(ORDO NEWS) — According to the US Geological Survey, eleven earthquakes occurred on Friday in Yellowstone National Park.
In the western part of Yellowstone, eleven earthquakes were recorded, the strongest of which was magnitude 3.1. According to an Idaho spokesman, another 34 earthquakes occurred in the area last month.
Other earthquakes had magnitudes of 1.6 to 3.1 and occurred at a depth of about 4.8 km.
The cascade of earthquakes is not unusual for this area. Yellowstone is one of the most seismically active places in the United States, where about 700-3000 earthquakes occur annually, according to the National Park website .
Earthquakes typically occur in clusters. The biggest one happened in 1985, when over three thousand earthquakes were recorded on the northwest side of the park in three months.
The park is also famous for its supervolcano. In the US, there are only two supervolcanoes: in Yellowstone and in Long Valley in California.
Yellowstone – about 54 by 72 kilometers in size, just 4.8 kilometers from the surface.
Scientists do not think that the Yellowstone supervolcano will soon erupt (at least in the next thousand years). Despite the fact that this is the subject of many apocalyptic fantasies, the chances of its eruption during the year are one in 730,000, according to the US Geological Survey. The last eruption occurred 174,000 years ago.
However, in the unlikely event, a supervolcano will erupt – with a force equal to 1000 atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima – causing massive destruction in the United States, along with other natural phenomena, including acid rain.
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