SteamBoat Geyser's eruption in Yellowstone concerning some

[Bob]

Eruptions continuing into September

Yellowstone National Park's largest geyser, Steamboat, is puzzling scientists after it erupted for the eighth time since March. The most recent eruption, occurring at 9:04 a.m. on Monday morning (June) shot boiling-hot water hundreds of feet into the air, followed by hours of steam billowing out from the geyser.

Steamboat Geyser, unlike the regular Old Faithful Geyser, erupts very infrequently. Before this string of eruptions, Steamboat last erupted in 2014. Scientists are unsure why all of a sudden the geyser is experiencing a string of eruptions, something that has happened in the past but not for decades.

Steamboat is a larger and more powerful version of Old Faithful, shooting nearly boiling-hot water up to 345 feet into the air. According to the USGS, it appears there is an approximate periodicity of eruptions every 7 to 8 days. To study the geyser, geologists with the University of Utah set up seismic arrays across the geyser to capture the rumbling during eruptions. Their hope is to reconstruct the "plumbing" of the geyser by measuring the sound waves as they travel through the geyser up to the seismic sensors.

ref: https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorn.../#d30d502c025f

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=aUfcHUm0zck

From Local News 8 -

Posted: Sep 18, 2018 10:44 AM MDT

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK (KIFI/KIDK) - The Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone National Park erupted for the 19th time in 2018 Monday morning.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the geyser erupted at 9:37 a.m. and went off for an hour and 15 minutes.

Yellowstone National Park reports this is the most active year for Steamboat since 1982.

USGS said the geyser has decided to follow a semi-regular pattern of erupting about every 5 days over the past few weeks.

[Bob]

from https://geysertimes.org/geyser.php?id=Steamboat

This page lists the times it has erupted recently

This is what a seismographic looked like when it erupted about 28 days ago:

[Sunny-side-up]

Yes Bob, it can be quite worrying when you think we are hurtling through space on a pressure cooker of a time bomb,
all the while also hoping, some other as of yet unknown celestial body isn't planing on playing snooker with us 0.O

That's quite a powerful leak in the old boiler for sure, very impressive

It reminds me I haven't had my first cup of tea of the morning yet, time to put the kettle on ha

[ramus]

Just to add perspective to this :

Explosions are often unpredictable but scientists say activity has ramped up in 2018 as Steamboat Geyser “appears to have entered a phase of more frequent water eruptions, much like it did in the 1960s and early 1980s”.

In comparison, eruptions between 1990 and 2013 were few and the geyser lay completely dormant between 1911 and 1961.

The height of the eruption has not yet been revealed but a geyser eruption on June 4 scaled 60 metres (200 ft).

What dates did the geyser erupt in 2018?

This is the entire list of eruptions by Steamboat this year in MDT:

March 15, 5.37am

April 19, 4.30pm

April 27, 6.30am

May 4, 11.50pm

May 13, 3.54am

May 19, 9.49pm

May 27, 7.33pm

June 4, 9.05am

June 11, 1.06am

June 15, 4.55pm

July 6, 1.38pm

July 20, 10.36pm

August 4, 2.10pm

August 22, 11.44am

August 27, 9.30pm

September 1, 11.21pm

September 7, 10.20am

September 12, 4.23am

September 17, 9.38am

https://www.express.co.uk/news/scien...ecent-activity

[ghostrider]

It is predicted the great Caldara will erupt and destroy 2/3 of America.

[Bob]

It would seem to me Ramus, something shifted allowing for groundwater to have entry in the plumbing system..

What shifted, and is it the same thing that shifted? Seems 345 feet into the air (as seen in the example video in the OP post #1) is a substantial amount of water if the eruptions are lasting about an hour each..

If it were earthquake related, what was the source of the earthquakes, an elevation in the magma dome primarily driving Yellowstone? Or something local more superficial like normal faults under stress releasing. Was there a change in Yellowstone lake or the surrounding banks? Any other geysers change their characteristic?

Seems SteamBoat has some strong interest and not just being one's run-of-the-mill geological formation...

The Yellowstone caldera system has fascinated me ever since I got up there to take a look first hand.. It's most certainly big, widespread out.. And most certainly there is enough energy there to power the whole USA (if it could be extracted) perpetually in a GREEN WAY without ever having to rely on OIL, or WIND, or SOLAR.. Think about that optimistically, forever energy power for the USA.. If it could be harnessed greenly and then distributed.

