Although the video tells us little, concerns about the Yellowstone supervolcano have increased since Sunday's biggest earthquake to hit the area in over 30 years.
Videos of bison seemingly fleeing Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming
have sparked concerns among some bloggers that recent seismic activity
could trigger the eruption of the park's so-called supervolcano.
According
to Epoch Times, multiple videos of such incidents have been posted
online recently, one of which shows a herd of buffalo allegedly leaving
the park and "running for their lives." Although people behind the
discussion acknowledge there's no way to predict when the park's massive
volcano could erupt, they believe the reaction of the Yellowstone's
animals could signal some kind of alert.
On March 30, Yellowstone
was struck by the most powerful earthquake it has experienced since
1980 -- a 4.8 magnitude quake that did no damage, but that some believe
could be connected to the various animals' movements.
"Whether I
believe this, or whether I don't believe the story or not, I don't
know. I can tell you this story I saw this morning about the buffaloes
running the street ... whether or not it's because of any activity in
Yellowstone or not, I don't know," said blogger Jay Lee, according to
the Times.
"But I'll tell you this, whatever the case may be, that their running away from Yellowstone is an alert of some sort."
Another
video uploaded to YouTube, this time by self-described "survivalist"
and "search-and-rescue expert" Tom Lupshu, claims, "Biologists aren't
sure if there's been a stunning decline in the herd or if other factors
have skewed the tally." Lupshu also said that helium releases in the
area are 1,000 times above normal levels, and accused the US Geological
Survey of not reporting small quakes occurring near the volcano.
"Herds
of bison running for their lives on the public roadways and they were
not being chased or rounded up, the bison were running down the mountain
slopes onto roadways running right past a filming crew," he added.
"They detect something vast and deadly. The Yellowstone Supervolcano is
the only thing there that would fit the bill."
The supervolcano
-- which was found last year to be 2.5 times larger than previously
thought -- has not erupted in over 640,000 years, leaving some to
speculate that a blast is overdue. If and when it erupts again, the
volcano could potentially spew ash over large swathes of North America
and cause trouble around the entire planet.
"It would be a global
event," Jamie Farrell of the University of Utah told the Associated
Press last year. "There would be a lot of destruction and a lot of
impacts around the globe."
Although Farrell said scientists don't
know enough to map out the next eruption's likely arrival, he did say
they'd know if magma was moving towards the Earth's surface.
In
another video, Lupshu said that increased seismic activity at
Yellowstone could bring about the volcano's eruption, but the Geological
Survey has noted such activity is currently par for the course, and
that between 1,000 and 3,000 earthquakes hit the area every year. The
agency also stated that helium releases have "no implications about
volcanic hazards." yellowstone "yellowstone national park" video bison
viral fear concern animal life eruption "super volcano" believe belief
alert warning emergency earthquake 2014 historic history future flee
"big one"
According to Epoch Times, the University of Utah Seismograph Stations also downplayed fears.
"There
is no evidence that a catastrophic eruption at Yellowstone National
Park (YNP) is imminent," the service said. "Current geologic activity at
Yellowstone has remained relatively constant since earth scientists
first started monitoring some 30 years ago. Though another
caldera-forming eruption is theoretically possible, it is very unlikely
to occur in the next thousand or even 10,000 years."
The supervolcano refers to the huge magma chamber beneath the park, which is in Wyoming.
No comments:
Post a Comment