Friday, January 02, 2009

More on Yellowstone: harmonics and duelling scientists

Now the battle of the media truth is on. Who to believe? What is the truth?

Dr. Lowenstern, a top Yellowstone seismographic observer has gone on record in an e-mail interview with a reporter from US News & World Report denying several times that anything unusual is happening at Yellowstone lake:

Dr. Jacob Lowenstern of the U.S. Geological Survey said Monday that the earthquake activity in Yellowstone most likely will continue for weeks, "and then will end without any other related activity."

Well, that's nice, but any vulcanologist around the world will tell you they cannot predict what a volcano is going to do.
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Then, US NEWS & World Report also has received information from another scientist who analysed the data but not the earthquakes:

More on the Yellowstone earthquake swarm at the supervolcano caldera. First, this piece of database analysis from an IT guy at Splunk puts the swarm into scary perspective:

I'm sending you this email with some information I've gleaned from the USGS archives. I'm analyzing the ANSS data (http://www.ncedc.org/cnss/) in an install of Splunk, which is a timeline based search and reporting engine. I have 30 years of data in the system, with about 2M quakes total. It makes doing graphs and adhoc investigations faster than dealing with the USGS limited search forms. Disclaimer: I work for Splunk as their evangelist, and spend a lot of time studying various timeline based textual data and writing interesting apps for the software. I am not an earthquake expert by any means.

Using the ANSS data, I discovered the number of 2.5 or higher quakes in the *general* Yellowstone area for the decade of the 1980s was 128. The number of 2.5 or higher quakes for the region directly around the lake in the *last 4 days* was 30.

Again, for 2.5 mag or greater quakes:
Entire region of Yellowstone for 10 years = 128 quakes
Area just around Yellowstone Lake last 4 Days = 30 quakes

The entire 1980s of 2.5 or higher quakes in the vicinity of the lake was a paltry 4 quakes. Doing a quick back of the envelope calculation using the number of quakes and the intensities, the activity over the last 4 days has released roughly 100x the amount of energy released in the entire 1980s for the same general region. In the last week alone there have been 10 quakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater around the lake, with one as high as 3.8.

And here is yet another link to what are clearly harmonic tremors. Which the USGS denies are happening.

Now, the doom watch could go on for weeks or months or years. Personally I do not think it will blow into an ELE, because I look at the workings of the universe from a biblical perspective and we are simply not that far along the end times/judgment scenarios yet. So I am going to quit focusing on Yellowstone and turn my attention to American Movie Classics (watched Them! and King Kong last night, yeah)

But the bible does say to watch, and there will be signs and that there will be events in which men's hearts fail them for what is coming upon the earth. So any scientific anomaly is of interest to me in these end times because I love quantifiable data (not for me, the bible is quantifiable enough being 100% truth, but to show others).

So there you have a Yellowstone update and the battle of the scientists begins.

18 comments:

SwampWoman said...

Well, the earthquakes look to be diminishing. I hope that is a good sign.

*sigh* I looked at the latest trace for Mary Lake when I got up this morning, too.

Elizabeth Prata said...

this from Mary Lake looks to be quite active:
http://www.quake.utah.edu/helicorder/yml_webi.htm

Mary Lake as I know you know is to the West Northwest of Yellowstone Lake. Looking at the animations from Univ/UT the quakes are moving to the North. Last night I saw a photo someone had posted on flickr of a new steam vent that had opened alongside the road by Mary Lake. Orange cones had been set up alongside so the people would not fall in or the cars would not drive into it.

SwampWoman said...

I'd be a little cautious venturing into places where new steam vents are spontaneously opening.

SwampWoman said...

Guess I was a little premature on the earthquake swarm diminishing.

Never mind.

Anonymous said...

Skeptical on photo - please post link. Would be tough to drive anywhere near mary lake (especially in winter!) Granted the rest of the info is very interesting (especially being less than 60mi away)..... Any guesses out there on why there is a srong correlation in the timing between "harmonic tremor" type signatures and increased volume of water leaving yellowstone lake?

Elizabeth Prata said...

I should have said he drove there on his snow machine...will try to find the link...I stumbled across it after midnight last night and I was a bit bleary.

can you tell me more about the water leaving the lake?

