“Supervolcano” Concerns Rise After Montana Hit By Strongest Earthquake In 20 Years
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Jul 6, 2017
Following a swarm of over 1100 earthquakes recorded in the Yellowstone caldera over the past month, prompting scientists to voice concerns about a dormant Yellowstone “Supervolcano” slowly waking up, overnight these concerns escalated after a strong M5.8 earthquake hit western Montana early on Thursday morning – the strongest quake to hit the area in the past 20 years – the U.S. Geological Survey reported, with Reuters adding that the tremor was felt hundreds of miles away, from Missoula to Billings and some surrounding states.
The quake appears to be the largest to hit Montana since a slightly weaker M5.6 struck outside of Dillon a dozen years ago. By comparison, the state’s largest quake which struck the West Yellowstone region 58-years ago was 7.2 magnitude.
The quake’s epicenter was about 6 miles south of Lincoln, originating from a depth of nearly 3 miles underground, according to a preliminary report from the U.S. Geological Service.
Subsequently the USGS recorded seven more tremors in the same area within an hour of the initial quake, which ranged in magnitude from 4.9 to 3.8.
The quake which struck at 12:30 a.m. local time was strong enough to knock items off of walls and shelves in Helena and Missoula. Some Twitter users posted feeling tremors as far as Spokane, Wash., Boise, Idaho and Calgary, Canada.
Mike Stickney, seismologist at the Earthquake Studies Office, Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology on the Montana Tech campus in Butte, said the quake was probably the strongest in Montana since October 1964. The location, he said, is not surprising. “It’s right along the axis of the intermountain seismic belt.” He said the quake occurred on a strike/slip fault, a vertical fault where one side moves horizontally against the other, similar to the kind of movement experienced along the San Andreas Fault in California.
The Rest…HERE
