Earthquakes

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Rare Simultaneous Earthquake Swarms Rock Yellowstone Region, USA

A very rare triple swarm of earthquakes rocked Yellowstone National Park. A geophysics professor says he has never seen even two swarms occur together before in all the 53 years that he has been monitoring seismic activity. Now, he’s seen three.

The three swarms hit in the following areas: Lewis Lake, the Lower Geyser Basin and the northwest part of Norris Geyser Basin.

An earthquake swarm is an event where a sequence of earthquakes occurs in a limited geographic area over a short period of time.

Earlier this month, on September 15, the largest earthquake to rock Yellowstone in over a year occurred about six miles north of the Old Faithful Geyser. Its magnitude was about 3.6 at its epicenter. The recent swarms of earthquakes began on September 10 and finished up on September 16.

Altogether, 130 earthquakes with magnitudes ranging from 0.6 to 3.6 occurred in the area, with most of them being located in the Lower Geyser Basin. The recent swarms produced four earthquakes which were significant enough in size to be felt. The first, which had a magnitude of 3.5, happened on September 13, about 17 miles northeast of West Yellowstone, Montana. The next two tremblors to be felt occurred early on the morning of September 15 with magnitudes of 3.2 and 3.4 respectively. These two occurred in rapid succession, with one being detected at 5:10 AM and the other at 5:11 AM. The quakes happened about 15 miles southeast of West Yellowstone. The largest earthquake recording during the swarm, a 3.6, was measured nearby about 4 1/2 hours later.