I'd prefer to be optimistic and not focus on well it could destroy 2/3 of the USA. It (paraphrasing a bit, the 'snake' down there) has that much power, maybe it's saying time to start using it instead of running away from it... (that's just me again, looking for optimism)..

[ramus]

Major eruptions at Steamboat Geyser are the tallest in the world. This feature first appeared on 11 August 1878 after a hydrothermal explosion. This was similar to, but larger than, the 5 September 1989 Porkchop Geyser hydrothermal explosion event, which occurred in the same geyser basin. Steamboat Geyser consists of two vents in a gentle hillside of rhyolitic ash-flow tuff (Lava Creek Tuff, lower Middle Pleistocene, 640 ka). Initially, the vents were powerful fumaroles that emitted steam and some mud. By 1879, moderately high to high geyser eruptions occurred. Small to large eruptions occurred at Steamboat Geyser from the late 1870s to the early 1910s. This was followed by 50 years of dormancy. Geyser eruptions resumed in the 1960s. Dormancy occurred during the early and mid-1970s. More major eruptions occurred in the early 1980s, followed by sporadic to rare events from the mid-1980s to the 2000s. One major eruption occurred in May 2005. Another one occurred at the end of July in 2013. The most recent major eruption was in September 2014.

https://debunkingdoomsday.quora.com/...-Yellowstone-t

Why we don’t need to worry about the Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone - a chance to see it if you visit Yellowstone, that’s all
Robert Walker

The Yellowstone geysers are nothing at all to do with eruptions. They happen all the time, that’s just what they do, some are irregular. It is to do with how quickly the reservoir fills up with water again after each geyser event. All that just happening in the surface layers, with no connection at all with the subsurface magma
All this is happening in the top 100 meters or so.

The magma chamber is much deeper with lots of layers of rock in between.

.“Steamboat Geyser, in the Norris Geyser Basin, appears to have entered a phase of more frequent water eruptions, much like it did in the 1960s and early 1980s. Although these eruptions do not have any implications for future volcanic activity at Yellowstone (after all, geysers are supposed to erupt, and most are erratic, like Steamboat), they are nonetheless spectacular, and hopefully many people will have a chance to see Steamboat in eruption during the summer of 2018.”

Yellowstone Volcano Observatory News Archive

Yellowstone shows no signs of a supereruption right now. Not likely in our lifetimes and probably not going to happen for 1000 years.

It’s also possible that it has finished its supereruption phase for its current magma chamber - and would start a new one which would do a super-eruption perhaps millions of years into the future.

The magma plume below it moves West to East and as it does so new magma chambers form. When the current magma chamber has finished its phase, then the last point is that it breaks open and large amounts of basalt start poruing out - not an explosive eruption, just lots of ordinary lava. When that happens they will know that this magma chamber is done with and then there will be no more for a long time until it starts to build the next one.

Answering questions from general public about Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. With Mike Poland (geodisy), Wendy Stowall (geology) and Jamie Farrell (seismology)

Transcript on this page:

Yellowstone Volcano Observatory Scientists Host Facebook Live Event

It was posted in USGS Volcanoes originally apparently

USGS Volcanoes?

Note that from that transcript they don’t know if Yellowstone will have another super-eruption in its present location. It may be about to move to the final stage of the magma coming to the surface as lava flows and basalt

I wanted to address too, it looks like Brittany Paddock’s 6th grade science class has chimed in with a couple of questions. “When do we think Yellowstone will erupt again, like a big explosion, and how much ash would be released?” And this sort of gets back to what Wendy was addressing at the very beginning.

Wendy: Yeah, so we really don’t even know if the Yellowstone Plateau volcanic field as it is now will ever erupt in a super eruption again. It’s gone through three caldera-forming cycles, it could mean that it’s done. We do know that there’s magma under the ground, we know there’s basaltic magma coming in and sitting underneath the larger rhyolite body. This is the basaltic magma. When the Yellowstone volcanic field is done, we will see eruptions kind of like the ones that are in Hawaii at the surface inside the caldera. We’ll know that it’s done then. The volcanic field that is a little bit to the west of Yellowstone, the Heise volcanic field, that was the one that erupted just before this Yellowstone volcanic field, and there have been basaltic eruptions in that. So that’s kind of the next stage in the cycle.

