MT Gov. Greg Gianforte sues to block Yellowstone’s bison management plan
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte and a pair of Montana state agencies are suing to halt Yellowstone National Park’s bison management plan. The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, Dec. 31, by Gianforte, the Montana Department of Livestock and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, named the U.S. National Park Service, U.S. Department of Interior and their leaders, including Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Cam Sholly, as defendants.
Montana state officials argued the new rules hurt the state’s ability to handle threats brought on by bison wandering beyond the park’s boundaries. They said they did not get a fair chance to participate in the planning process with park officials.
Gianforte said on Tuesday the National Park Service “failed” to work with Montana in “a meaningful and transparent” way “required by law.”
The governor and state officials contend that the review process for the plan was hurried. They say it left Montana officials with an impossible timeframe to fulfill to provide input on the new rules.
Yellowstone National Park officials said the new plan was adopted in July 2024. The plan allows it to address new scientific information since the last adopted plan back in 2000.
The new measures call for the park’s bison herd to remain between 3,500 and 6,000 animals.
State leaders immediately criticized the plan. They say they wanted the herd managed at around 3,000 bison, a number set under the plan adopted in 2000.
In its lawsuit, the state and Gianforte argue that the larger bison herd threatens Montana’s cattle through the spread of infectious disease.
The court filings also note state officials believe the larger herd will damage the landscape of Yellowstone’s northern range.
As Straight Arrow News previously reported, conservationists have argued against limiting the herd of bison to 3,000 animals. They claim state leaders don’t want to protect the species.
Conservationists note that in 2023, a record number of bison, nearly 1,600, were killed in Montana.
“The state of Montana does not consider our national mammal to be a wildlife species. They consider the buffalo to be a diseased species in need of management,” Tom Woodbury, the director of communications for the Buffalo Field Campaign, said.
The mass hunting of bison came largely from hunters among indigenous tribes. They have the right to hunt bison under historic treaties and reportedly face little to no regulations.
“The state of Montana doesn’t regulate the number of bison that tribal hunters can harvest or what their season dates are, things like that. Those are largely determined by each individual tribe,” Morgan Jacobsen, information officer for the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks agency said.
The 2023 killings of bison in Montana also raised concerns among conservationists. They said that Gianforte’s call for a herd of 3,000 bison is unrealistic for Yellowstone.
“Montana would like to see the bison population reduced to 3,000, which is not a viable population for bison and would result in them being listed under the Endangered Species Act,” Woodbury said.
Yellowstone officials said they are reviewing the 51-page lawsuit from the governor and are considering their next steps.
Grand Teton National Park deal adds protections for 640 acres of Wyo. land
The federal government is buying a one-square-mile parcel of land from the state of Wyoming. It means that the land will receive permanent protection in Grand Teton National Park.
The federal government is buying the Kelly parcel. It’s a 640-acre plot of land that Wyoming held in its state school trust.
The parcel has been a target for conservationists but was nearly auctioned off for potential home development.
The land is in the middle of a migration corridor for elk, pronghorn and mule deer and includes striking views of the Teton Range.
The $100 million comes from a mix of private donations and the National Park Service’s Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said, “Today marks an incredible milestone, decades in the making, to permanently protect an essential wildlife migration corridor and treasured landscape within Grand Teton National Park.”
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon certified the project days before the start of the new legislature when a conservative bloc takes power. The legislators suggested they might try to prevent the deal from going through during their new session in January.
Gordon says he plans to buy other land back from the federal government, saying, “along with the protection of an iconic parcel of land, we now begin working to ensure that there is no net-gain in federal lands in Wyoming.”
The land investment is part of Wyoming’s efforts to make the $100 million benefit the state’s public education system.
One person is dead after a shootout with park rangers at Yellowstone National Park on Thursday, July 4. The incident occurred in the Canyon Village area, where the individual was reportedly making threats. When park rangers approached the suspect, there was an “exchange of gunfire” between the individual and law enforcement, park officials stated.
The suspect died during the incident. The identity of the person has not been released by authorities.
A ranger involved in the incident was injured and is in stable condition at a regional hospital. The area around Canyon Lodge has been sealed off as the FBI, in collaboration with National Park Service special agents, leads the investigation.
Park officials confirm there are no ongoing threats to the public.
Biden to speak in first TV interview since debate amid calls to drop out
President Joe Biden prepares for his first TV interview following the June 27 debate. And history was made at Coney Island on July 4 with this year’s hot dog eating champions! These stories and more highlight The Morning Rundown for Friday, July 5, 2024.
