Swarms of Earth Quakes Increasing

First it was swarms of killer bees - now we hear there are swarms of earthquakes we have to look out for. Scientists have been busy monitoring earthquake swarms in and around the Yellowstone area.

Okay, I’ll bite, what the hell is an earthquake swarm?  According to our Wikepedia friends: “Earthquake swarms are events where a local area experiences sequences of many earthquakes striking in a relatively short period of time. The length of time used to define the swarm itself varies, but the United States Geological Survey points out that an event may be on the order of days, weeks, or months.^[1] They are differentiated from earthquakes succeeded by a series of aftershocks by the observation that no single earthquake in the sequence is obviously the main shock. Earthquake swarms are one of the events typically preceding eruptions of volcanoes”.

University of Utah geophysics professor Bob Smith tells the Jackson Hole News & Guide that his group has come across three simultaneous earthquake swarms. Smith says a total of 130 earthquakes ranging from magnitude 0.6 to 3.6 were observed in the Yellowstone Parks.

An earthquake swarm, hmmm, who knew? Does this mean we are going see Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton running around saving the world like they did in that movie Dante’s Peak?

Probably not.

But this might be a good time to go over your family earthquake evacuation plan just in case. Just like the Boys Scouts say, always be prepared.