Mike: The basalt sort of squirts through up to the surface.

Wendy: Yeah, and the reason why it can get up to the surface is because the rhyolite body, that spongy body of partial melt isn’t sitting there blocking the basalts to get up to the surface. But right now it’s preventing it from getting there, so it’s supplying heat by there’s no sign that it’s gonna erupt. We’re not sure if it will. And the ash will, depending on the size of the next super eruption, which may be hundreds of thousands of years if not millions of years away, go much further to the west [east] than we are currently seeing activity now, who knows if people will be here, but the next super eruption form that system will send ash into the atmosphere, and yeah, it’ll be a nuisance for people thousands of miles away, but it won’t be life ending.

[Cardillac]

@Bob

"The Yellowstone caldera system has fascinated me"

you and me both; ever since I read yrs. ago that the lake in Yellowstone has been tipping (is it N. or S.?) since the 1920's and all the other anomalies occuring within Yellowstone (if read sorces are correct "old faithful" is no longer "faithful") so if read sources are correct something unusual is occuring in Yellowstone-

if read sources are correct Yellowstone erupting (if read sorces are correct every ca. 36.000 yrs.) is now over due;

God forbid, but if Yellowstone should blow "good night nurse"!

Bob, any more new info you could provide us?

Larry

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Cardillac (here)
if read sources are correct Yellowstone erupting (if read sources are correct every ca. 36.000 yrs.) is now over due;

From http://bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programm.../article.shtml

Three super-eruptions at Yellowstone appear to have occurred on a 600,000 — 700,000 year cycle, starting 2.1 million years ago. The most recent took place 640,000 years ago. That's what suggests that Yellowstone may be overdue for an eruption.

[Cardillac]

@Bill @Bob and all readers-

ever since I first learned about the machinations behind Yellowstone (80's/90's?) I've always felt this could be the biggest threat to humanity and not earthquakes or fault lines splitting (like the New Madrid fault line dividing more or less the US in half) or the global elite (:

I don't know why but I've always been obcessed with the idea of Yellowstone erupting; like a knife in my solar plexus-

well, let's hope it won't occur in our lifetimes but I think it will occur sooner than later-

Larry

[Bob]

As quoted by Ramus above, "Why we don’t need to worry about the Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone - a chance to see it if you visit Yellowstone, that’s all - Robert Walker"

Seems to me most folks are ignoring "Robert Walker's" doublespeak and remaining concerned.

What is not sufficiently explained is:

1) was there a set of earthquakes evoking a slip or shift of fault zones allowing more water to enter the plumbing system (if so what was the cause of those earthquakes)
2) was there any shift of the Yellowstone lake shore (or bottom) elevations above sea level, indicating a change in magma chamber, or fault movement, or rock movement around the faults
3) what is the overall energy output thermally of the Yellowstone Caldera, is it increasing, decreasing or remaining stable

Larry, I am watching it. Like why is there a long term cycling and a restarting of a system which has remained dormant. I won't really sit still for those questions being doublespeaked over or glossed over.. Just me, as I pointed out, our opportunity is to extract useful heat energy and convert that into electricity.. Watching such a prospect be glossed over also is interesting, something that energy companies based on oil or natural gas, or wind would love to gloss over.. Workable thermal extraction to electricity of Yellowstone, or spots in Nevada and California, is being banned since the Parks Services were given authority to STOP any such use of the "natural wonders" for saving the country for instance from energy manipulation (by vested interests)..

==update==

thought I would add WHY I am insisting "draining the heat" from critical areas where fractures may cause a massive LEAKAGE of water from the plumbing systems into super-heated magma is important..

Imagine a simmering pot of spaghetti sauce.. Turn up the heat a bit or "fan the flames" that's heating up the 'sauce' and that nice calm saucepot can boil-over, or "erupt".. siphon off the heat from below the pot and the risk of explosion diminishes...

Here is another most dramatic visual analogy.. It's not "exact" but it is dramatic enough to make the point WHY reducing the critical temperatures is important.. (Critical bottom plumbing or liquid trapping faults' temperature diminishing using a system of heat extraction methods of COURSE means USEFUL energy can come from that extracted HEAT.. USEFUL ENERGY is an immense benefit to the public, since it is basically FREE ENERGY, not requiring, organizations to make solar, oil, gas, or wind projects)... There is a LOT of new technology that overcomes the difficulties of past geo-thermal projects.. (my personal belief is big oil focused on sabotaging efforts)..

