Yellowstone Geyser erupts three times in six weeks

The largest active geyser has already erupted three times in the past six weeks and scientists don’t know why. The thing is the geyser is sitting on top of a massive active volcano.

Yellowstone National Park is the house of the Steamboat Geyser, the largest of its kind. One of its most commonly known particularities is that it is capable of spouting 300 ft (91 m) of scalding water into the air.

What isn’t know about this geyser is the reason why it has had three eruptions in such a short period of time (only one month and a half). The latest event occurred on Friday, April 27 2018. Scientists who closely monitor the geyser’s activity say they hadn’t noticed a similar pattern since 2003.

The greatest concern people in the area have is that this geyser is located on top of a violent supervolcano, which measures ‘only’ 44 miles across.

However, geologists are trying to assure everyone that according to the seismic activity they recently registered, these eruptions are not a sign of a massive volcanic eruption.

Michale Poland, the scientist that monitors the geyser’s activity mentioned that “There is nothing to indicate that any sort of volcanic eruption is imminent,” and that this only indicates “randomness”.

Dr. Poland explained that a real sign of massive volcanic eruption would be if the hydrothermal systems located right beneath the Steamboat Geyser dried up. That would be an indicator of magma getting closer to the ground surface.

Yellowstone National Park reassured everyone by posting a tweet, saying that “Like most geysers, eruptions of Steamboat can't be predicted, they may be days or decades apart.”

The first eruption of Steamboat Geyser was recorded on March 15, this year, whereas the second one was on April 19. In the past three years, the geyser has been lying dormant. Additionally, the latest volcanic eruption was more than 70,000 years ago, and there is no sign of another volcanic eruption in the future.

One possible reason for the latest geyser’s activity, according to Dr. Poland, is that the three eruptions might indicate thermal disturbances. Geysers that go dormant are the types of activities that should concern people, not the ones that erupt.

“This is what geysers do. They erupt,” Poland said.

Old Faithful, which is the most famous geyser of Yellowstone National Park, and which is only a fraction of the size of Steamboat Geyser, is a lot more active than the latter one, as it erupts every 45 to 125 minutes. Each time Old Faithful is about to erupt, the park tweets the alerts and mentioning a 10-minute margin of error.

National Geographic also provided a more detailed explanation on Yellowstone’s supervolcano.