Biden to sit down for first TV interview since debate amid calls to step aside
Amid pressure from members of his own party to step aside, President Joe Biden will sit down today for his first TV interview since last week’s debate. Biden will speak to ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview that will air as a primetime special on the network Friday, July 5.
BIG change to ABC's Biden interview rollout plan: It "will air in its entirety as a primetime special, Friday, July 5, at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on ABC." Additionally, "a transcript of the unedited interview will be made available the same day."
The interview is part of the White House’s plans to reassure the Democratic Party that Biden should remain in the race despite a poor debate performance against the Republicans’ presumptive nominee, former President Donald Trump. The plans included a meeting with Democratic governors where, according to multiple reports, the president told the governors that he needs more sleep and will stop scheduling events after 8 p.m.
Biden said he is in good health and had a medical checkup following the debate, reportedly adding that he’s fine but “I don’t know about my brain, though.” A Biden campaign spokeswoman said Biden was clearly joking, adding the president said “all kidding aside” after making that comment.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, D, who was in the meeting, defended the president while speaking to reporters on Thursday, July 4, saying Biden was just acknowledging that he’s human.
Meanwhile, wealthy Democratic donors have joined the calls for Biden to drop out, including Disney heiress Abigail Disney, who told CNBC she plans to withhold donations to the party until “Biden is replaced at the top of the ticket.”
While reports say Biden has told key allies that the next several days are crucial to save his campaign, the White House is denying those reports. Biden, however, is making his intentions to remain in the race clear.
During a White House barbecue for military families on July 4, someone in the crowd shouted “Keep up the fight.” The president responded: “You got me, man. I’m not going anywhere.”
Along with his interview, Biden is headed to Wisconsin Friday, July 5, and Pennsylvania on Saturday, July 6, where he will be holding campaign events.
“To the country, I would like to say first and foremost, I am sorry,” Sunak stated. “I have given this job my all. But you have sent a clear signal that the government of the U.K. must change, and yours is the only judgment that matters. I have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss.”
Sunak also announced he would step down as leader of the Conservative Party.
With nearly all election results in, the Labour Party won 410 of the 650 available seats in the House of Commons, with the incumbent Conservative Party holding on to 131.
Analysts attribute the shift to voters seeking change following the Conservative Party’s handling of recent events including Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic.
A person with a gun who authorities say was making threats in Yellowstone National Park died after a shootout with park rangers, officials said in a statement. https://t.co/y60KB369EW
When park rangers approached the suspect, there was an “exchange of gunfire” between the individual and law enforcement, park officials stated. The suspect died during the incident. The identity of the person has not been released by authorities.
A ranger involved was injured and is in stable condition at a regional hospital. The area around Canyon Lodge has been sealed off as the FBI, in collaboration with National Park Service special agents, leads the investigation. Park officials confirm there are no ongoing threats to the public.
Hurricane Beryl intensifies to Category 3, approaches Yucatan Peninsula
The storm has been blamed for nine deaths in Venezuela, Jamaica and the Windward Islands as it nears landfall. Forecasters warn of hurricane-force winds with up to 10 inches of rain expected, raising concerns of flash flooding.
Despite weakening to a Category 2 earlier on Thursday, July 4, Beryl regained strength, reaching Category 3 by 10 p.m. with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph. Hurricane warnings are in effect from Puerto Costa Maya to Cancún, including Cozumel.
Beryl made landfall Friday morning, though damaging winds and powerful waves are expected to impact the peninsula beforehand. After making landfall, the hurricane is forecast to move into the Gulf of Mexico and potentially regain strength as it approaches northeastern Mexico or southern Texas.
Hasta ahora la trayectoria del huracán Beryl categoría 3 indica que entrará por Tulum, que es una zona poblada y cercana al mar. Por eso es recomendable trasladarse a partes altas, a refugios o casas de familiares y amigos en otros sitios. No titubeemos, lo material se recupera.…
“Let’s not hesitate, material things can be recovered,” he stated on the night of Thursday, July 4. “The most important thing is life.”
The National Hurricane Center predicts Beryl will weaken after making landfall but may regain strength as it moves toward northeastern Mexico or southern Texas.
Meanwhile, tourists in Mexico are bracing for the storm, with some resorts halting alcohol sales as guests prepare for the worst.
