Official Cast
Posted by JAC on 2/13/2011, 8:00 pm
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/


Ice and Snow at Yellowstone Cause Telemetry Problems

Recent telemetry problems, from ice and snow buildup on data transmission antennas, have caused intermittent malfunctions of the University of Utah's automated earthquake location system.

The malfunctions result in false earthquake reports, which upon review, are then manually deleted from the earthquake catalog.

The snow and ice buildup interferes with the continuous streaming of seismic data causing occasional signal dropouts.

The dropouts cause spikes to appear in the data streams, which the automated system misinterprets as the abrupt appearance of a high amplitude seismic wave from an earthquake.

Windy conditions, common this time of year, exacerbate the problem by contributing additional noise and thereby reducing the overall signal quality of the seismic data streams.

In most cases, seismologists at the University of Utah can overcome these problems and still identify and locate earthquakes correctly.

Seismic activity at Yellowstone remains at background levels.


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Check Yellowstone - JAC, 2/12/2011, 8:42 am
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