Big Truck Creates Mini-Quakes in Yellowstone

Well, when you live on top of a supervolcano, it’s good to take a peek under the hood a little.

If you have ever spent any time driving down a Montana backroad, you have most likely experienced an old rattling truck, but this one isn’t filled with hay or plywood. It’s 53,000 pounds of a machine that the scientists at Yellowstone are using to thump the Earth and eavesdrop on what’s brewing underneath the park.

This thing is called a vibroseis truck. It drops a gigantic metal plate onto the ground and then shakes the crap out of it, to generate very small, controlled earthquakes. Those rumbles are picked up by hundreds of sensors spread across the park in something like a sonar for magma. It’s one of the USGS’s ways of paying a visit to Yellowstone’s magma chamber without needing to wait for anything to blow up.

According to a release from the USGS, the reason for the study is to obtain higher-resolution pictures of what is taking place below the surface. 2.4 miles below, they encountered a fizzing layer of bubbly, partly molten rock. Think about the foam on a bottle of soda that has been shaken up, only no spillage occurs, just the slow release of gas. That’s a good thing. Keeps pressure from building. Prevents Montana from turning into lava soup.

Another article from Cowboy State Daily reports that the findings indicate the magma chamber isn’t entirely full of molten doom. Most of that is solid, which is just what we want to hear. The Earth gets a nice massage, and we get some peace of mind.

So no, Yellowstone isn’t about to blow up tomorrow. But thanks to a very big truck and some smart people with clipboards, we now have a better idea of what’s going on down below. And, for now, the only things blowing up are the geysers.