Yellowstone National Park has been hit by more than 1,200 earthquakes in the span of just a month, seismologists say. The Grand Prismatic hot spring is among the park’s many hydrothermal features created by the super volcano
Most of the earthquakes were in the magnitude 0 or 1 range, with a further 181 recorded at magnitude 2 and 11 at magnitude 3.
Another 53 were less than 0, meaning they were very small events that could be detected only with sensitive earthquake-monitoring instruments.
Jamie Farrell, a research professor at the University of Utah, which is involved in monitoring seismic activity at Yellowstone, told Newsweek that the swarm was ‘nothing out of the ordinary’ and that it had ‘slowed down significantly but does occasionally have little bursts of activity that lasts for a few hours.’
While the activity has spurred fears that the supervolcano could be gearing up to an eruption, the experts say the risk of such an event is low, and the alert level remains at ‘normal.’
The experts at the University of Utah Seismograph Stations (UUSS) have been tracking the current swarm on the western edge of Yellowstone since June 12.
Swarms of this kind are common in the area, they say, and make up roughly 50 percent of the seismic activity in the Yellowstone region.