Saks Fifth Avenue to acquire Neiman Marcus for $2.65 billion
New hot dog eating champion crowned in Joey Chestnut’s absence; women’s record broken
With Joey Chestnut out of the competition this year, a new champion emerged at Nathan’s annual Hot Dog Eating Contest. Patrick Bertoletti, a 39-year-old man from Chicago, devoured 58 hot dogs in 10 minutes to win the men’s title on July 4 in Coney Island.
On the women’s side, Miki Sudo, a 38-year-old dental hygienist student from Tampa, continued her dominance by winning her tenth contest and setting a women’s record with 51 hot dogs.
Meanwhile, Chestnut, who was banned from Nathan’s contest after signing a deal with Impossible Foods, competed at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, eating 57 hot dogs in five minutes. Chestnut is set to face longtime rival Takeru Kobayashi in a separate hot dog eating contest streaming live on Netflix on Labor Day.
First-ever voter-mandated wolf reintroduction begins in Colorado
Colorado has passed its first voter-mandated reintroduction of endangered wolves in U.S. history. On Monday, Dec. 18, the mandate became a reality as the first gray wolf released on Colorado soil dashed out of a metal crate and into the Grand County mountains. Four other wolves soon followed.
Wildlife officials worked from dusk until dawn to capture the five wolves Sunday, Dec. 17, in Oregon. Two teams used planes to look for wolf tracks and analyze data from wolf collars.
Once teams in helicopters shot the wolves with tranquilizer, veterinarians and biologists checked their health, took blood and tissue samples, and equipped the wolves with radio collars.
Colorado wildlife officials said the wolves came from five packs in Oregon. The officials did not disclose the exact location for safety purposes, but the location is confirmed to be in the north-central mountains.
Experts expect the wolves to immediately spread out from the release site. They could move up to 70 miles from the site, traveling for weeks until they find a suitable habitat.
Wildlife advocates hailed the move as a win for the environment.
“This is a moment of rewilding,” said Joanna Lambert, a professor of wildlife, ecology and conservation at the University of Colorado-Boulder, “Of doing something to stave off the biodiversity extinction crisis we are living in.”
Gov. Jared Polis also praised the move in a news release.
“Today, history was made in Colorado,” Polis wrote. “For the first time since the 1940s, the howl of wolves will officially return to western Colorado.”
He also got to experience the release firsthand.
“[Wolves] have larger-than-life places in human imagination, in stories we all grew up with and tell each other,” Polis said. “To see them in their natural habitat, and turn around look curiously at us, is really, really a special moment that I will treasure for my entire life.”
The measure also relieves pressure on the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, as it allows the agency to reintroduce wolves by Dec. 31. The deadline was set by voters in the 2020 ballot measure, which narrowly passed 51% to 49%.
Fifty wolves are set to be released over the next three to five years.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife said it plans to reintroduce 10 wolves from Oregon between December and March. Officials will restart the process during the following winter.
Most of the support for the reintroduction came from urban areas.
Ranchers, hunters and rural communities fought efforts, voicing concern over threats to cattle, sheep and hunting game herds.
Two rancher groups sued the state and federal wildlife officials just days before the capture and release. The suit, which aimed to delay the efforts, was denied by a federal judge on Friday, Dec. 15.
Colorado Park and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis did not comment on the litigation. However, he did say the agency will continue to work with and listen to ranchers in the area.
Davis reaffirmed the agency’s commitment do its best to reduce contact with wolves and compensate ranchers for any losses.
Axios reported that the plan allows ranchers up to $15,000 in compensation per animal, and it permits ranchers to kill wolves that threaten livestock.
Currently, wolves in 48 border-sharing states are protected from hunting, but an effort currently in Congress would allow hunters to kill wolves if state officials determine there are too many living in the area.
Colorado may be the first voter-led reintroduction in the U.S., but it’s not the first reintroduction of wolves in the U.S.
Federal officials brought back wolves on to federal lands in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho in the 90s. Since then, successful packs have been formed.
When wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park, some traveled as far as 140 miles from the release point. However, most remained within 50 miles of the drop-off, according to a 1995 wolf reintroduction study.
Federal officials said the newly introduced wolves killed 256 sheep and 41 cows on nearby ranches in the first eight years. At the same time, the National Audubon Society said wolves enhanced biodiversity in the park, allowing new growth by killing overpopulated species like elk, who destroyed habitat through their feeding and grazing.
