A16
NEWS
Wallowa County Chieftain
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
A new view of Old Faithful’s plumbing
Yellowstone Volcano
Observatory
Jason Ching/University of Washington
As lake water warms, sockeye salmon are spending more
time there, where food is more plentiful.
Sockeye salmon in global warming
Michelle Ma
University of Washington.
An ample buffet of
freshwater food, brought
on by climate change, is
altering the life history of
one of the world’s most
important salmon species.
Sockeye salmon in
Alaska’s Bristol Bay
region are skipping an
entire year in freshwater
because climate change
has produced more favor-
able conditions in lakes
and streams, which allow
the young fi sh to grow
and put on weight much
faster. Previously, these
fi sh would spend up to
two years in their birth
lakes before heading to
the ocean, where they feed
and reach maturity two to
three years later. Now they
are more likely to head out
to sea after only one year.
These fi ndings were
published May 27 in
Nature Ecology & Evo-
lution by University of
Washington researchers.
“Climate change is lit-
erally speeding up the
early part of their lifecycle
across the whole region,”
said senior author Daniel
Schindler, a UW professor
in the School of Aquatic
and Fishery Sciences. “We
know climate warming is
making rivers more pro-
ductive for the food juve-
nile salmon eat, mean-
ing their growth rate is
speeding up. That puts the
salmon on a growth trajec-
tory that moves them to
the ocean faster.”
But this “jumpstart” in
freshwater doesn’t neces-
sarily benefi t salmon in the
long run. The same fi sh are
now spending an extra year
in the ocean, taking longer
to grow and mature. This
extra year at sea is likely
caused by climate stress-
ors, as well as other fi sh:
In the ocean, wild sock-
eye compete for food with
close to 6 billion hatch-
ery-raised salmon released
each year throughout the
North Pacifi c Ocean. That
number has grown steadily
since the 1970s, when only
half a billion hatchery
salmon were released.
“Hatchery fi sh have
really changed the compet-
itive environment for juve-
nile salmon in the ocean,”
said lead author Timo-
thy Cline, a postdoctoral
researcher at the Univer-
sity of Michigan who com-
pleted this work as a doc-
toral student at the UW.
“In Bristol Bay, the habitat
is totally intact and fi sher-
ies management is excel-
lent, but these fi sh are liv-
ing in lakes warming with
climate change, then com-
peting with other salmon
for food in the ocean.”
There is a lot of bad and
incorrect information out there –
GET THE FACTS!
before signing up for Medicare supplements
Since
Yellowstone
National Park was founded
the iconic Old Faithful gey-
ser has attracted millions of
tourists every year. Although
Old Faithful’s activity on
the surface is well observed
and monitored, our cur-
rent knowledge of the sub-
surface properties and pro-
cesses, such as the depth of
the plumbing system and
how Old Faithful recharges
over time, remains largely
unknown. But new research
is helping to shed light on this
problem by using seismology
to image geysers in much the
same way as an MRI is used
to image the human body.
Seismic signals originat-
ing in volcanic systems have
often been used to infer the
status of magmatic activity.
Similarly, active hydrother-
mal systems also generate
observable seismic signals,
called hydrothermal tremor,
due to steam bubble forma-
tion and collapse. A better
understanding of the origin
of the hydrothermal tremor
can lead to better under-
standing of the subsurface
fl uid movement. Most previ-
ous work, however, has used
just a few seismometers and
consequently does not have
the ability to precisely deter-
mine the spatial and temporal
characteristics of the tremor
sources.
With the recent availability
of low-cost, easily deployed
nodal seismometers, how-
ever, it is now possible to
deploy dense seismic arrays
close to hydrothermal fea-
tures and record high-quality
hydrothermal tremor signals.
When data from these dense
arrays, made up of tens to
hundreds of stations, are ana-
lyzed together, we can image
the subsurface with unprec-
edented spatial and tempo-
ral resolution — we can get a
four-dimensional (4-D) view
USGS/TownNews.com Content Exchange
This schematic model shows a cross section of Old Faithful’s
plumbing system as determined from seismic studies. The
red circles show the location of the tremor source over time,
and how the tremor source migrates upward prior to an Old
Faithful eruption. Times between red circles are based on a
93-minute eruption interval.
of a geyser system.
In November 2016, the
University of Utah, in col-
laboration with Yellowstone
National Park and the Uni-
versity of Texas at El Paso,
deployed a nodal array with
80 seismic stations on and
around Old Faithful (this
was done under Yellowstone
research permit YELL-2016-
SCI-0114). The stations
recorded ground vibration in
three directions (north-south,
east-west, and vertical),
which can be used to recon-
struct the incoming direc-
tions of the observed hydro-
thermal tremor signals. With
the dense array confi gura-
tion it is possible to identify
the tremor source locations.
By locating these tremor sig-
nals, the fl uid pathway of
Old Faithful geyser down
to a depth of about 260 feet
(80 meters) is illuminated.
Moreover, the observation
provides new constraints
on the eruption dynamics
and recharge process of Old
Faithful.
Based on the results of this
work, Old Faithful’s deeper
plumbing system is approx-
imately vertical between
about 65 and 260 feet (20 and
80 meters) deep and is offset
by 65 feet (20 meters) south-
west of the geyser vent. The
top portion of this deeper
conduit is in the same place
as a bubble-trap structure
that allows fl uid and pressure
to build up prior to an erup-
tion. So the main source of
the water feeding Old Faith-
ful eruptions is not coming
from directly beneath the
geyser, but actually from off
to the side. And with seismol-
ogy, we can actually “watch”
the boiling water rise toward
the surface before Old Faith-
ful eruptions.
With the 4-D imaging,
we can probe Old Faithful’s
recharge evolution and fur-
ther understand the driv-
ing physics of geysers. The
methodology also provides
new opportunities for explor-
ing the deep plumbing geom-
etry of other hydrothermal
features including Steamboat
Geyser, which has been quite
active over the past year. In
fact, the same nodal seis-
mic array that was deployed
at Old Faithful is currently
in place around Steamboat.
The instruments will be col-
lected in late July, and hope-
fully those data will help to
defi ne Steamboat’s plumbing
system, just as it has with Old
Faithful. Stay tuned for more
details about the seismology
of geysers.
Kathleen
Bennett
616 W. North Street, Enterprise, OR 97828
541-426-4208
National Park Service Graphic
The John Day mesonychid was initially misidentifi ed as this
creature, Hemipsaladon grandis, another large predator that
would have shared a range with the mesonychid.
Ancient ‘hyena-pig’ discovered
to have once roamed Oregon
By Erin Ross
Oregon Public
Broadcasting
JOHN DAY — Oregon’s
weirdest predator, the fi rst
of its kind in the state, was
found in a museum drawer.
A piece of it, anyway.
Hyena-pig. Murder-cow.
With no modern analog,
scientists have resorted
to combinations of com-
mon animals to describe it.
Dug up decades ago in the
Hancock Mammal Quarry
near John Day, the bone
from this prehistoric crea-
ture languished, misiden-
tifi ed in museum storage,
until Selina Robson pulled
it from its drawer.
Robson wasn’t looking
for a murder-cow when she
found the specimen. It was
a fossilized jaw, slightly
smooshed, and it was
huge: about the length of
her forearm. It was labeled
“Hemipsaladon,” a type
of creodont, which were
large, bear-like predators
that roamed Oregon 40 mil-
lion years ago.
gon!
For the first time in Eastern Ore
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