Elizabeth Prata said...

here ya go JH from WY:

told you I was bleary, it was a video on youtube, not a photo on flickr! Argh, I was sorting thru so much info yesterday...

anyway here is the URL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8knPSdoNfI&feature=channel

here is what the summary says"
"This is a brand new steamy-hot spring that has leaked out on side of the road at Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park. This may be from recent earthquake activity."

it was uploaded 1-1-09

Unknown said...

I have compiled the following image to help determine if we're looking at harmonic tremors or not.

On the left is an example of harmonic tremor. On the right is a live seismograph from Yellowstone.

You be the judge.

http://img127.imageshack.us/my.php?image=harmonictremorsug7.jpg

Btw.. good job with the blog. I've enjoyed following it.

Unknown said...

Earthquake swarms in Yellowstone are pretty common. Take a look here: http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1205-01-&volpage=var#bgvn_2409
Note that the numbers there are in stark contrast with those of "Mr Big Database" In other words, no need to panic, yet.

Unknown said...

Yes, EQ swarms are common at Yellowstone.

However, this one is a bit different for two reasons.

1. These are happening where there is no known fault line. They are happening right above the magma chamber in the lake.

2. Harmonic tremors. The debate continues on whether it's just wind or harmonic tremors, but I think if it was just wind then the USGS would have said something to stop the speculation.

Elizabeth Prata said...

interesting, Blanche. Thank you! In '99 there were 630 in a swarm...

It could add up to nothing. But then again...the ones on that page were along mapped faults. This swarm, if I am correct, is in the caldera not along known faults. Or am I wrong? I think that is what is catching the attention...

Elizabeth Prata said...

thanks Brandon for that good work! That looks great. I dunno, it looks harmonic to me? How about you? Swampwoman? JH? Shropshire Lass?

PS thank you for the compliment!

Unknown said...

It does indeed look harmonic.

I'm not an expert, though. All I know is what I learned in geology during high school. There very well could be interference from somewhere. That's what makes this situation so strange- nobody knows what is going on.

I will say that the new hot spring suddenly opening up along that road is very intriguing though.

Tammy said...

I honestly believe there will be no government warning on this. First, they really do not know as much as we think they know because of lack of statiscal data....and second....it would create mass hysteria for what they would perceive as not probable.

I think the warnings will come from people like us....just your everyday Joe that has an interest in this.

Sad. Scary. Maddening...

Tammy said...

There was a post on here with a four month prediction for yellowstone to blow...I thought I saved it to come back and read it without interuption...but now I cannot find it. The person said their Grandfather or Father had predicted another volcanic eruption almost to the day....

I am almost certain it was on this blog....anyone know which post I am referring to?

I wish I had studied geology. At 43....I am so tempted to go back to school....lol. If anyone knows which one I am referring to...email me please. tbrookover@aol.com

Elizabeth Prata said...

All this science is pretty interesting isn't it? I feel like I've gotten a crash course myself.

I don't remember making a post about a 4-month prediction...and I don't remember a commenter posting it either...

Maybe you are referring to this comment on the UN News & World Report comment section?

"My father N B Gardner Sir accurately predicted the eruption of Mt St Helens to the day in 1980, he used his knowledge of geology and home made seismograph to study earthquake patterns by correlating the depth and magnitude of the quakes he formulated a synopsis of the magma flow into the volcano his predictions were reported in our local paper The Longview Daily News. What I learned from him it is obvious that a gigantic eruption is emanating in Yellowstone within four months. What leads me to these conclusions is: "

rest of the comment here--

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2009/1/3/earthquakes-at-yellowstone-supervolcano-update/comments/3

Tammy said...

That's it...thank you so much. By the way I love your blog. Very interesting. I also live in GA....and I am an end times believer.

Thanks a million.

Tammy

Tammy said...

This guy does say he believes this activity is the beginning and it will wax and wane and erupt in the fourth month. Interesting....that would be the end of April if this swarm is the beginning. Guess we can hold our breath and wait....much like many did with Ronald Weinlands predictions. Still...so much going on in the world...it is all a bit unerving. Eventually, one of the predictions, by chance will happen as "predicted".