Animals are not leaving Yellowstone

The Yellowstone supervolcano has been making headlines in recent weeks. There have been videos and comments circulating on major social media platforms about large numbers of wildlife leaving Yellowstone National Park. Comments on these videos have stated that the supervolcano may be on the verge of a major eruption and the “animals know something we don’t.”

Well, in this new age of AI-generated videos, many clips of wildlife leaving in droves are fake. However, officials will show that groups of animals will normally migrate to other locations at particular times of the year. Officials at the National Park Service have stated that large numbers of wildlife are not leaving Yellowstone National Park.

The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory carefully monitors the hydrothermal activity below the park. According to the USGS, the organization is a “consortium of nine states and federal agencies who provide timely monitoring and hazard assessment of volcanic, hydrothermal, and earthquake activity in the Yellowstone Plateau region.”

In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant was so impressed with Yellowstone that he established it as our first national park. Despite its amazing landscapes, there is a large pool of constantly moving hot magma about 5 miles below the park. Over a long period of time, usually hundreds of thousands of years, these areas of hot, molten rock would build up enough pressure and trigger a huge eruption.

The last time there was a major blast of the Yellowstone volcanic crater, or caldera, was approximately 640,000 years ago and is estimated to be about 2,500 times bigger than the eruption of Mount St. Helens back in 1980. There was also a smaller eruption about 70,000 years ago. Scientists believe that if a major eruption were imminent, there would be large indicators of this event, such as very strong earthquake swarms and rapid ground deformation. Currently, the Yellowstone Volcano averages about 1,000 to 3,000 earthquakes per year due to the shifting magma and there are over 10,000 thermal features in this region.

I’ve read a number of articles that suggest an eruption may be on the horizon. But geologists and other scientists insist that an event of that magnitude is not likely to occur for at least thousands of years, perhaps tens of thousands of years. If there were to be a massive eruption, it’s estimated that everything within about 100 miles of Yellowstone would literally be overwhelmed by the effects of the blast. There would be so much dust and ash poured into the upper atmosphere that the Earth would likely go into a “nuclear winter,” and ash fallout would be devastating to U.S. crops.

The Yellowstone Caldera, also known as the Yellowstone Supervolcano, is located primarily in northwestern Wyoming and measures a rather large 34 by 45 miles. The park lies over a hotspot of light, hot and molten rock deep within the Earth. Over millions of years, thanks to tectonic activity, the North American Plate we live on has been slowly moving to the west-southwest. Therefore, there have been many older calderas from previous eruptions discovered relating to this hotspot stretching across southern Idaho and as far west as the Nevada and Oregon border.

Scientists believe that there could have been as many as 50 large eruptions over millions of years. Some of these explosions have helped to create the eastern portions of the Snake River Plain across southern Idaho. One caldera in the southern portion of our state, the Bruneau-Jarbidge caldera, was believed to be formed from an eruption around 10 to 12 million years ago and dropped volcanic ash up to a foot deep and as far away as northeastern Nebraska.

From 2008 to 2022, researchers from the University of Western Ontario discovered that there have been over 86,000 small earthquakes surrounding Yellowstone. In terms of the number of earthquakes, the results indicate that the number of earthquakes was “significantly higher” than previously expected. Many of these tremors came in “swarms,” which are small groups of small earthquakes that are linked together. Although swarms of earthquakes can precede an eruption, scientists say that a major eruption of Yellowstone is not imminent.

In terms of our local weather, it’s been a very dry July across the Inland Northwest. At Cliff’s station, only 0.01 inches of rain fell this month, compared to a normal of 0.92 inches. There was 0.07 inches of moisture at the Spokane International Airport, and other outlying areas near Coeur d’Alene did report higher rainfall totals.

The meteorological summer season began June 20. Since that date, only 0.12 inches of rain has fallen at Cliff’s station in Coeur d’Alene. According to his records, this has been the driest period since records began in 1895.

However, August may be a little wetter as the long-range computer models indicate the increased chances of at least a few Pacific storm systems moving across the region next month. The normal rainfall for August is 1.23 inches, so we could see moisture totals near to above normal levels if the new pattern continues to evolve. Assuming conditions do become wetter, most of the moisture is expected toward the middle to the end of the month.

• • • 

Contact Randy Mann at [email protected].