monthly Volcano Updates
  • Uplift/Subsidence Update
  • Videos/Multimedia
    • Newberry Videos
    • (OLD) 2019 Monthly/Yearly Updates
  • Seismic Software
    • jAmaSeis
    • SWARM
    • WAVES
  • Seismic Network Help
  • Links
  • About Me
  • Contact
  • Test Your Knowledge!
  • Lucas Andrew Ferraiuolo (Pro Pics)
  • Garbage Trucks?!

Yellowstone Caldera, WY

2018 New Years Eve (Dec. 31) Swarm at Yellowstone Lake

1/3/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
To see information and plots of this very energetic swarm just west of Yellowstone Lake, please click the title of this post or "read more" to continue.
Picture
On New Years Eve morning (Dec 31), a very energetic swarm hit just west of the northern tip of Yellowstone Lake within Yellowstone Caldera. In the image above, you can see the 58 earthquakes that were reported in regards to 3 of the closest seismic stations. The largest event, reportedly a magnitude 2.8, is marked above as well as the swarm area. This swarm began at about 7:10UTC and ended around 12:45UTC, December 31, 2018 (12:10am to 5:45am MST, same date). Many of the earthquakes were small but many also were much larger. Many of the events also occurred in rapid succession, sometimes occurring at about 6 earthquakes in a minute or so. The large majority of this swarm also took place in two separate episodes during that time span of 5 hours and 35 minutes (you will see that below in a second).

Using the seismic program WAVES, along with data collected from several neighboring stations, I determined there were a total of (both tiny and large) 255 earthquakes within that time frame. Only around 58 have been reported. That is absolutely stunning! That was determined by cross correlating their P wave arrivals. I was not attempting to locate them but I was simply attempting to judge how many earthquakes actually occurred during this time frame. At the end of this post, you will see my video where I analyzed these events and another video showing some of the live stream I recorded of this swarm, along with the swarm's seismic audio which sounds pretty cool! This was an extremely fast paced swarm. But what caused it?

Well, I cannot say 100% for sure what caused this swarm. However the characteristics of the earthquakes themselves were much different from any other swarm during 2018. For example, it is my theory that the large February 2018 swarm at Maple Creek (far to the northwest of the Dec. 31 sequence) was caused by local tectonic stresses due to the upwelling of hydrothermal fluids. This is due to the characteristics of each seismic event that happened during that time period. I also believe many of the short bursts in rapid fire swarming near the northern tip of West Thumb lake are caused by a new hydrothermal system forming. However, the New Years Eve swarm (which locally occurred just as New Years Eve started) seems highly indicative of being caused by a small amount of magma itself. This is due to three factors: 1. A few, very small low frequency events were spotted along with a possible low frequency background tremor. However it was quite weak and still do not know what it was caused by. 2.The style of this swarm was eerily reminiscent of the swarm caused by the 2008-2009 dike intrusion of Yellowstone Lake. 3. Multiple possible hybrid earthquakes were detected indicating a mix of processes, not just normal tectonic processes.

Below I show eleven 3-plot images of the most interesting parts of the swarm, helicorders of this swarm from multiple stations, and two 3-plot images showing this swarm was separated by two episodes of seismicity. Remember to please always pay attention to chart labels first, before you read the data, and also pay attention to any captions beneath any images. Remember slide shows can be paused or images skipped.
Picture
The time frame for these plots is about an hour. Remember, most of the seismicity was contained within two episodes during that time frame of 5 hours and 35 minutes. Amplitudes have been cut on the seismogram plot so some of the smaller earthquakes could be seen. Each spike you see is an earthquake and some earthquakes you cannot see since they occurred so close to other earthquakes! Surface noise was non existent on this seismic station during this time period.
Picture
And here are the plots showing most of the seismicity for the 2nd episode. The time frame for the plots above is a little bigger than the first episode of seismicity I showed. These plots here show a total of about 1 hour and 30 minutes.
Directly below are the seismic helicorders for multiple stations in the area during the time period of the swarm.
DISCLAIMER: For some weird reason, the seismic program SWARM glitched and read "Dec 31, 2019" instead of "Dec 31, 2018". The correct date for the plots below would be "Dec 31, 2018". December 2019 hasn't even occurred yet, seeing I am writing this on August 30, 2019.
There are 41 images in the slideshow below:
Would you like to watch the in-depth video where I analyze most of this swarm? Then please watch the video below or CLICK HERE to visit the YouTube page for this video. Since it is quite long, I suggest going to the video page on YT since I have all of the separate parts listed in the description box.
Now when I first saw this swarm emerging I immediately let my subscribers on YT know via a YT post. I was very tired and it was late at night so I decided to do all of my analysis when I woke up in the morning. I decided to record the live stream via SWARM for data from Borehole 208 at Yellowstone Lake. To my surprise, I caught a good amount of it on the live feed. The video below shows the live feed for some of the Dec. 31 swarm. It is sped up of course and at the end of the video I include seismic audio of this swarm. It is best to use headphones for the seismic audio. You can watch, and listen to, the video directly below or you can visit it on my YouTube channel if you CLICK HERE.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    About