Obsidian is trending, but it won’t be the tool of tomorrow
It’s the sharpest material on earth. Millions of years old. And more recently it’s making appearances in your TikTok feed and on “Game of Thrones”. We’re talking about obsidian.
“Obsidian is a very unique stone. It’s not even technically a stone, it’s a volcanic glass,” said Donny Dust, a professional caveman specializing in primitive skills and ancient technologies. “And that’s typically where you find pieces of obsidian, ancient volcanic areas, lava flows, things to that extent. And the one thing that makes obsidian so remarkable is it is essentially the sharpest thing on this planet.”
Dust said the cutting edge of obsidian is 500 times sharper than the sharpest steel blade.
“If you were to look at obsidian underneath a microscope compared to a razor blade, the razor blade would look like Swiss cheese under the microscope and the piece of obsidian would be super smooth. You can get all the way down to a single molecule on a piece of obsidian. And it is beyond sharp. But if you drop it, or you shoot it out of a bow and you miss your target, it’s very likely that obsidian is just going to explode. It’s going to fracture because it is glass,” Dust said.
The smooth, black glass isn’t just trendy, it’s been an important part of hunter-gatherer cultures around the world for 2 million years. In the United States, Obsidian Cliff is one of the largest deposits of the igneous rock.
“Native Americans arrived in Yellowstone National Park and started to collect obsidian as soon as they arrived about 11,000 or 11,500 years ago,” said Doug MacDonald, an archeologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Montana. He says Native Americans from all over the country sought it out because of its high quality.
“The most common period of time in which it was used nationally is called the Hopewell Interaction Sphere. It was about 3,000 years ago to about 1,000 years ago. And this was a group of Native Americans that lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries in the Midwest, and they would bury their dead in mounds. And so as part of those burial ceremonies, they would accumulate wealth items from all over the country. And obsidian was one of those wealth items that was very much treasured for those burial ceremonies,” MacDonald added.
Today, researchers study obsidian to track the travels of ancient tribes. Yellowstone obsidian can be found as far away as New York state.
“The modern technology called X-ray fluorescence has been able to show the chemical compositions of these different obsidian flows throughout the world, even though it all looks pretty much the same, or that you’re finding in Italy or Africa, Asia or the Americas. The obsidian looks kind of the same, but it all has very distinctive chemical compositions. And so the XRF or X-ray fluorescence technology has allowed scientists to identify that unique chemical composition of each volcanic flow. So there’s about 1520 different obsidian flows, even within Yellowstone itself. And so each one of those is distinctive, and we can identify which ones are which, based on the chemical composition,” MacDonald said.
MacDonald says the amount of glass at Obsidian Cliff could fill three large football stadiums.
“Obsidian isn’t just recognized as a modern day treasure. It’s still used in ceremonies and also the rituals of indigenous people throughout the world,” said Laura Joki, a rock and gem expert and the owner of Rock Your World in Lincoln City, Oregon.
“In the past, it’s known for being a grounding stone that can help you avoid taking on others’ negative energy, which frees you up to use your energy to move forward in life,” Joki said.
She said while obsidian can be found in some modern day surgical scalpels, it’s mainly being used in recreating artifacts and making jewelry.
“If your goal is to make a living, you know, collecting obsidian, you might as well pick a different sort of pursuit because it’s not a huge profit,” Dust added.
If you’re still thinking of picking up a piece of obsidian for yourself, the experts have a warning.
“A lot of people get fooled online when they buy materials online,” Dust warns. “Because you see the black obsidian in its original form, but what’s actually going on inside that stone could be completely different than what’s on the outside. You could have crystals, you could have air pockets, you can have all these irregularities because at that time, that’s how it formed. And essentially, it’s just junk stone.”
The American bison is an icon in the West, but even after the animal was brought back from the brink of extinction, the species continues to face challenges. The latest is a gruesome hunt that’s raising questions about what’s best for Native American tribes and the conservation of the species.
Every winter, bison from Yellowstone National Park head to lower ground in search of food. They migrate north and west into the state of Montana, where they become fair game for hunters.
This winter, more than 1,530 bison were killed, which is a record number. The slaughter was mainly by Indigenous tribes who have the right to hunt bison under historic treaties. To put it in perspective, in 2022, only 56 Yellowstone bison were “harvested,” which is the official term used when hunting bison.
It’s a complicated issue that involves state and federal agencies, and it’s made worse by bad optics.
