YELLOWSTONE UPDATES (2014) : ... Strange things happening @ Yellowstone...

thanks!

I just saw Biscuit Basin change shots, but it says May 2nd, 10:44 local time. Strange.

Last Edited by esotericMorgan on 05/03/2014 08:13 PM

Thanks for bringing that up again.

I'd love to see an update. Something more to look into!

It looks very obviously that something is building up beneath Yellow's ground...

The way the live cam was shaking and bouncing all day, maybe the tree it was fitted on finally fell over...or, sunk.

I think the still cam shots are taken right from it.



EDIT:

Actually, look what happened at 4:45, when the cam stopped:
[link to www.isthisthingon.org]

Maybe I'm not far from wrong!

Yikes!


.

Last Edited by esotericMorgan on 05/03/2014 08:25 PM

Something is not right with these seismos...

It's hard to explain....just a gut feeling

Read the edit of my last post

I've read it.

Is just something else....Yellowstone is setting to blow, in a near future.

What the heck? Take a look at this and if anyone can interpret, please do.

Mayfield, Idaho

[link to mbmgquake.mtech.edu]

That's the 3.8 Earthquake in Idaho this morning, at 8:34 UTC.
[link to www.globalincidentmap.com]

What a wave!

Last Edited by esotericMorgan on 05/03/2014 09:15 PM

That's from February 11, 2012.

[link to www.forbes.com]

Hey thanks! I live in Idaho and knew we had a couple of quakes but when I looked at that and saw the drastic line swings I though for sure it was much bigger than a 3.8.

Any ideas on what is up with the live cam at Norris basin,it just stopped working earlier, now it won't open at all and I have tried to refresh.

The live cam is not at Norris basin, it's at Upper Geyser Basin, situated near the Old Faithful Visitor Center.

It's been offline since about 04:45PM. Other cams continued rolling fine, except for the static Upper Geyser Basin webcam ( [link to www.nps.gov] ) which got stuck too near that time.

Tentative guess, I'd say something eventful happened to the west of the lake, where the B944 seismo stopped updating ( [link to www.isthisthingon.org] ) and Grant Village seismo definitely picked up seismic activity happening locally ( [link to www.isthisthingon.org] ).

I enhanced the stuck image on the Upper Geyser Basin cam and it looks like rangers on the move, one carrying a yellow hardhat in his arms with some other stuff:

[link to i.imgur.com]

This suggests that the cam operator/s may have been called into service too, and switched off the cam while they went out.

Last Edited by AllThatCanBe on 05/03/2014 11:39 PM

IDK. I think it looks like a child being carried in someone's arms.

No one sitting or standing around looks troubled. Everyone's just waiting around for Old Faithful:

[link to www.nps.gov]


There was an event about that time which may have damaged the cam' also, that cam was bobbing and shaking all day, almost nonstop at times.

Even though the live cam went out, the still cam at Old Faithful never went offline.

Last Edited by esotericMorgan on 05/04/2014 12:02 AM

I didn't mean an event at Old Faithful. I'm suggesting a minor localized event happened (quake, sinkhole, ground movement, new geyser, w/e) very near the Lake, close to B944 which is still dead: [link to www.quake.utah.edu]

The two people in the stuck shot are wearing a type of uniform and the man is wearing a ranger hat. They're both walking confidently up the boardwalk and the man is walking fast, with not enough time for the kids to move out of his way. The woman's gait looks like she's striding to keep up with the man. In other words, they could be in a hurry.

B944 died around 12:00, while almost every other seismo showed a dramatic darkening of the graphs for several hours from around 13:00 to 16:00.

The only seismo that shows pronounced quake-like activity during this time was Grant Village ( [link to www.isthisthingon.org] ) in the middle of the darkening elsewhere, at 15:00.

So whether or not the rangers/staff/geologists in that last image are moving hardhats or children, an event warranted investigation off site of Old Faithful near the lake... Which may explain why no one was around to man the cam.

Also, none of the tourists can be expected to have noticed, unless the event was widespread and felt near Old Faithful. Since Old Faithful's seismo was quiet during this time, we can assume the tourists were oblivious. And the rangers obviously won't be saying anything to make people look alarmed, because half their job depends on people not being too scared to visit and they can't be spooking everyone at every seismic hiccup.

