Some people are falling for bogus headlines that various tabloid websites are posting about a fissure that is supposedly affecting the caldera underneath Yellowstone National Park.
For instance, the New York Post recently posted an article with the following headline: "Massive fissure opens atop Yellowstone supervolcano," which certainly sounds ominous – but it is also (at best) misleading.
The 100-foot long fissure has prompted the closure of a small part of Grand Teton National Park. However, Yellowstone National Park is not affected, and has not declared a "state of emergency," as some clickbait websites are claiming.
Grand Teton National Park released the following statement: "The Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point areas are currently closed due to elevated potential for rockfall. The area was closed to protect human safety on July 10 after expanding cracks in a rock buttress were detected. It is unknown how long the closure will be in effect. Geologists are monitoring the buttress for movement and have initiated a risk assessment for the area."
So the trail is shut down while scientists check it out to make sure rocks won’t fall on some unsuspecting hikers. What they’ve found so far that it’s just a crack in the rocks, likely caused by the freeze-thaw cycle in the mountains and normal Rocky Mountain uplift.
Since monitoring of the crack began, it hasn’t moved, leading the Park Service to suspect it has not moved since last fall.
But reality has little to do with many digital news sites who are using the crack in the rocks as clickbait.
A scientist from the University of Utah, which runs the seismic monitoring stations in Yellowstone, says it’s baseless to link the Grand Teton Crack to the Yellowstone supervolcano.
And about the Yellowstone supervolcano?
The United States Geological Survey says there’s no indication the volcano will have a super-eruption anytime soon and possibly not ever again.
Discover Magazine has more details, including this overview:
Climbers in Grand Teton National Park, to the south of Yellowstone, have noticed that the cliff face at Hidden Falls and Inspiration has been breaking off due to cracks (“fissures”) on the mountain. This crack has made it very dangerous for climbers as bits of the cliff (or possibly the entire face) might come crashing down, taking climbers with it. This sort of thing happens often on exposed rock in mountain areas. That’s why Grand Teton National Park has closed the area to the public.
However, because this cracking — likely due to faulting or weathering in the Tetons — is happening in the general vicinity of the Yellowstone caldera, many in the media have wrongly connected these cracks with the volcano. Let’s get it straight right now: this is in no way a sign of impending eruption at Yellowstone.
Some sources have even tried to say things like “Grand Teton National Park sits atop the Yellowstone supervolcano“.
This is just wrong. Even when you look at the footprint of the volcanic system at Yellowstone, it is a massive stretch to say that the Tetons are “over” Yellowstone.
