Media outlets still ran with the story.
Via KRTV:
Some people are falling the bogus headlines that various tabloid websites are posting about a fissure that is supposedly affecting the caldera underneath Yellowstone National Park.
For instance, the New York Post recently posted an article with the following headline: “Massive fissure opens atop Yellowstone supervolcano,” which certainly sounds ominous – but it is also (at best) misleading.
The 100-foot long fissure has prompted the closure of a small part of Grand Teton National Park. However, Yellowstone National Park is not affected, and has not declared a “state of emergency,” as some clickbait websites are claiming.
Grand Teton National Park released the following statement: “The Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point areas are currently closed due to elevated potential for rockfall. The area was closed to protect human safety on July 10 after expanding cracks in a rock buttress were detected. It is unknown how long the closure will be in effect. Geologists are monitoring the buttress for movement and have initiated a risk assessment for the area.”
So the trail is shut down while scientists check it out to make sure rocks won’t fall on some unsuspecting hikers. What they’ve found so far that it’s just a crack in the rocks, likely caused by the freeze-thaw cycle in the mountains and normal Rocky Mountain uplift.
Since monitoring of the crack began, it hasn’t moved, leading the Park Service to suspect it has not moved since last fall.
But reality has little to do with many digital news sites who are using the crack in the rocks as clickbait.
A scientist from the University of Utah, which runs the seismic monitoring stations in Yellowstone, says it’s baseless to link the Grand Teton Crack to the Yellowstone supervolcano.