Yellowstone’s Steamboat Geyser 11th Eruption in 2018 So Far; Could It be a Sign

With the warning of Earth’s slowing rotation and what seems to be in increase of moderate level quakes so far this year, plus the volcano eruption in Hawaii, could this be a warning sign for Yellowstone volcano? Well, I’m sure we all hope not.

via strangesounds:

The Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone National Park erupted for the eleventh time in 2018 on Friday, July 6, 2018, at 1:37 p.m. and the eruption lasted 32 minutes.

USGS said the geyser has decided to follow a semi-regular pattern of erupting every 6-8 days over the past two months; however, it has been 20 days 20 hours 42 minutes since the last eruption on June 15.

The first video was actually a compilation of the different eruptions since the beginning. The next two videos are from the 11th eruption on July 6, 2018:

You can view a full list of eruption times in the snapshot below:

List of the 11 eruptions of the Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone National Park in 2018. via Geyser Times

Yellowstone National Park’s largest geyser, Steamboat, is puzzling scientists after it erupted for the eleventh time since March 2018.

Steamboat Geyser, unlike the regular Old Faithful Geyser, erupts very infrequently. Before this eruptive swarm, 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.

how geysers work. via Shuttershock. via Forbes

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.

While geyser eruptions can be dangerous if too close, they do not present an increased risk of a larger Yellowstone supervolcano eruption. Geyser eruptions are a normal and regular part of Yellowstone’s volcanic system. But as already explained, the behavior of Steamboat is more than suspicious.

Strange Sounds