Last Edited by AllThatCanBe on 05/04/2014 12:58 AM

These are fractures with harmonic magma intrusion, a prelude to an eruption, according to this report on youtube: [link to www.youtube.com (secure)]

Let's do some estimates. How big is the chamber and what is the inflow per day? The answer to that question might tell us how long his goes on. Measurements!

As I have stated in the past... the magma is moving. it is slowly rising upward and putting pressure on the the water chamber that is located under the geysers.

Hey iv got a theory on the grey/milky/ash like substance that was seen around the geyser sites......
What if it was a layer of quartz being pushed up due to a swell in magma volume?
It makes sense large deposits would form beneath the geyser basin. And would be pushed and ouzed out if a swell pushed from below

Last Edited by Shadow Beam on 05/04/2014 02:25 AM

While I don't question that magma is moving, the trace in Mayfield occurred seconds after the 3.8 in Challis, Idaho.

[link to www.globalincidentmap.com]

This is how it registered in Missoula Montana [link to mbmgquake.mtech.edu]

It was a widespread event for a 3.8, most likely causing a bit of rearranging and jostling in the park, while felt especially hard at Madison River [link to www.seis.utah.edu]


I hope the cam is fixed by tomorrow...and hope it's still mounted to the tree! It was crazy shaking today.

I know what you mean. I wrote about it earlier today Thread: YELLOWSTONE UPDATES (2014) : ... Strange things happening @ Yellowstone... (Page 107)

but will copy it here, just in case you missed it:

______________________________________________

I do see two trees which appear to be tilted, yet, they look exactly the same in the older shot...although the ground definitely has that white coating on it now, which was not evident then.

This is the same 'white' stuff I now see on the hill. If you caught a post I made some days ago, I commented that I saw a mass of thick whitish stuff spew out from the mound to the NE of Old Faithful.

I think that around those steamy days a week or so ago, excessive water may have eroded into it excessive volumes of minerals, or simply picked them up, which have been coming out with the steam now and then ever since, falling where they may from the steam they are traveling on.

I also suspect that this is the cause of the fine particles we have seen at least twice on most of the camera lens covers.

I did do a search, trying to determine what it might be, I did see that magnesium, barium. silica are among the minerals which are deposited during geyser emissions...and, I further tried to find out if these travel on magma -and might be considered a lava precursor, or lava-like or even a FORM OF MAGMA, which could then be an indication that things are ramping up.

Well, so far, I have NOT found ANY paper which allows that lava can have such thin viscosity as to be considered lava at all, even if mixed into and emitted along with volumes of steam and water.

Ha! My mind tells me to keep looking, because I HAVE read this about rhyolite lava:

"Rhyolite is a felsic extrusive rock. Due to the high silica content, rhyolite lava is very viscous. It flows slowly, like tooth paste squeezed out of a tube, and tends to pile up and form lava domes. If rhyolite magma is gas rich it can erupt explosively, forming a frothy solidified magma called pumice (a very lightweight, light-coloured, vesicular form of rhyolite) along with ash deposits, and / or ignimbrite. In certain situations extremely porous rhyolite lava flows may develop. The extreme porosity of such flows allows degassing and subsequent collapse of the flow, forming obsidian (dark coloured volcanic glass)." [link to flexiblelearning.auckland.ac.nz]

I have also read this:

Viscosity of Magmas

Viscosity is the resistance to flow (opposite of fluidity).

Viscosity depends on primarily on the composition of the magma, and temperature.

Higher SiO2 (silica) content magmas have higher viscosity than lower SiO2 content magmas (viscosity increases with increasing SiO2 concentration in the magma).

Lower temperature magmas have higher viscosity than higher temperature magmas (viscosity decreases with increasing temperature of the magma). [Meaning: 'is thinner'.]

Thus, basaltic magmas tend to be fairly fluid (low viscosity), but their viscosity is still 10,000 to 100,0000 times more viscous than water.

Rhyolitic magmas tend to have even higher viscosity, ranging between 1 million and 100 million times more viscous than water.

(Note that solids, even though they appear solid have a viscosity, but it's very high, measured as trillions times the viscosity of water). Viscosity is an important property in determining the eruptive behavior of magmas...

...In general more siliceous magmas form by low degrees of partial melting. As the degree of partial melting increases, less siliceous compositions can be generated. So, melting a mafic source thus yields a felsic or intermediate magma. Melting of ultramafic (peridotite source) yields a basaltic magma.

