25 July 2017
Yellowstone National Park hit by 1400 earthquakes in six weeks
By Andy Coghlan
It’s shaking so much, it could be renamed Jellystone. Since 12 June, about 1400 quakes – most of them tiny – have been recorded in Yellowstone National Park in the western US.
The earthquake “swarm” is occurring in the Hebgen Lake area. In 1959, a major quake in this region killed 28 people. But geologists monitoring the activity don’t think another big one is on the cards.
“Usually, you don’t get swarms before a big quake like that, and it’s too soon after the 1959 quake for enough strain to build up for a repeat,” says Jacob Lowenstern of the US Geological Survey in California, who heads the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. “You’d be looking at the order of 200 years or so for enough strain to accumulate.”
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2141794-yellowstone-national-park-hit-by-1400-earthquakes-in-six-weeks/
