(upbeat music)
Hi everybody, I'm Mike Poland,
the Scientist-in-Charge
of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.
And this is the monthly update for March 1st of 2022.
March 1st, it's Yellowstone's birthday.
And it's not just any birthday this year.
It's actually the 150th birthday
of Yellowstone National Park
which was founded all the way back in 1872.
Now, of course there have been some challenges
throughout the history of the park.
Relationships with Indigenous peoples
haven't always been very good.
And there have been some challenging odd wildlife practices
feeding bears, for example, it was allowed for a long time.
And even with how the natural thermal features were treated.
In fact, in the early part of the 20th century,
one of the geysers near Old Faithful was diverted
to feed a swimming pool.
Of course, these are all practices
that have long been done away with
as we've learned more about how the park works.
And I think that's the real legacy
of Yellowstone that's preserved there,
is one of inspiration and one of learning.
It's hard not to be inspired by being in Yellowstone
whether it's your first visit or your 20th.
And there is so much to learn
from Yellowstone National Park.
One of the stories I love best about
that learning experience is from Thomas Brock
who was a chemist that looked
at Yellowstone's thermal features,
especially trying to study the bacteria
that lived at temperatures
that would give humans a third-degree burn.
Now this is Thomas Brock
in front of Mushroom Spring in 1967.
The previous year in 1966,
he and his undergraduate student at that time,
Hudson Freeze, sampled some microbes
from this spring to try to understand more about them.
And back in the lab, Hudson Freeze
and lab technician, Sally Murphy managed
to isolate Thermus aquaticus
which was one of the bacteria living
in this bacterial mat here in the spring.
Now over the following decades,
other researchers looked at that particular bacteria
and it was in the 1980s
that another chemist, named Kary Mullis,
managed to pull out the enzyme Taq polymerase.
And this enzyme had the ability
to replicate DNA at very high temperatures.
Of course, this was a bacteria that was living
in these very hot waters in Yellowstone.
This ultimately became the basis for the PCR technique,
polymerase chain reaction.
You've probably heard of this
because it's received very widespread use
in genetics and medicine.
And of course it's the basis for really rigorous testing
for the COVID-19 virus.
So that all grew out of this particular spring
right here in Yellowstone.
And I think it's a wonderful example of the kinds
of things we can learn when we study this environment.
So a really wonderful opportunity to be inspired, to learn.
All here in Yellowstone National Park.
So happy birthday to Yellowstone.
I hope everyone has a chance to experience
that sense of inspiration and see all there is
to learn about Yellowstone.
Okay, now let's talk about what happened
during the previous month in terms of activity
from earthquakes to geysers.
It's been yet another month
of background activity in Yellowstone.
During the month of February,
the University of Utah Seismograph Stations,
which is responsible for the operation and maintenance
of the Yellowstone seismic network,
located 83 earthquakes in the region.
The largest was a magnitude 2.8 event
just on the north side of Yellowstone Lake right here.
And that occurred on February 8th.
There was also one small swarm in the region
just to the south of Old Faithful.
There were 23 events that occurred
in this area during February 11-12.
And the largest was a magnitude 1.9.
That's pretty normal.
About 50% of all earthquakes in the Yellowstone region
occur as part of swarms.
Ground deformation has shown a continuation of the trends
that have been ongoing for quite some time.
This is vertical deformation at the White Lake GPS station.
That's on the east side of the caldera
in the Sour Creek resurgent Dome.
And it's over the past two years.
Each one of these blue dots represents one day of data.
Downward trends indicates subsidence
and upward indicate up uplift.
And the overall trend during this two-year time period is
of subsidence of about 2 to 3 centimeters,
about an inch or so per year.
And this has been ongoing since 2015.
There are these little periods of either a pause
in the subsidence or slight uplift
during the summer months.
And that's because groundwater percolates into the ground,
it sort of soaks it up like a sponge,
and pauses that subsidence.
So overall subsidence continues
of the caldera on the east side.
And of course the same is true on the west side as well.
This is from the Old Faithful GPS station.
And over the last two years we see the exact same trend,
one of gradual subsidence of couple of centimeters a year,
about an inch or so per year.
Now the signal gets much better here in September of 2020
because there were some trees in the area
that were cut down due to a fire that was nearby.
The Park wanted to reduce the fuel load
in case the fire approached the area
and that resulted in less signal bounces
and so much cleaner signal.
We still see that same pause
in the subsidence in the summer months
and then a resumption of the subsidence
once the summer's over.
This little deviation right here
towards the end of December of 2021 is due
to heavy snow that covered the antenna
during that time period.
And we really don't see any deformation of note
in the area of the Norris Geyser Basin.
This is the last two years vertical deformation
at a site that's just off to the east
of Norris Geyser Basin.
There really hasn't been much in the way of change.
A little bit of uplift during that summer,
again due to groundwater recharge.
And then we have this really dramatic change here,
a temporary change in December of 2021 into early January.
And this again is due to heavy snow
which covered the antenna area.
And then we're back to basically where we were before.
Not much in the way of change at Norris.
And then finally looking at everyone's favorite geyser,
Steamboat Geyser, also in Norris Geyser Basin.
It remains active, although not near as active
as it has been in previous years.
This is the temperature in the outlet channel from Steamboat
and all of these little bounces up and down here
in the early part of February represent minor eruptions.
They culminate on February 14 with a major eruption,
the only major water eruption of the month from Steamboat.
So there have been two major water eruptions
for the year so far.
After that, Steamboat went back down to background activity,
just see daily temperature changes.
Not much in the way of minor activity.
And now at the end of the month,
we're starting to see minor activity begin
to pick up once again.
So we can probably expect to see another major eruption
of Steamboat Geyser at some point in perhaps mid-March.
Well that does it for the monthly update
for March 1st of 2022, Yellowstone's 150th birthday.
Now, remember if you have any questions at all,
please feel free to email us anytime,
yvowebteam, all one word, @usgs.gov.
That's our email address.
So until next month, take care, stay safe, stay healthy.
See you later, bye-bye.
(upbeat music)