2429 earthquakes, 11 steamy volcanic eruptions, floods: Here’s 2022’s Yellowstone in Review

Since 2017, the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory has released annual reports containing an abundance of information on a variety of topics—ground deformation trends, earthquake activity, and upgrades to observing networks, for example. In addition, there is information about research results and new discoveries, such as the identification of a new thermal area near Lake Tern in 2018.

The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory’s 2022 Annual Report has been published and is now available online.

Since 2017, the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory has released annual reports containing an abundance of information about the national park. (Courtesy of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory)

As in past years, the summary highlights observational data collected throughout the year. For example, 2,429 earthquakes occurred in the Yellowstone region in 2022, the largest of which was a magnitude 4.2 event that occurred on May 11 — the most powerful quake in the region since a magnitude 4.4 in 2017.

The number of earthquakes is within the usual range for annual events and is slightly lower than in 2021. About 66% of earthquakes occurred in swarms, which are groupings of earthquakes that cluster together in both space and time. The most significant swarm, which had more than 1,100 earthquakes and continued throughout the entire second half of the year, occurred near Grizzly Lake, between Mammoth Hot Springs and the Norris Geyser Basin. Seismic swarms with hundreds of thousands of events lasting for months are not unusual in the Yellowstone region, as they occur every few years.

As has been the trend since 2015, the Yellowstone caldera has receded by 1-2 inches over the course of the year, interrupting during the summer months due to pauses in subsidence or a small amount of uplift as the land swells slightly due to groundwater recharge from melting ice. A major deformity has been detected in the Norris Geysir basin since 2018.

Speaking of water, there was plenty of it in Yellowstone in 2022 — an atmospheric river event in mid-June that dumped several inches of rain on a late-season snowpack, causing catastrophic flooding in the Yellowstone region and prompting a temporary shutdown of the entire Region. garden. The northern and northeastern routes were not accessible for the rest of the summer due to flood damage. Yellowstone Volcano Observatory’s stations, some of which have already recorded seismic noise associated with floodwaters, have escaped largely unscathed, except for one river-monitoring station along the Gardner River in the northern part of the park that is buried under several feet of debris.

All this water didn’t seem to have much effect on the hydrothermal system in Yellowstone – there were no major changes in the behavior of most geysers. Steamboat Geyser, the world’s tallest geyser, has erupted 11 times in 2022, continuing a trend of frequent activity that began in 2018. The number of annual eruptions has decreased since reaching peaks of 48 in 2019 and 2020, however, the possibility that The current period of numerous eruptions may be coming to an end.

This is a map of earthquakes (red circles) in the Yellowstone area during 2022. The gray lines are roads, the black dashed line shows caldera boundaries, Yellowstone National Park is marked with a black dashed line, and gray dashed lines indicate state boundaries. (Courtesy of the Yellowstone Caldera Records)

Gas and water chemistry and emissions did not show any significant changes compared to previous years. A new continuous sensor capable of measuring carbon dioxide emissions has been installed in the area of ​​the mud volcano, and expeditions have been conducted to measure the chemistry of gas and water in several areas in the park – including the new thermal area near Lake Tern. There, geochemists found that most of the Earth was in boiling temperatures just below the surface. CO emissions were high relative to the background but slight compared to similar thermal zones—about half that of a mud volcano when accounting for the difference in the sizes of the two thermoregions, for example.

Research has focused on the causes and effects of hydrothermal eruptions in Yellowstone National Park on the northern part of Yellowstone Lake and the Upper Geysir Basin.

Sediment samples taken from the bottom of Yellowstone Lake have revealed numerous thin layers of pulverized rock that are evidence of steam explosions of various sizes that occurred over the past 14,000 years. The largest eruptions occurred from neutral chloride hydrothermal regions, where the transition from liquid water to vapor was associated with rapid expansion of liquids leading to large eruptions.

In contrast, steam-dominated hydrothermal regions do not experience this phase transition and are therefore not capable of large steam eruptions. The largest eruptions in the Yellowstone Lake area, from Mary Bay and Elliott Crater, may have been associated with lake floor earthquakes that altered pressure conditions in the hydrothermal systems of the lake floor. Similar triggers are believed to have triggered steam explosions in the Upper Geyser Basin as well. There, a sudden avalanche of loose mounds of glacial debris deposited in hydrothermal regions by retreating ice during the last glacial period would have altered pressure conditions in the Earth’s interior, causing water to flash up to steam, and expand rapidly, triggering explosions. .

Yellowstone Vulcano Observatory scientists are also learning more about the complexity of the large volcanic eruption that formed the Yellowstone Caldera 631,000 years ago. The ash deposit that resulted from this eruption, called Lava Creek Tuff, was originally thought to consist of two geological subunits.

However, Montana State University geologists identified several new units of Lava Creek Tuff while mapping the rocks on the dome of Sour Creek on the east side of the Yellowstone Caldera. This finding indicates that the eruption was more complex than previously thought, and additional work is needed to sort out the details of the eruption’s history.

As usual, observational data and research findings continue to open new pathways to better understanding of Yellowstone’s volcanic, seismic, and hydrothermal behavior. The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory will be looking to expand on these findings in 2023 – fieldwork is already underway!

Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

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