YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — While the dust settles after Tuesday’s Biscuit Basin hydrothermal explosion, Scientist-in-Charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory Michael Poland spoke to Buckrail about the event and what it means for Yellowstone National Park (YNP) visitors.
YNP closed the area to visitors immediately following the explosion on Tuesday, July 23, and then announced on Wednesday, July 24, that Biscuit Basin would remain closed for the rest of the visitor season.
“It was probably a pretty easy decision to make,” Poland said. “One, the boardwalk was destroyed, and two, the park is cautious and takes visitor safety extraordinarily seriously.”
Poland noted that it was extremely lucky that no injuries were reported after the explosion, and said things might have gone differently if any visitors had gone rogue. This event should encourage visitors to heed signage about staying on the boardwalks.
“These are spectacular places and you really have to be careful where you walk,” he said. “The park puts a lot of effort into putting the boardwalks in places that are not thermal ground.”
Poland said he wouldn’t be surprised if the boardwalk layout around Biscuit Basin saw some adjustments. After a young visitor detected extra-hot ground under the boardwalk at Norris Geyser Basin in 2003 by removing his flip-flop and placing a bare foot on the near-boiling ground, Poland said, Yellowstone rerouted the boardwalk to avoid the newly dangerous area.
“Clearly the plumbing system just changed really drastically,” Poland said. “There have been times when an event like this happens and it leads to a fundamental change to how that feature will behave. Maybe it starts to have eruptions really regularly. These things are dynamic features; they can change.”
Changes to these features are a chief concern of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, and Poland’s team is prioritizing hydrothermal hazard research. Recently installed sensors in Norris Geyser Basin logged a similar event in April of this year, and Poland hopes more sensor installation is in the cards. Even if the instruments can confirm that a hydrothermal event has occurred after the fact, though, the technology might not yet be as helpful in predicting them.
“I’m not hyper-confident that we’re ever gonna see a signal that will allow us to say, ‘Uh oh, a hydrothermal explosion is coming,’ because that transition from water to steam happens instantaneously,” he said.
For now, Poland is grateful for the heightened visitor awareness, especially since no one was injured.
“Hydrothermal hazards are the most underappreciated hazards in Yellowstone,” Poland said. “I’m hopeful this hazard won’t be dismissed, especially by visitors, now that [footage of the July 23 explosion] is out there.”
The U.S. Geological Survey shared a video with other insights from Poland.
