rootninja

Conspiracy websites are currently reporting increased seismic activity in Yellowstone and suggesting that the events are related to the earthquake and tsunami that happened off the coast of Japan in early March. These testimonies are easily debunked by looking at the current and recent activity compared to historical activity.

Yellowstone experiences thousands of earthquakes every single year. Most are so small that they go undetected by people without scientific instrumentation.

The University of Utah tracks seismograph stations in this area. A quick check in the wayback machine shows that earthquakes happen quite frequently here, and they easily hit mid three’s in Richter magnitude with no cause for panic.

There’s almost always some seismic activity to be found in and around Yellowstone with no evidence of subsequent triggering of mainshock earthquakes related to other seismic events happening halfway across the globe.

As much as any conspiracy nut worth his weight in skepticism would like, it just isn’t happening. Take this snapshot showing earthquakes at the beginning of 2009 for instance.

http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20090107035619/http://www.seis.utah.edu/req2webdir/recenteqs/Maps/Yellowstone.html

Also check out the the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory’s current volcano alert level at normal/green. They release monthly updates on their site:

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/