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Officials with Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming confirm that there was a spectacular “hydrothermal explosion” Tuesday morning. The good news is that this doesn’t mean the big one’s going to blow any time soon. The bad news is that if you were planning to visit the Biscuit Basin area, too bad.
Yellowstone blows off steam
It’s not unusual for the volcano under Yellowstone National Park to blow off a little steam, once in a while. It’s home to “Old Faithful,” a geyser which goes off as regular as clockwork. The one which went off on July 23 isn’t one of the normal vents.
The Biscuit Basin area features the Sapphire Pool. Rangers haven’t mentioned if it will recover or not but right now there’s nothing left of the pool but steaming mud.
Yellowstone authorities closed the entire area for safety, along with its parking lot and boardwalks. No injuries were reported.
An unusually large eruption of one of Yellowstone’s geysers occurred at Biscuit Basin moments ago. pic.twitter.com/b8Ya4iW1H3
— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) July 23, 2024
Rangers note that the incident blasted the Sapphire Pool skyward around 10 a.m. local time. They also relate that they haven’t figured out exactly how much damage has been done.
One thing they do know, “hydrothermal explosions are violent and dramatic events resulting in the rapid ejection of boiling water, steam, mud, and rock fragments.”
They happen where “shallow interconnected reservoirs of fluids with temperatures at or near the boiling point underlie thermal fields.” The Yellowstone magma field provides more than enough heat. All it takes is a bubble to set off a major blast.
Not the big one
Yellowstone is way overdue for a major eruption but this isn’t any sort of sign that one is imminent now. Every so often, pressure can “suddenly drop” in the system.
“Since vapor molecules take up much more space than liquid molecules, the transition to steam results in significant expansion and blows apart surrounding rocks and ejects debris.”
According to park officials, these things happen once in a while but not often enough to be called common. In 1989, “Porkchop Geyser, in Norris Geyser Basin, experienced an explosion.”
(Heads Up!) Biscuit Basin in Yellowstone National Park temporarily closed due to hydrothermal explosion. More info: https://t.co/tcDR8oRNSx pic.twitter.com/YP7CkwNrQR
— Yellowstone National Park (@YellowstoneNPS) July 23, 2024
Another “small event” in the same area of Yellowstone was “recorded by monitoring equipment on April 15, 2024.” The last time they saw one like this was also in Biscuit Basin on May 17, 2009.
Officials were quick to assure the public on Tuesday that “today’s explosion does not indicate a volcanic eruption is imminent.” In fact, “monitoring data show no changes in the Yellowstone region.” That means the “explosion does not reflect activity within (the) volcanic system, which remains at normal background levels of activity.”
This was nothing but a steam release, “not caused by magma rising towards the surface.” The odds of the big one hitting during the upcoming year happen to be slightly better than those for getting four numbers plus the Powerball for a $50k prize. They don’t like to advertise that fact because if it does go off, it will all be over before you know it.
