YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — As part of their monthly update, and Volcano Week, Mike Poland of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory discusses the challenges winter provides with volcano monitoring.
Known for its volcanic activity, Yellowstone is also known for its harsh winters and during the last ice age was home to one of the thickest ice sheets in the continental U.S., that only started melting out about 14,000 years ago. These harsh winter conditions have continued today and make things difficult for volcano monitoring equipment.
The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory has taken specific steps to engineer the monitoring equipment against harsh winter conditions. For example, size monitors are typically buried, which keeps them immune to the snowy and icy conditions on the surface. The radio antennas that push data out are very high above the ground, to keep them from being covered with snow.
GPS signaling however presents a challenge. The GPS antennas can get covered in snow and ice during stormy conditions which can cause the signal to take longer to get to the antenna and make it look like the ground is deforming, whereas it’s just ice on the antenna. However, since there are so many GPS stations within the Yellowstone region they can use the cumulative data to make sure that winter weather conditions don’t cause a blip in the data.
For more on how to celebrate Volcano Week click here.
