Over 60 earthquakes at Yellowstone Lake not sign of impending doom

By Brooke Williams

Click here for updates on this story

    YELLOWSTONE LAKE, Wyoming (KSL) — The University of Utah Seismograph Stations reported a swarm of earthquakes under Yellowstone Lake.

Sixty earthquakes have been recorded between 11:18 p.m. Tuesday and 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, with magnitudes ranging from -0.1 to 3.7. Two quakes were recorded above magnitude 3.0 — a magnitude 3.1 at 7:05 a.m., and a magnitude 3.7 just over an hour later at 8:24 a.m..

The series of quakes follows another sequence of at least 20 earthquakes with magnitudes ranging from 0.6 to 2.4 that happened earlier this month near the Wyoming and Idaho state line.

Not to worry, “earthquake swarms,” series of earthquakes over a short period of time in a localized area, are common around Yellowstone National Park. According to the National Park Service, the area experiences approximately 700 to 3,000 earthquakes each year, though most of them are not felt.

“Earthquake sequences like these are common and account for roughly 50% of the total seismicity in the Yellowstone region,” a press release from the University of Utah Seismograph Stations stated.

Though the swarms are common, they are less frequent at a magnitude of 3.0 or greater — a total of 44 quakes have been recorded within a 16 mile radius of Wednesday’s magnitude 3.7 epicenter since 1962, according to a release from the University of Utah. The largest of those was a magnitude 3.9 on Dec. 27, 2008.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.