Volcanic quake seismic hoax: Yellowstone doomsday eruption a false reading on ‘webicorders’ By David Ashby dashby@journalnet | Posted: Friday, February 7, 2014 1:26 am Emails have been circulating the Internet saying that scientists have been witnessing unusually powerful seismic activity at the site of the Yellowstone Volcano during the past week. That information is false. The emails hint that the seismic activity is a sign of an imminent doomsday eruption, but volcanologists are blaming malfunctioning monitoring equipment for sparking the fear. The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, which monitors seismic and volcanic activity at the park, released a statement on Wednesday saying a seismometer called B944 near the West Thumb region has been malfunctioning in recent weeks. This malfunction has been blamed on strong bursts of electronic noise contaminating its seismic activity data. “The best way I could describe the malfunction is like electronic interference on a phone,” said Al Nash, spokesperson for Yellowstone National Park. The noise bursts appear on webicorders, which are graphic depictions of seismic activity that can be viewed at the University of Utah Seismographic Station’s website. On the webicorders, the noise bursts appear as fluctuations that look like violent seismic changes to the untrained eye. Yellowstone National Park is home to a supervolcano that last erupted around 640,000 years ago. If the caldera were to erupt again today, scientists believe it could present a potential doomsday scenario to mankind, with millions of people potentially perishing as a result. A number of online blogs noticed the noise bursts on the webicorders and misinterpreted the malfunction as the initial signs of an imminent eruption. One blog even blamed the malfunction on a terrorist attack. “We have sensors all across the park measuring seismic activity, so we know that if something big was occurring, it wouldn’t just show on one isolated device,” said Nash. nps.gov/features/yell/live/live4.htm
Posted on: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 16:07:26 +0000