For a while, I haven't blogged on this site due to a heavy workload. It's been a very busy 2013! It seems that one of our local volcanos has been busy too. I have been seeing many quake swarms at Salton Buttes volcano, in Imperial County, CA, this year.
Today, Salton Buttes has had quite a swarm of micro quakes. This is after a tremendous amount of rain dowsed the area this weekend, with extreme down pours in the area of the volcano. Rain can seep into fissures and cracks, and create steam disturbances, and even a steam event. Another possibility is that magma or steam is on the move inside the volcano's inner plumbing.
One thing to note, an actual fumerole, the area called the mud volcanos, has been closed off to the public. Imperial County only wants to allow filmmakers at the site, with permission. That's pretty sad.
The image below shows an area of blue and red dots. They create a line at the bottom of the large lake. That's the swarm.
If you view this link within a week of this post, you can see the micro quakes in real time. Here is the USGS site: http://www.data.scec.org/recenteqs/Maps/115-33.html
