Yellowstone Earthquakes: Small Tremors Strike Park Near Old Faithful

A small earthquake struck in Yellowstone National Park near the Old Faithful geyser on Sunday, but even the seismic shaking could not stop the trusty waterspout.

The U.S. Geological Survey said that a 3.6 magnitude earthquake struck at Yellowstone, centered close to six miles away from the geyser Old Faithful.

The quake was part of a series of more than 100 tremors in the park since last Tuesday. While Sunday’s was the strongest, a number of other earthquakes have been felt by Yellowstone visitors.

“A total of 130 earthquakes of magnitude 0.6 to 3.6 have occurred in these three areas, however, most have occurred near the Lower Geyser Basin,” park officials noted. “Notably, much of the seismicity in Yellowstone occurs as swarms. The University of Utah Seismograph Stations continues to monitor Yellowstone earthquakes and will provide additional information if the earthquake swarm activity increases.”

The park has been in the news a bit this summer. In June a norovirus outbreak infected at least 100 visitors, leading to allegations that visitors were not being properly warned of the outbreak.

“Hundreds of signs in Yellowstone warn motorists to not harm wild animals, but not a single sign warning human beings of a huge outbreak of the norovirus is present,” park visitor Louis Greenwald told The Inquisitr.

The Yellowstone earthquake did not seem too much an inconvenience to the park’s visitors. A live video feed the National Park Service has set up to show Old Faithful showed several hundred of onlookers watching it erupt later in the day.