Dropping a frozen turkey into a VERY HOT (but stable pot of OIL) - kids don't do this at home or anywhere !! It's not the same, but you get the point about how damaging very rapid STEAM generation can be.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7gn895y4wkc

Magma in the analogy has a "higher boiling point" than water.. acting like the "oil" in the turkey cooker..

A massive dump into the heated chambers would be like the "frozen turkey" being dropped in.. How fast that sealed chamber vents or remains trapped equals "explosive eruptive event" potential yield.. It is not rocket science.. It is what makes a safe burn in the open of "black powder" be "calm" compared to a trapped black powder charge burning in an enclosed chamber (such as a pipe)..

If a sufficiently super-heated fault system (maybe with chambers) is closing up and trapping, and water enters and gets trapped, the vaporization results in explosive and catastrophic evacuation. Poo pooing that fact or glossing over that fact is not describing adequately potential issues.. What is the plumbing system.. Is it sealing, is there a new plumbing system, how many more 'systems' which have been dormant are changing if at all? To ignore that I feel is not in the public's best interest.

So, seeing ONE dormant system "wake up" makes me want to ask the questions, starting with WHY? Then looking at what changed, how massive is the change, how stable is the area. 'Experts' just speaking saying it's safe 'trust us' is meaningless to me, if it's safe answer the questions posed above.. As I pointed out in the OP, scientists are doing geophone analysis to attempt to determine the PLUMBING SYSTEM.. That's a start... If it was just so "safe", they wouldn't expend any resources - that's seems obvious to me.

[Bob]

More features have unexpectedly erupted in Yellowstone 19 Sept 2018 within the last couple days..

https://helenair.com/lifestyles/recr...58a53ef18.html

Ear Spring erupted:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=aLJlMCNmecs

Over the last several days there has been new thermal activity in the Geyser Hill area of Yellowstone National Park's Upper Geyser Basin.

According to a park press release, there has been new erupting vents splashing water on the boardwalks, surface fractures, and a rare eruption of Ear Spring on Sept. 15.

Geyser Hill is located across the Firehole River from Old Faithful and features dozens of hot springs, geysers, and fumaroles.

For public safety some boardwalks and trails in the Geyser Hill area have been temporarily closed. Closure signs are posted.

and

Ear Spring on Yellowstone's Geyser Hill went from being dormant Saturday to spewing steam and water between 20 and 30 feet high, a height not recorded since 1957, said park spokesman Neal Herbert. It has since continued to erupt at a near-constant height of about 2 feet, he said.

Ear Spring, named for its resemblance to the shape of a human ear, is one of dozens of geysers, pools and hot springs in Yellowstone's Upper Geyser Basin — among the park's top attractions that feature the popular Old Faithful. It last erupted in 2004.

The eruption is among the new thermal activity seen over the last several days on Geyser Hill, just across the Firehole River from Old Faithful.

The activity includes new erupting vents and surface fractures, and it has led park officials to close a boardwalk in the popular Upper Geyser Basin to prevent people from being injured by scalding water splashing on the popular boardwalk trail.

Yellowstone's thermal basins sometimes undergo significant changes in short amounts of time..

[James Newell]

A few comments as a first hand observer. I was at Yellowstone in first week of August this year. While there I drove from the East side of Montana-Wyoming entrance and left at the West side of Yellowstone, about 50 miles distance. I camped around 10500 ft as an aside. They had abundant wildlife at my site at that altitude. But what was quite noticeable to me was the massive amount of Bisons all over the park( On the order of several thousand). And rich greenlands and fields and trees on the mountains. Also saw a number of Moose.

About four years ago we drove through Yellowstone on that same route and it seemed like large sections of the park had blight, yellow areas and many dead trees.We saw practically no Bison or no moose at all then. It seemed they had left the area.

Also the big caldera at Big Springs was fairly calm no agitation from the birds or small game in the area.(eg. squirrels) So if you want to believe in the wisdom of nature and beasts and them seemingly unworried about any event;I would say there are far less indicators of something coming now then there was four years ago.