Four Die in Wyoming Washout

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 

 hobiejoe wrote: 
Sure, but insurance for ocean-going freighters passing through Wyoming is much lower than Somalia.

 hobiejoe wrote: 

 Manbird wrote: 
Precisely. One is a lawless state in thrall to criminal warlords. The other is in Africa.
 
 

 Manbird wrote: 

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Jean-Marie! You can't compare them both!

The place will probably burn to the ground any day now.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 

 oldslabsides wrote: 
"Somalia has slightly higher standards than Wyoming"

 oldslabsides wrote: 
Wish I knew how to make $$$$ like that

there's heinous fuckery afoot!

Good news is, the park's going to be bigger!

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Surf's up!
  hiccup's always said she wants a palm tree.

 ptooey wrote: 
Hey tell California we may be catching the next flight out! 

Here's a little more information about the Yellowstone issue from the USGS.  This paper describes the efforts, to date, to image the deformation of the caldera.  It is inflating and has been for some time.  The earthquakes just add to the interest.


Caption - A new satellite-based technique known as Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) allows direct and precise measurement of the vertical changes in ground level. This InSAR image of the area around the Yellowstone Caldera (dotted line) shows vertical changes during the 4-year period 1996–2000. The ringed pattern centered northwest of Yellowstone Lake is a prominent area of dome-shaped uplift. Each complete cycle of colors in the color bands represents a little more than one inch (28.3 mm) of vertical change. Yellow triangles are continuous GPS stations; white dots are locations of earthquakes in the period 1996–2000.

The good news is that the recurrence interval (time between) of large, cataclysmic eruptions along the Yellowstone hotspot track appears to be, on average, greater than 1 million years and the last major eruption was about 630,000 years ago.  The bad news is...it's an average.  There could be eruptions shorter than the average return period.

This is nothing new.  They have seen these clusters of earthquakes before.  Bob Smith, the geophysicist from Utah quoted in the article, IS the expert on Yellowstone.

*edit* - in saying this is nothing new, I don't mean that this is not news, it is.  It is also pretty damn exciting from the perspective of active tectonics.  It's just that this is not necessarily the precursor to a major eruption, which would be bad....quite bad.

 ptooey wrote: 
Gee... and I woke up in such a good mood! 

*boom*?

CHEEERS TO ALL FROMWYOMING!!!

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Pass. What is it with Miss Wyoming tho? This one got millions out of Penthouse because she had the good idea to hire Gerry Spence.