What is Causing Yellowstone's Recent Seismic Activity?

[SixNein]

I have been watching Yellowstone off an on for years. In the last 2 years, Yellowstone has been behaving oddly (Well.. Yellowstone has always been a bit odd... perhaps odder?).

There was a pretty major swarm of earthquakes near one of the domes about 2 years ago, and they were fairly energetic. 24 months later (this year), Yellowstone had another large swarm. And I was just looking at the seismograph, and Yellowstone has quite a few strong earthquakes again in a possible new swarm:

http://www.quake.utah.edu/req2webdir/recenteqs/Maps/111-45.html

Anyone know the cause? Hydrothermal maybe?

 

[Astronuc]

Probably geothermal. The caldera under Yellowstone seems to be moving. I was there within the last 10 years, and thermal vents I had seen on the west side of the park more than 35 years ago were dry or relatively cold. The activity has shifted eastward.

Yellowstone seems relatively quiet as compared to Mt. St. Helens, So California, parts of the Cascades, Hawaii, the Aleutian Island, Indonesia, the borders of the Pacific Plate (which interact with the Australia, Philippine, and Asia Plates.

 

[SixNein]

Probably geothermal. The caldera under Yellowstone seems to be moving. I was there within the last 10 years, and thermal vents I had seen on the west side of the park more than 35 years ago were dry or relatively cold. The activity has shifted eastward.

Yellowstone seems relatively quiet as compared to Mt. St. Helens, So California, parts of the Cascades, Hawaii, the Aleutian Island, Indonesia, the borders of the Pacific Plate (which interact with the Australia, Philippine, and Asia Plates.

There has been uplift in yellowstone, but it has slowed down some in the last few years. I'm not sure if the recent activity is magmatic or not. But these swarms are getting to be quite frequent, so something is changing.

Some of those volcanoes are different from Yellowstone. Hawaii would be the best example, but its currently active. I don't have a clue what Yellowstone would look like going active, but I bet it would be an attention getter lol. Probably would be a swarm of 9's or something.