When will the next large earthquake occur in Yellowstone?
Earthquakes cannot be predicted yet, but modern surveillance conducted with seismographs (instruments that measure earthquake locations and magnitudes) and Global Positioning System (GPS) instruments that measure slow ground movements help scientists understand the state of stress in the Earth's crust. Those stresses could trigger earthquakes as well as magma movement.
Yellowstone lies within a tectonically active region of the western United States. Large earthquakes have occurred there in the past, like the 1959 M7.3 Hebgen Lake earthquake just west of Yellowstone National Park, and they will occur again in the future, but it is impossible to know when.
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This house fell into Hebgen Lake during the 1959 earthquake and floated along the shore until it came to rest here. The owner of the house, then-70-year-old Mrs. Grace Miller, escaped only after kicking out her front door and leaping a 5-foot-wide ground crack as her house dropped into the lake.