    Please click a post title to view the data pertaining to that event!

    This is the seismic events page for Yellowstone National Park and Caldera, which resides in northwest Wyoming. Yellowstone is an absolutely massive caldera super-volcano. It sits at a shocking perimeter of 34 by 45 miles (55 by 72km) and that is only the caldera boundary! A caldera is created when land immediately erupts and collapses, while the magma chamber almost completely empties, creating a crater imprint called a caldera. Some calderas around the world are small in comparison (i.e. Kilauea) to other calderas formed by super-volcanic eruptions (i.e. Yellowstone in Wyoming or Long Valley in California).  Yellowstone is theorized to contain a magma chamber and a much deeper, much larger magma reservoir just beneath the chamber. This two-chamber system is also theorized to be caused by a "magma plume". Magma plumes are thought to draw their eruptive ability from deep within our planet, possibly from our lower mantle. That is why volcanoes caused by magma plumes are much more dangerous and far more unpredictable than their counterparts that are caused by normal tectonic forces. Yes, many volcanoes are caused by tectonic forces as one plate attempts to breach or dip beneath another one. A perfect example of this is the Cascade Range on the West Coast of the United States. Many volcanoes in the world are caused by this but some, the more unpredicatble ones, are caused by magma plumes.

    Remember to always pay attention to all chart labels! All images were generated by myself using the IRIS DMC seismic archive and the FREE seismic program S.W.A.R.M.

    Archives

    February 2020
    December 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Home

Hawaii Blog

Yellowstone Blog

Steamboat Geyser 2019

DISCLAIMER: There are currently problems with some images not showing or images being the incorrect ones. If you see this problem, please notify me. I am attempting to resolve this issue.
Copyright © 2019
  • Home
  • Yellowstone
    • Yellowstone Blog
    • 2008-2009 Yellowstone Lake Dike Intrusion
    • Rapid-Fire Swarms 2014-2018
    • Steamboat Geyser Eruptions >
      • Steamboat Eruptions 2020
      • Steamboat Eruptions 2019
      • Steamboat Eruptions 2018
  • Hawaii
    • Hawaii Blog
    • Hawaii Spasmodic Tremor
    • 2018 Kilauea-LERZ Eruptions
  • How To...
    • ...Retrieve Seismic Data
    • ...read webicorders/helicorders and seismic plots
    • ...Understand Spectrograms
    • ...USE SWARM Software
    • ...use jamaseis program
    • ...use waves program
    • ...understand UTC
    • ...Read/Create GPS Deformation Charts
    • ...use s.w.a.r.m. program (OLD)
  • Seismic Events
    • Event Examples
    • Exotic Events
    • Whale Calls
    • Cascade Volcanoes' Low Frequency Events
  • Seismo-Blog
  • Other Seismic Blogs
    • Quake Swarms
    • United States
    • East Coast, USA
    • World
  • Monthly Volcano Updates
  • Uplift/Subsidence Update
  • Videos/Multimedia
    • Newberry Videos
    • (OLD) 2019 Monthly/Yearly Updates
  • Seismic Software
    • jAmaSeis
    • SWARM
    • WAVES
  • Seismic Network Help
  • Links
  • About Me
  • Contact
  • Test Your Knowledge!
  • Lucas Andrew Ferraiuolo (Pro Pics)
  • Garbage Trucks?!