As large herds of bison slowly migrated north into public forest land and through a narrow valley, they were met by hundreds of rifles. The largest number of bison were killed near people’s homes and public motorways. Many of the slaughtered were pregnant females, so bloody fetuses and piles of entrails were left behind to litter the landscape.
“The state of Montana doesn’t regulate the number of bison that tribal hunters can harvest or what their season dates are, things like that. Those are largely determined by each individual tribe,” said Morgan Jacobsen, information officer for the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks agency.
Jacobsen confirms that once bison cross over the Yellowstone border into Montana, they become the responsibility of the state. But he says managing them is a group effort.
“A lot of this collaboration and communication happens through what’s called the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP). This is an interagency group of federal and state and tribal entities that come together to look at solutions for managing bison outside of the park,” Jacobsen said.
Tom Woodbury, the director of communications for the Buffalo Field Campaign, says the collaboration isn’t working.
“It cannot be any more clear that the system that is called the Interagency Bison Management Plan, which was entered into in 2000, is totally broken. And Montana is just using it to interfere with the tribal harvest or exercise of treaty rights,” Woodbury said.
For the last 20 years, Woodbury has been an advocate for free-roaming buffalo across the Yellowstone ecosystem. He says Montana is not interested in preserving Yellowstone bison.
“The state of Montana does not consider our national mammal to be a wildlife species, they consider buffalo to be a diseased species in need of management,” Woodbury said.
Jacobsen says that the IBMP meets several times a year to discuss many things, including how to reduce the risk of brucellosis, a transmissible disease that can cause bison and cattle to abort their babies. Culling bison is a way to reduce that risk.
“We have been successful in eradicating Brucella abortus from cattle. So you would have animals on the landscape that don’t have the disease, and then if you graze them with animals that do have the disease, that have the symptoms, that have abortions, then obviously there will be an exposure like we’ve seen in this state for over 15 years,” Montana State Veterinarian Martin Zaluski said.
Zaluski is the state’s animal health official. His main role is to protect Montana’s livestock from disease.
“The intersection between the bison population and brucellosis is that because of the value of Yellowstone bison, people would like to see those bison translocated to other parts of the country, rather than shipped to slaughter or potentially even hunted. But no other state is willing to accept bison that are infected with brucellosis because they don’t want to put their own animal health in jeopardy,” Zaluski said.
But Woodbury says it’s greed, not disease, that regulates the number of bison killed.
“It’s not about brucellosis. It’s about bison and cows competing for forage on public lands. Ranchers are very keen on maintaining a monopoly on grazing public lands, and they see wild bison as a threat to that monopoly,” Woodbury said.
Straight Arrow News reached out to Montana’s Stockgrowers Association for comment, but received no response.
According to Woodbury, the battle over grass wouldn’t exist if Yellowstone allowed the bison to migrate onto the 8 million acres of land available in the park. Currently, the bison are limited to only 15% of the land in Yellowstone.
“If bison were allowed to inhabit the ecosystem, and they keep showing us where they want to go by migrating out of the park, then there’s so much habitat available to them in the national forest. And yes, if the hunting by state hunters and the harvest by tribal hunters was taking place in the same way as with elk and deer and moose, nobody would be saying anything about it,” Woodbury said.
Woodbury is confident that the Yellowstone bison will be put on the protected species list this summer due to dwindling numbers. Before this winter’s harvest, there were 6,000 in the park. Now, there’s less than 4,500.
“Montana would like to see the bison population reduced to 3,000, which is not a viable population of bison and would result in them being listed under the Endangered Species Act. So it’s pretty ironic because Montana’s policies are going to be the main reason that bison are eventually listed as threatened and endangered. From a scientific standpoint, because of what’s happened this winter, it’s much more likely that bison will get listed as a protected species, and that that will also force good outcomes. But until the dynamics are changed, until we start treating our national mammal with the respect, honor and dignity that it deserves, we’re definitely in need of more protection for wild bison than we presently have,” Woodbury said.
The 12-month threat assessment by the Fish and Wildlife Service ends in June and so does the opportunity for public input.
Mount St. Helens poses greater threat to West than Yellowstone
In part one of this series, experts debunked recent headlines that Yellowstone’s supervolcano was on the verge of a catastrophic eruption. This part analyzes a more significant threat: Mount St. Helens.
“The take home point is that the amount of molten material is not sufficient to trigger a really large eruption of the type that Yellowstone is famous for,” said Mike Poland, scientist-in-charge at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.
