Yellowstone's Explosive Secret

CBSNEWS.com ^ | Tuesday, March 23, 2004 | Sandra Hughes

[Momaw Nadon]

(CBS) For years, CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, scientists have tried to understand the dynamic nature of Yellowstone National Park.

"It's beautiful up here, everybody should see this at one time or another," says one appreciative observer.

Scientist Lisa Morgan may have unlocked one piece in the puzzle, deep below the park's biggest lake.

"It is kind of the last unmapped frontier in Yellowstone National Park," says Morgan.

What she found looks more like the surface of the moon. Using sonar she's identified a massive bulging dome the size of seven football fields. The only other underwater dome in Yellowstone was the site of a major explosion.

"The most extreme event, which occurred 13,800 years ago, went about as far as five miles away from source," says Morgan.

It spewed boiling water, steam and rocks, and the fear of it happening again started another explosion of sorts: this one on the Internet. Online doomsday scenarios are swirling all over chat rooms telling visitors to stay away. Yellowstone, they warn, could blow.

Yellowstone National Park sits on top of one of the most active volcanoes in the world with more than 10,000 vents, geysers and bubbling hot springs. That's part of the reason more than 3 million people come here each year.

So for Morgan it is important to clarify. She doesn't think the big dome is ready to explode, but park ranger Hank Heasler says Yellowstone is unpredictable.

"The bottom line is we still don't know all that much about what's going on at Yellowstone," says Heasler.

So he takes the job of keeping visitors safe seriously, constantly monitoring temperatures.

And that's not always easy. A trail near the Norris Geyser was closed last summer and is still boiling hot enough to burn through shoes.

"If the temperatures here gets above boiling, then we know that there's a potential for the water to just rapidly flash to steam and cause one of these hydrothermal explosions," says Heasler.

Which is exactly what Old Faithful and her companion geysers do almost daily and that's why scientists from around the world are watching this latest discovery and wondering what nature has planned next.

[doug9732]

Yellowstone is a giant volcano, and the most beautiful place on the continent. If it ever blows up again there's no place on earth that will be unaffected.

[chmst]

Calm down dude. The caldera scientists I've talked to (UNM we have some of the best) think that the ground at Yellowstone is too broken up for an eruption greater than say 10 time bigger than Mt. St. Helens. The next big eruption from a ring volcano is probably going to be the Valles caldera here in New Mexico. The ring fracture is almost complete so sometime in the next 50,000yrs or so. When you see a new cinder cone forming in the middle of Valles Grande, run.

[SuziQ]

That would be VEY series, especially if our sisters were involved!

[SuziQ]

carbohydrates ...

Dang things will get you every time!

[theFIRMbss]

>Terrorism, West Nile virus, super-volcanoes in my backyard, Hitlery as Veep, baby bunny murderers, carbohydrates ... Where does it end?

There's a man goin' 'round takin' names. An' he decides who to free and who to blame. Everybody won't be treated all the same. There'll be a golden ladder reaching down. When the man comes around. The hairs on your arm will stand up. At the terror in each sip and in each sup. For you partake of that last offered cup, Or disappear into the potter's ground. When the man comes around. . . .

[null and void]

As the links above show, the Yellowstone CALDERA is a SUPERVOLCANO and if it blows, the best bet will be to BE ON MARS.

Why? Just because the møøselimbs will see it as a sign from their pig god?

(Isn't Krakatoa how so much of Indonesia ended up møøselimb?)

[null and void]

And it won't trigger the caldera exploding or really be any sort of sign the caldera might explode.

Unless, of course the lake drains into the caldera, and flashes to steam...

[null and void]

So far, scientists have cautioned that they can't see any reason to expect anything unusual, just a bulge, that's all.

North Sister - Mt. St. Helens, same diff...

[Cuttnhorse]

I've always thought the Long Valley caldera in eastern California will be the next major erruption within the CONUS. Lots of earthquake swarms, near-surface geothermal activity...the right kind of host rocks...and history. The Bishop tuff is only 700,000 years old.

Who knows? But fun to conjecture.

[null and void]

Geeee, thanks Cuttn! That's my backyard.

Don't you have gold to mine, or sumpin???

[MortMan]

How did this article get written without the word 'caldera' appearing once?

SeeBS thought that was a reporter's name and didn't want to credit any other news organization;-)

[UCANSEE2]

I am calm. The scientists think......

Notice that they specify they 'think' what would likely happen.

