Yellowstone National Park has a new plan for dealing with geologic hazards like thermal explosions and earthquakes for the first time in 11 years, following a close call at Biscuit Basin last year. No one was hurt in that thermal explosion, but it highlighted the need for better monitoring and response protocols.
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"A lot of that was directed away from the boardwalk, so the biggest rocks fell out towards the river instead of in the other direction, which is toward the boardwalk. And it gave people time to get away from that area immediately bordering the pool," said Mike Poland, scientist in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.
The new plan provides a blueprint for how the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory would handle geologic hazards, with one key lesson learned from last summer's explosion.
"The information flow initially came in the direction that we didn't expect, that it came from visitors and park staff to the volcanologists," Poland said.
Scientists have installed a camera at Biscuit Basin that can transmit still pictures and record video to better monitor thermal activity in the area.
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"And we don't know if there are really reliable precursors to things like what happened at Biscuit Basin. So that's an area where I think we have a lot more we can learn," Poland said.
The learning curve is steep when it comes to predicting these events.
"That's a pretty big challenge, is forecasting those sort of small events. They may be small, but as the Biscuit Basin episode showed us, they can be pretty impactful," Poland said.
Yellowstone faces various geologic hazards with different frequencies. Major volcanic eruptions occur only once or twice every million years, while lava flows happen about 100 times in the same period. More common events include one or two strong earthquakes every 100 years, and small hydrothermal explosions that happen almost annually.
Poland emphasized that geologists don't coordinate emergency responses themselves.
"So it's our responsibility to get the information that the land managers need so that they can make smart decisions," Poland said.
While Yellowstone is the most monitored volcano in the world, most of that monitoring focuses on earthquakes. The observatory plans to expand monitoring to more geyser basins.
"And we're going to be expanding to some of the other geyser basins as resources allow in the years to come. So Biscuit is sort of the next target, trying to get a handle of monitoring upper geyser basin, and then hopefully moving to other basins in the park in the years to come. That's the plan," Poland said.
The ultimate goal is visitor safety.
"I mean, ultimately, that's the whole point of these response plans, is to make sure that people are protected," Poland said.
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