Caldera chronicles: Computers taught to recognize Yellowstone quakes

Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. This week's contribution is from Keith Koper, director of the University of Utah Seismograph Stations and professor at the University of Utah Department of Geology and Geophysics, and Alysha Armstrong, graduate student at the University of Utah Department of Geology and Geophysics. While the automated monitoring system currently in place for detecting and processing earthquakes in Yellowstone National Park works well most of the time, its solutions need to be reviewed and refined by a seismic analyst. This means that the larger earthquakes -- generally over M1-- get most of the attention, and smaller earthquakes, which are harder to locate, are not always processed. The current system can also struggle in situations like earthquake swarms, where there is a lot of seismicity close together in space and time.