I was reacting to the other posters statement that the lake dome would explode, but the caldera would not. That poster has no idea what will happen, and neither do scientists. If they did, they would have stated so.

[null and void]

To: All
More elk/bison death news from the Yellowstone area courtesy Billings Gazette:


Toxic gases in park likely cause of bison deaths
By MIKE STARK
Of The Gazette Staff

Five bison dropped dead in Yellowstone National Park apparently after being overwhelmed by toxic gases in a geothermal area.

The bison carcasses were found March 10 along the Gibbon River near Norris Geyser Basin. It's likely the animals were killed by hydrogen sulfide or carbon dioxide trapped at ground level by unusually cold and windless weather, according to a report on the incident released Tuesday.

"The bison were in the wrong place at the wrong time," said Henry Heasler, Yellowstone's lead geologist. "It looks like they just dropped where they stood. Obviously it was a very quick death."


Although the bison deaths were the result of "a rare combination of events," similar incidents have happened before in Yellowstone.

Related deaths

In 1899, park records show, six bears, an elk, squirrels and other small animals died apparently because of toxic gases in Death Gulch in the upper Lamar Valley. Other reports are sprinkled through the park's history.

But this month's incident is unusual in that several bison died.

Bear biologists found the dead bison - two adults, two calves and a yearling - lying on their sides with their legs straight out. They were all within about 30 yards of each other. The body positions indicated that the bison died "very rapidly" and with little or no struggle, according to the report. Wildlife officials estimated that the bison had died about a week earlier.

Heasler said the bison were probably grazing and resting in a snow-free depression in the ground along the Gibbon River, about 300 yards downwind from several geothermal gas vents at Norris.

Cold front theory

As a cold front moved in during early March, the dense cold air kept the toxic gases close to the ground. The bison likely died as the calm conditions kept the bison surrounded by the gases, park officials said.

Blood, teeth and other samples were taken from the animals. Geologists also began running tests on the air in the area.

At some of the vents, researchers measured hydrogen sulfide gas at more than 200 parts per million, well beyond what's considered safe for people and animals.

"If it's above 150 parts per million, if a human breathes it, they take one breath and they drop," Heasler said.

The gas, formed from cooling magma underground and responsible for the "rotten egg" smell often associated with thermal features, is considered a chemical asphyxiant when it's at concentrated levels. Chemical asphyxiation can paralyze breathing and affect the brain stem and other organs.

Another gas associated with volcanic areas, carbon dioxide, is also a regular presence in Yellowstone. Park officials don't have equipment to monitor the gas but, in light of the latest incident, they are now looking to buy some.

Heasler said park officials are still trying to figure out exactly what happened to the bison.

It doesn't appear that the incident has anything to do with a brief upswing in temperatures at Norris Geyser Basin last year that caused park officials to close portions of the trails nearby. Monitoring equipment at Norris did not indicate an unusual burp of gas in early March, Heasler said.

The best guess is that the cold weather, with lows near zero, arrived with barely any of the wind that tends to sweep the gases out of low-lying areas in the park.

"We've got an interesting Norris mystery here," Heasler said. "Norris presents us with lots of these, as do other geyser basins."

Visitors to the park are not at risk, Heasler said.

Park officials have been walking geyser boardwalks with monitors and have only found hydrogen sulfide at less than one part per million. And at the spot where the bison died, which is off trail and away from visitor attractions, animals are going about their business without any apparent effects.

"This is not a threat to people," Heasler said.

Park geologists plan on becoming more aggressive on keeping track of the gases at Yellowstone, particularly around Norris, Heasler said.

"One question is, 'Is this starting to occur more now compared to earlier?' There's not enough statistics to say that," Heasler said. "Just because we're measuring and seeing things we didn't see before doesn't mean they didn't exist before."

Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises
3,611 posted on 03/25/2004 11:21:20 AM PST by judicial meanz (If liberals are not totalitarian in nature, why do they need deception to get their points across?)

[Centurion2000]

bump

[Diddle E. Squat]

Y(ellowstone)2K, eh?

[Cuttnhorse]

The gas, formed from cooling magma underground and responsible for the "rotten egg" smell often associated with thermal features, is considered a chemical asphyxiant when it's at concentrated levels. Chemical asphyxiation can paralyze breathing and affect the brain stem and other organs.

Yikes Nully, we were all lucky to survive highschool chemistry!

[null and void]

Did we? Oh goody!