Hi, I'm Al Nash
and I'm the chief of public affairs here in Yellowstone.
We've been getting a few questions
from visitors that have come out of the recent
earthquake activity in the park.
We did have an earthquake of 4.8 magnitude.
Now that is the largest we've had in
Yellowstone in over thirty years.
But we see between 1,000 and 3,000
earthquakes a year in Yellowstone.
Most of them are so small nobody ever feels them.
We've had this earthquake it was near the Norris Geyser Basin,
but there were no injuries, there was no damage,
some people who lived a few miles away,
didn't even feel the earthquake.
It's just part the geologic situation
that we find here in Yellowstone.
We get some pretty wild rumors out there.
One of them happens to be about the animals.
We do have bison, elk and other animals
that have moved outside the park recently,
but they're doing that because
it's the depth of winter, food is a
little hard to find in places inside Yellowstone.
And they tend to migrate at this time of the winter
outside the park to lower elevations where they think
there might be something to eat that's easier to get at.
When the snow melts off and things start to green up
those very same animals will walk right back into the park.
We can have a lot of geologic activity in Yellowstone.
Frankly we are just a few miles above
some really hot magma...that magma serves as the heat
that fuels the geysers and hot springs
and fumeroles in the park.
It's that engine that allows for the
unique things that we see here in Yellowstone.
We have seen no signs to suggest that
the Yellowstone Volcano is about to erupt.