Yellowstone National Park is one of the destinations that pretty much every RVer we’ve ever met has either visited or it’s on their bucket list. We’ve been there just once and would love to go again. Ever wonder what makes those famous geysers erupt? Well, lurking beneath Yellowstone is a massive ocean of molten magma some six miles deep. That heat is responsible for Old Faithful and many of the park's other famous geysers and hot springs.
It’s actually a super volcano and it has erupted on occasion. Most of the eruptions have been small and the last one was some 70,000 years ago at Pitchstone Plateau. We must be overdue by now!
Super-eruptions are thousands of times more powerful than even the biggest eruptions we're used to. The chart above from USGS compares the Yellowstone super-eruptions with the Mt. St. Helens eruption of 1980. The difference is staggering. Mt. St. Helen’s, as bad as it was, is just a tiny rumble.
According to most geologists, right now, there's no sign of a pending eruption. But, what do they know? All I know is that every earthquake that happens is news to them just like it is to us. Yellowstone park does continue to get earthquakes but so do we here on Vancouver Island. I still prefer the remote possibility of an earthquake to the near certainty of tornados. So, take heart, the USGS points out. "odds are very high that Yellowstone will be eruption-free for the coming centuries."
The USGS also notes that, if you simply took the past three eruptions, the odds of Yellowstone erupting in any given year are 0.00014 percent — lower than the odds of getting hit by a civilization-destroying asteroid. Anyway, next time you’re in the vast open areas of Yellowstone now you’ve got something else to worry about besides Grizzly Bears!
Thanks for visiting!
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét