[Geysers] Small Local Earthquakes

[Gordon Bower]

In reponse to Michael Goldberg's request, the rule of thumb I developed for earthquakes having an impact on geysers was if M - 2 log D(km) was less than 1, it almost never did, and if it was more than 2, it almost always did.

In particular, at 10km, M4 does. My impression, hearing about the Lower Basin earthquake swarm secondhand, was that it was too small to have any chance of doing anything except perhaps out in Sentinel Meadows or somewhere (where we have so little data we'll never know.)

As such, this is an important data point. We have very few cases of modest-sized earthquakes within the park for which we looked for evidence of odd behavior and found none. My lower bound was constrained only by California earthquakes that caused no change,  M5s west of Dillon and south of Jackson that caused no change, and a Cougar Creek (north of West Yellowstone) M3 swarm back around 1990 that was felt in the park but no changes were reported.

GRB

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