“Here in the continental U.S., the most likely eruption will be somewhere in the Cascades,” said Jon Major, scientist-in-charge at the Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO). The cascade range is an arc of a dozen active volcanoes that span from the Canadian border down into northern California.
“We are anticipating that Mount St. Helens, because of its highly frequent eruptive activity, that perhaps in the next few decades, we may see another eruption of Mount St. Helens, and that eruption is most likely to be very similar to what we saw through the 1980s,” said Major.
The 1980s eruption is considered the largest and most disastrous in U.S. history. 57 people were killed and hundreds of square miles were reduced to wasteland.
“There were a number of people probably living in the Pacific Northwest who did not even realize that these beautiful mountains that they see out their back window, are actually volcanoes that erupt periodically. So, it puts eruptions on the map of the public consciousness,” Major said.
Mount St. Helens might be the most explosive volcano in the continental U.S., but Mount Baker and Mount Rainier could be more dangerous due to their history of large volcanic mudflows.
“Communities that are down river from Mount Rainier, they have evacuation plans. They practice evacuation drills in the event that a large volcanic mudflow might be generated,” said Major.
Glacier Peak, which lies between Mount Rainier and Mount Baker, is the second most explosive volcano in the Cascades after Mount St. Helens. Glacier Peak poses another serious threat.
“Those eruptions tend to generate lots of volcanic ash. And that volcanic ash poses very serious threats both to airplane, the aviation industry, but then also to the communities that are downwind of the volcanoes,” said Major. According to Major, CVO’s safety strategy centers around research, monitoring capability and public outreach.
“The next time one of our volcanoes erupts, we’ll be able to communicate with the emergency management authorities and the public. The public will know what’s happening and we will prevent any real disasters from happening,” Major said.
What kind of threat does the Yellowstone supervolcano pose?
Yellowstone National Park will celebrate its 151st year in March. It’s a major milestone for America’s oldest national park and an opportunity to set the record straight about the supervolcano that lurks beneath it.
Reports have speculated that if it erupts, the supervolcano would cause a “nuclear winter” and kill nearly 100,000 Americans.
“It’s unfortunate that Yellowstone has this strange reputation that has basically been pushed by these sensationalist documentaries. And there’s a lot of clickbait. And it’s really disappointing,” said Mike Poland, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey and the scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.
Poland said all the hype centers around the volcano’s last large eruption 631,000 years ago. It was thousands of times larger than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, the worst volcanic eruption in U.S. history that killed 57 people. The Mount St. Helens eruption shot 520 million tons of ash across the U.S. and caused complete darkness in parts of Washington state.
“If at some distant point in the future, there was a really large explosive eruption that put a lot of ash and a lot of gas into the stratosphere, then yes, you could see all kinds of really incredible impacts that would stretch globally. But that’s one of those scenarios where the entire magma chamber has to erupt. Far more likely is a lava flow that probably, frankly, will be more of a tourist attraction,” Poland said.
Scientists told Straight Arrow News that the last time an eruption produced lava flow was around 70,000 years ago.
“The kinds of lava flows we get in Yellowstone are not like the ones that we see in a place like Hawaii. They’re not these sheets of molten red rock that spread out over the landscape. Instead, these sort of thick piles of rock or rubble move slowly across the landscape. It’s the kind of thing you could walk away from pretty easily. But anything that it touches, anything that it comes into contact with, will be destroyed,” Poland said.
It’s widely believed that there is only 16 to 20% of melted rock in Yellowstone’s magma reservoirs. That is well below the threshold needed to trigger an eruption, which is about 35 to 50%. These numbers give scientists reason to believe the system is mostly solid.
Plus, Yellowstone doesn’t sit on an ocean plate like the other active volcanoes in the world.
“Yellowstone is the only feature that’s beneath a continental plate. And that makes it quite different because of the continental plate. It requires more energy to get the material from the magma reservoir to the surface,” said Bob Smith, a professor of geophysics in the Department of Geology at the University of Utah.
Smith is considered a leading expert on Yellowstone’s active supervolcano and its hazards, and he said 95% of Yellowstone’s danger is centered around earthquakes.
In part two of this series, Straight Arrow News will dig deeper into the earthquake danger, and why Yellowstone should be revered rather than feared.
“There are more geysers in Yellowstone than any place else on earth. About half the geysers in the world are in Yellowstone,” Poland said.