

Hundreds of Quakes Are Rattling Yellowstone  - ojbyrne
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/science/01yellowstone.html

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guns
"When the supervolcano at Yellowstone last erupted 640,000 years ago, the
magma and ash ejected from the caldera covered most of the United States west
of the Mississippi river and part of northeastern Mexico. Another such
eruption could threaten civilization."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risks_to_civilization,_humans_a...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risks_to_civilization,_humans_and_planet_Earth#Supervolcano)

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coderdude
"The quake zone, [...], has shown little indication, they said, of building
toward a larger event, like a volcanic eruption of the type that last ravaged
the Yellowstone region tens of thousands of years ago."

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idlewords
In truth we have no idea what kind of activity would precede such an event.
Geology as a predictive science remains in its infancy.

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siculars
oh shit! a lot oh people died in haiti because of an earthquake... we're next.

the nytimes loves to do this sort of thing. it sells papers... or whatever
they are selling to stay in business nowadays. here is an article printed a
few weeks after the devastating tsunami of dec. 2004, replete with the title
of "It Could Happen Here":

[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E7DD1738F...](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E7DD1738F935A25752C0A9639C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print)

in other words, "oh shit! a lot oh people died in asia because of a tsunami...
we're next."

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electromagnetic
> or whatever they are selling to stay in business nowadays.

I simply assumed they'd started fudging their books and dumping newspapers en
masse into a deep hole where their gold bullion used to be buried. How else
are newspapers supposed to survive today?

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Hoff
"The current number of daily earthquakes is well above typical daily
earthquake activity at Yellowstone. Nevertheless swarms are common at
Yellowstone, with magnitudes occasionally above 4.0."

"At this time, there is no reason to believe that magma has risen to a shallow
level within the crust or that a volcanic eruption is likely. The current
swarm earthquakes are likely the result of slip on pre-existing faults rather
than underground movement of magma."

[http://www.seis.utah.edu/req2webdir/recenteqs/Maps/Yellowsto...](http://www.seis.utah.edu/req2webdir/recenteqs/Maps/Yellowstone.html)
<http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/>
<http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/publications/2010/10swarm.php>

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yread
I believe that earthquake swarms actually reduce the probability of a larger
quake because they release the pressure avoiding a buildup that causes big
displacements and tremors

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idlewords
The energy released in the tiny quakes is many orders of magnitude less than
in the large ones. It's like throwing an ice cube on a bonfire.

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uggedal
2012?

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david927
Ah, but the other side of Mayan medallion has specific instructions to take
back two years to honor the Hebrew God Yahweh. So, 2010. We're screwed.

