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Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech...volcano-biggest-threat-large-quake/973640002/
Yellowstone?s greatest geological threat isn?t a supervolcano. It?s a magnitude-7 earthquake.
Katharine Lackey, USA TODAY Published 7:00 a.m. ET Aug. 21, 2018 | Updated 7:57 a.m. ET Aug. 21, 2018
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. ? While concerns about a potential eruption of the supervolcano beneath this iconic park may garner the most alarming headlines, a more likely hazard in the coming decades is a large earthquake.
?The biggest concern we have for Yellowstone is not with the volcano, it?s with earthquakes,? said Michael Poland, scientist-in-charge at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, a consortium of eight organizations led by the U.S. Geological Survey. ?This is an underappreciated hazard in the Yellowstone area. There can and there will be in the future magnitude-7 earthquakes.?
On average, Yellowstone experiences 1,500 to 2,500 earthquakes a year, most of them so small they can?t be felt. But large quakes can ? and have ? occurred in the not-too-distant past.
On Aug. 17, 1959, a magnitude-7.3 earthquake rocked the park, killing 28 people when a massive landslide pummeled into a campground. More than 80 million tons of rock fell, blocking a river and forming a lake, aptly named Earthquake Lake, that remains today...
Yellowstone?s greatest geological threat isn?t a supervolcano. It?s a magnitude-7 earthquake.
Katharine Lackey, USA TODAY Published 7:00 a.m. ET Aug. 21, 2018 | Updated 7:57 a.m. ET Aug. 21, 2018
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. ? While concerns about a potential eruption of the supervolcano beneath this iconic park may garner the most alarming headlines, a more likely hazard in the coming decades is a large earthquake.
?The biggest concern we have for Yellowstone is not with the volcano, it?s with earthquakes,? said Michael Poland, scientist-in-charge at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, a consortium of eight organizations led by the U.S. Geological Survey. ?This is an underappreciated hazard in the Yellowstone area. There can and there will be in the future magnitude-7 earthquakes.?
On average, Yellowstone experiences 1,500 to 2,500 earthquakes a year, most of them so small they can?t be felt. But large quakes can ? and have ? occurred in the not-too-distant past.
On Aug. 17, 1959, a magnitude-7.3 earthquake rocked the park, killing 28 people when a massive landslide pummeled into a campground. More than 80 million tons of rock fell, blocking a river and forming a lake, aptly named Earthquake Lake, that remains today...