Magmatic Differentiation

But, processes that operate during transportation toward the surface or during storage in the crust can alter the chemical composition of the magma. These processes are referred to as magmatic differentiation and include assimilation, mixing, and fractional crystallization...

...Assimilation - As magma passes through cooler rock on its way to the surface it may partially melt the surrounding rock and incorporate this melt into the magma. Because small amounts of partial melting result in siliceous liquid compositions, addition of this melt to the magma will make it more siliceous...

...If the liquid part of the magma has a low viscosity, then the gas can expand relatively easily. When the magma reaches the Earth's surface, the gas bubble will simply burst, the gas will easily expand to atmospheric pressure, and a non-explosive eruption will occur, usually as a lava flow (Lava is the name we give to a magma when it on the surface of the Earth)..." [link to www.tulane.edu]



My query is: what if we are talking SMALL VOLUMES at the outset?

What if we are seeing exposures of extremely low viscosity liquids -a.k.a. a pre-lava- which are being finally carried upwards to the surface after settling on the surface of rock not yet melted for 70, 000 to 630,000 years?

Think of it this way: Yellowstone is a cacophony of all sorts of deposits, some which are slowly creating fumeroles and domes and mounds...which are ALL considered to be part of the process of HOW VOLCANOES FORM.

Put another way: we know that every day, geysers and pools at Yellowstone continue the process of volcanism, as seen in the deposits they issue forth.

WHY NOT A 'PRE-LAVA' lava stage?

The stuff that has been sitting underground all these millennium is being stirred up, mixing in with passing waters, has to come out at some point.

The very fact that Yellowstone has been SO QUIET as a Supervolcano does NOT discount the fact that volcanic processes are occurring every day within the park.

(Whew! I need to breathe a second or two.)



Therefore, I will continue my quest to find out if any professional through the ages has also considered that there might be a noticeable pre-eruptive effusive-eruptive stage to be seen in effusions at volcanic sites.

Why can't lava be sooooo very less vicious in it's early stages, as its main volume of magma creeps to the surface?

Is THAT part of what we are seeing in the park, as seen in powder on lenses, and now 'covering' a good deal of the landscape -as light as it might be, and what's trailing down the mound ever so little near LION, and what spewed forth from that dome some days ago, as I've already noted?

There must come a point where we think carefully about subtle things right before our very eyes.

____________________________

Good to know I am not alone in my considerations. Maybe there is something to it.



Last Edited by esotericMorgan on 05/04/2014 02:58 AM

The live cam is still offline at Yellowstone yet again ...

This doesn't look good ..... The Town of Jackson Bulgecam has also gone offline ............................

I suppose we should wait to see what daylight brings.

It is daylight lol....

No, no E.M. - I know it looks like it, but it's very misleading, it WASN'T felt especially hard at Madison River, that's what I was trying to explain in the long post's on the other thread.

"Now Maddison River is set to 125 uV, and the shake was well into "clipping" at 5 divisions, so best we can see is 625 uV, but since it was so heavily clipped, the shake was way more than 625 - my guess? Around a 1000 uV."


It was felt hardest at Moose Creek, which is set to 1,600 uV, and the shake was 5 divisions = 8000 uV


so that shake was felt at least 8 times stronger at Moose Creek than it was at Maddison River - even though the graphs appear to show otherwise.

The size of the shake depicted on the chart is NOT relative to the actual size of the shake. One has got to multiply the number of vertical divisions with the sensitivity setting, which is shown at the very bottom of the chart for each seismo, to get the reading in micro-volts, then comparison is one for one.

Hope this helps us now when looking at the charts....

Those seismo readings are scary lookin..

Livecam being offline is no coincidence.

Sorry to be harping on about the "micro-volts" thing guy's, but I think it's quite important. If we can compare apples with apples regarding the seizo's we can more accurately see where the epicentre of a shake really was. In the example of E.M.'s 3.8 on the 3rd, we can easily see it came from the direction somewhere outside of Moose Creek. Irrespective of what USGS "reports", we can confirm if thier report is resonably accurate as to location of the quake, and even if they don't report it at all, but we see it on the seiso's, we would be able to determine the approximate area, if it originates in Yellowstone, that it occured in.