Introduction
Yellowstone National Park is the world's first official national park, predominantly situated in the NW corner of Wyoming, extending also into parts of Montana and Idaho covering 8,987 square kilometers (NPS, 2013).
Yellowstone is one of the planet's largest active volcanic, seismic and hydrothermal systems and is world famous for its impressive geysers, diverse wild life and unique ecologic communities. The national park is home to 67 different species of mammals (NPS, 2013) as well as 60% of the world's geysers, many hot springs, mud pots (NPCA, 2013) and one of the world's largest calderas, measuring 72 by 48 km (NPS, 2013).
The impressive nature of the area makes it an incredibly popular tourist destination with over 3 million visitors annually (NPS, 2013), meaning that although the area is not densely populated it is still an area of high risk to human safety. A number of seismic and volcanic hazards are associated with the active system at Yellowstone National Park, each encompassing different levels of associated risk and occurrence probabilities (Christiansen, 2007).
The larger and more violent the hazard, the higher the recurrence time and therefore the lower the probability of occurrence. It can also be said that many of the hazards in the Yellowstone National Park area occur in a sequential nature, if a cataclysmic caldera-forming eruption were to occur, ejecting large amounts of pyroclastic material into the air, the lead up to this would involve an increase in seismic activity and would most likely be followed by an outpouring of rhyolitic and basaltic lava flows. Meaning that the park can undergo long periods of quiescence with little risk of hazard.
Yellowstone is one of the planet's largest active volcanic, seismic and hydrothermal systems and is world famous for its impressive geysers, diverse wild life and unique ecologic communities. The national park is home to 67 different species of mammals (NPS, 2013) as well as 60% of the world's geysers, many hot springs, mud pots (NPCA, 2013) and one of the world's largest calderas, measuring 72 by 48 km (NPS, 2013).
The impressive nature of the area makes it an incredibly popular tourist destination with over 3 million visitors annually (NPS, 2013), meaning that although the area is not densely populated it is still an area of high risk to human safety. A number of seismic and volcanic hazards are associated with the active system at Yellowstone National Park, each encompassing different levels of associated risk and occurrence probabilities (Christiansen, 2007).
The larger and more violent the hazard, the higher the recurrence time and therefore the lower the probability of occurrence. It can also be said that many of the hazards in the Yellowstone National Park area occur in a sequential nature, if a cataclysmic caldera-forming eruption were to occur, ejecting large amounts of pyroclastic material into the air, the lead up to this would involve an increase in seismic activity and would most likely be followed by an outpouring of rhyolitic and basaltic lava flows. Meaning that the park can undergo long periods of quiescence with little risk of hazard.