YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — A steam explosion rocked Biscuit Basin in Yellowstone National Park Tuesday morning. No one was injured, but some were frightened by the blast.
Spectacular video of the explosion was posted to social media sites less than an hour after it happened, just before 10 a.m. Tuesday.
WATCH: Park visitor records Biscuit Basin explosion in Yellowstone
The chief scientist for the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Dr. Michael Poland, says Tuesday’s event might be spectacular but is not unheard of.
“And this kind of thing probably happens once or twice per year, somewhere in Yellowstone, just often in the backcountry, and so it escapes notice,” said Poland.
A similar event happened in the Norris Geyser Basin on April 15 of this year. It happens when water trapped underground comes in contact with hot rocks and suddenly flashes to steam.
“These hydrothermal explosions can occur almost without any kind of warning whatsoever. This sort of makes them notoriously difficult to forecast and monitor," Poland added.
There are no reports of injuries from the event but the potential was there, as you can see in photos posted by the Park Service of the damage done to the boardwalk area.
“Well, the big danger is getting splashed with boiling water or rocks, and there's some really amazing photographs now of the area after the explosion," Poland said.
WATCH MORE: Aftermath of Biscuit Basin explosion seen in NPS photos
"And you can see the boardwalk is just littered with rocks. That's what these hydrothermal explosions can do. It's not a lot of hot material coming out. It's not a volcanic eruption, but rocks falling on boardwalks, that's sort of the main hazard, that and getting splashed with really hot water,” added Poland.
A similar steam explosion happened in the same geyser basin in 2009 but that one was smaller than this time around. Plus, there are some well-known features in the park, like Indian Pond east of fishing bridge, that were formed by steam explosions centuries ago.
“I think this sort of potential is what comes with hydrothermal systems in general. I don't know that Biscuit Basin is any more prone to these than any other area. It's possible that there may be subsequent events,” said Poland.
The closest seismometer to Biscuit Basin is at Old Faithful and it did not register any changes due to the explosion.
