Yellowstone Melting Road and Seismic Swarms — Reality Check

“Underground gas pressure can build up and these little swarms are kind of Nature's pressure release valve. The pressure gets a little too high, the earthquakes pop off — sometimes for just a day, which was the case in these July 5 - 14, 2014, (off and on) swarms.”

– Jake Lowenstern, Ph.D., USGS, Yellowstone Volcano Observatory

Yellowstone map of historic caldera-forming catastrophic events 2.1 million years ago, 1.3 million years ago and 640,000 years ago. Graphic © 2000 by Robert Smith and Lee Siegel, Windows into the Earth. — Yellowstone map of historic caldera-forming catastrophic events 2.1 million years ago, 1.3 million years ago and 640,000 years ago. Graphic © 2000 by Robert Smith and Lee Siegel, *Windows into the Earth.*

The Yellowstone Caldera measures 34 miles by 45 miles in area, the residue of three catastrophic caldera-forming magma explosions in which the third one 640,000 years ago disgorged enough white molten rock to cover the entire state of Texas five feet deep.

July 17, 2014 Menlo Park, California - On Thursday, July 10, 2014, Associated Press headlined, “Yellowstone Road Melts — Sites Closed.” A photograph with the breaking news shows a seriously melted asphalt road called Firehole Lake Drive that loops around some Yellowstone geysers, including Old Faithful.

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