Beginning in February 2018, we have dedicated at least five divination materials around the mysterious drilling off the north coast of Yellowstone Lake. Moreover, what was very strange, these works were recorded by only one Lake Yellowstone Wyoming sensor, designated as LKWY.
The figure below shows the location of the sensor from which it is possible to make an assumption about the drilling area. The blue blot is like Yellowstone Lake, the red circle is the sensor position.
A typical seismogram recorded by LKWY, which shows a signal, no doubt of artificial origin:
We made various guesses about the source of this signal, the most likely of which was the work of some drilling equipment in the area of the sensor. And now, everything finally cleared up.
On March 15, the dormant Steamboat geyser suddenly began its new eruption, which, since then, periodically erupts to this day and on July 6, it started working for the 11th time:
Analyzing this fact and taking into account the meager hints of USGS adherents about the "change in the heat balance" of the caldera, we made the assumption that drilling in the LKWY area is due to the installation of new sensor equipment in order to control this very heat balance. And we were not wrong.
Promotional video:
In honor of the 11th eruption of Steamboat, the USGS has finally decided to release an epic weekly report, in which it told about the seemingly public, but not heavily publicized project HD-YLAKE, the abbreviation of which can be translated as "Yellowstone Lake in HD".
According to the official version of the USGS, a team of enlightened oceanographers, back in 2016, plunged into bathyscaphes and rafts in order to cross the lake far and wide, making its bathymetric map. That is, a bottom relief map, displayed using isobaths - lines of equal depths.
The bathymetric map of the lake in the center of the caldera of the largest supervolcano is a piece of paramount importance, so we were at a loss from the situation: is it possible that the USGS has just gotten around to this? Have managers from geology quietly "mastered" all the money for the study of the caldera?
The situation was clarified by the official website of the Yellowstone National Park, on which bathymetric maps of the lake are available in any resolution and on any page:
The maps were made back in the period 1999-2007, since the time of which bathymetry somehow inhumanly did not advance and the super-duper HD radars have not yet been invented anywhere. That is, there is no need to redo the map. Consequently, the new study was apparently related to the fact that in 2016 the topography of the lake bottom began to change. For a lake in the center of a volcanic crater, this is not the most optimistic situation.
Reading further the modest report on the work of HD-YLAKE, we find out that in addition to bathymetry, people on rafts also watched for algae and fish, which suggests a serious temperature change at the bottom of the lake, as a result of which the fish began to float up with their tummies.
However, the most interesting thing is that while the people on the rafts were engaged in bathymetry, people on the bathyscaphes descended to the very bottom of the lake and drilled everything there intensively:
The figure below shows the places of the most dense installation of new sensors:
As you can see, a lot of sensors were installed just opposite the LKWY sensor, which recorded all the stages of drilling the lake bottom.
The question arises: why was it drilled most of all there? The adepts from the HD-YLAKE project are not very willing to explain everything, but the most important information is read between the lines.
It turns out that at the bottom of the lake, opposite the LKWY sensor, there is a strange place, which has been given the very epic name "Deep Hole". And it really is very, very deep:
On the left - a general bathymetric map of Lake Yellowstone, on the right - highlighted with a black rectangle and an enlarged fragment of the bottom. At this point, the bottom sinks very strongly by more than 110 meters!
Judging by the abundance of temperature sensors in this area, the water there is quite hot and, most likely, we are talking about the appearance of an open source of magma. How long he appeared there USGS does not explain. Perhaps he appeared there a thousand years ago, and perhaps just yesterday, becoming the subject of close attention of the HD-YLAKE project.
The project managers promise that the sensor network will be finally installed and operational by August 2018. HD-YLAKE does not report whether there will be public access to the sensors.
Actually, we, like couch volcanologists around the world, are modest people, used to be content with little, therefore, if a geyser erupts in this “Deep Hole” or magma flows from there, the LKWY sensor will be enough for us. It is 5 kilometers from the epicenter and will show everything perfectly. But … since June 24, 2018, the LKWY sensor is no longer working.
This suggests that LKWY from that time began to show in real time how everything is bad in "Deep Hole" and the USGS hides all this in order to avoid panic.