An earthquake that registered 4.8 on the Richter Scale hit the national landmark wildlife preserve of Yellowstone National Park. The size of the blast panicked the American public, who believed such a tremor could provoke a volcanic eruption within the park.
The March 30 quake was the largest the park experienced since the 1980s, and suffered a series of foreshocks and aftershocks which panicked the park’s diverse wildlife collection.
Some survivalist bloggers have uploaded videos of the large bison stampedes, proclaiming that the animals are fleeing for their lives, reports The Epoch Times.
Yellowstone National Park is situated on the Yellowstone Caldera, one of the world’s largest supervolcanoes. Although dormant, the caldera attracts millions of visitors around the world who come to see its geysers and hot springs, powered by its hot lava beneath the Earth.
A recent measurement of the caldera itself clocks in at 29 miles wide, much larger than geologists had once thought. For survivalists like Tom Lupshu of Ohio, the gigantic volcano’s impending eruption is the only plausible explanation for why so many animals like the bison are leaving the park, with 25 percent less bison than were present last winter, as if they can sense the inevitable disaster the earthquakes have been warning of. Even Lupshu, however, concedes that the animals could be running from hunters or possibly just traveling to find new food sources; a theory that Yellowstone’s Public Affairs Chief Al Nash confirmed to Christian Science Monitor.
When accounting for the super volcano’s immense size, consider that it has had three violent eruptions in its existence. The most recent occurred 640,000 years ago, and all three happening over the span of the last 2 million years of Earth’s history, and each have contributed to the size of the caldera, spilling magma over the ground which cooled into rock. A further eruption would cause a reverse cooling cycle, in addition to covering much of the United States and Canada in layers of ash.
Although it is likely that the volcano will erupt again, it will not likely happen any time soon, according to EarthSky, which also refutes the earthquakes and helium emissions as signs of an impending doomsday scenario.
