Earthquakes may trigger Yellowstone's steaming geyserExBulletin

Wyoming, USA – A crowd witnesses a rare eruption of Steamboat Geyser, the world's largest active geyser. Tara Kestner/Getty Images/Unreleased RF . Moment

. Tara Kastner/Getty Images/Unreleased Moment RF

Steamboat is the world's tallest active geyser, but unlike Old Faithful, its eruptions are completely unpredictable.

Now, a new analysis suggests that at least one recent eruption of Steamboat Volcano was caused by a small earthquake.

The 3.9 magnitude earthquake occurred in September of 2022, and was centered about 7 miles from Steamboat, located in the Norris Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

“Someone ran out there right after the quake to see if Steamboat was doing anything, and right after the quake happened, it seemed normal,” recalls Mara Reid, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley.

After about eight hours, though – wow!

Steamboat has had one of its major eruptions, which can send water hundreds of feet into the air.

Reid and some colleagues wondered if the two events were related, and they did an analysis just published in the journal Volcanica.

“We certainly think it's plausible. I think that's probably what happened,” Reed says.

The report comes just days after another volcanic eruption occurred in Steamboat that immediately followed the earthquake. This earthquake was a magnitude 4.1 and its epicenter was about 100 miles from the geyser.

“I think it's really interesting. It seems to me quite possible that a geyser about to erupt could be pushed over the edge by some seismic vibration,” says Michael Poland of the USGS, who heads the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

“But it's really hard to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, because it's always possible that it's just a coincidence,” he says.

Rock Geyser

There are only about a thousand geysers in the world, and about half of them are in Yellowstone.

Besides being interesting in their own right, they are good analogues for volcanoes. About a tenth of the world's population lives within the potential range of volcanic hazards, so researchers are keen to understand what could trigger this.

“We've known for a long time that earthquakes trigger volcanic eruptions, but knowing when and why remain open questions,” says Michael Manga of the University of California, Berkeley.

“Geysers provide another opportunity to study how stress affects fluids,” he points out, because the basic physics is similar.

In the world of geysers, Steamboat is something of a rock star.

They are huge, and can also inexplicably remain dormant for years. When it wakes up and becomes active, eruptions can occur every few days. Or they can be separated by weeks to months.

“Steamboat is special. Steamboat is king now,” Poland says. “She has these explosions that will go up maybe 400 feet, and maybe part of the mystery is that she's so unpredictable.”

Scientists have installed some seismometers near Steamboat, and these devices can pick up small vibrations in the ground caused by boiling hot water.

“Imagine if you see a pot of boiling water on the stove, that's very powerful,” Boland says.

After the 2022 earthquake, an instrument near Steamboat recorded a change in the intensity of hydrothermal noise, Reed says.

This means that the earthquake may have changed the flow of fluids underground and sent more hot water toward the ship.

“So we know that the hydrothermal regime at that point near the seismometer has changed,” she says. “This doesn't necessarily prove that it changed in a way that affected Steamboat, but it is plausible that it did, based on what we know about the geology and the area and the type of seismic signals we were seeing.”

The research team also conducted a statistical analysis showing that there was a very low probability that the steamboat would have erupted that day by chance.

Earthquakes are bigger

Poland says that about two months before this major eruption, the steamboat appeared to be ready to launch.

It had a set of minor explosions that sent water spraying only 10 feet or so above the vent.

The same was true this month on Oct. 7, when a 4.1 magnitude earthquake struck near Dillon, Montana, about 100 miles from Steamboat.

Hours later, a major volcanic eruption occurred on a ship.

Perhaps, either way, the steamship was about to explode, and the earthquake gave it a boost, Boland says.

“If so, then in both cases, why was there a delay of several hours between the earthquake and the eruption?” He wonders.

Steamboat has experienced several large regional earthquakes without exploding. For example, the 7.3 magnitude Hebgen Lake earthquake that affected several other Yellowstone hot springs has not yet erupted.

Reed points out that large earthquakes are likely to open more new fractures and fluid pathways underground, but when that quake occurred in 1959, Steamboat was not in an active phase.

“Maybe it just needs to be prepared for the eruption,” Reid says.

The same applies to volcanoes, she says.

“The internal state of the volcano is probably very important,” Reid says. “The volcano would have to be already prepared to erupt for the earthquake to come along and give it a little extra boost.”

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