Geography
Majestic mountains, dazzling arrays of geysers, and magnificent wildlife are among the world-famous features of Yellowstone National Park. Yet most visitors are unaware that the crown jewels of the United States national park system are the still-evolving products of activity within the Earth. These geological processes such as volcanism, earthquakes, movements of tectonic plates are key elements in shaping the planet's landscape. Yellowstone is a park that truly is a window into the Earth, revealing much about these processes. more info
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The nation's first national park, Yellowstone National Park, was designated in 1872. This region was molded both by tectonics and by the Yellowstone hotspot, a source of heat and molten rock with roots deep within the Earth. The hotspot produces volcanic activity ranging from hot springs and geysers to cataclysmic eruptions. The beauty of the region helped inspire the global environmental ethic, and its geology has revealed new ideas on volcanism, active mountain building, earthquakes, and glaciation. It is recognized that Yellowstone is an active volcano, a supervolcano, and is home to the world's largest concentration of thermal features.
Heat is Yellowstone's driving force and powers volcanic activity by melting rock in Earth's mantle and crust. In turn, the molten rock heats groundwater to produce geysers and hot springs. Heat influences where earthquakes happen in Yellowstone and in the Great Yellowstone Ecosystem. Heat is also the ultimate force that drives the movements of Earth's crustal plates and makes North America drift over the hotspot.
Hundreds to thousands of earthquakes are recorded each year in and around Yellowstone. They range from below magnitude 1 to the magnitude 7.5 Hebgen Lake quake in 1959. The Hebgen Lake earthquake was the largest quake in the Rockies in historic time. Even before the hotspot started producing extensive volcanism at Yellowstone about 2 million years ago, big earthquakes rocked the Yellowstone region for millions of years, helping to shape its spectacular topography. Earthquakes not only influence the geography of Yellowstone, but awaken dormant geysers and dramatically increase flows to others. Geyser activity has been changed by tremors as small as magnitude 4 and by swarms of smaller quakes. Old Faithful has been less than faithful over the decades, with intervals between eruptions changing in apparent response to various quakes.
Scientists speculate bigger, nearby jolts are required to keep Yellowstone's plumbing system open. The hot water conduits feeding geysers and hot springs become clogged by minerals that precipitate out of the water, just as waterlines in home block with hard water. Frequent earthquakes break up mineral deposits and create new fractures in rock, allowing hot water to keep flowing to geysers and hot springs. Even Old Faithful could sputter out and die if nearby quakes ever stopped. In Yellowstone's history, several geyser basins have gone extinct due to the lack of adequate shaking.
Some 16.5 million years ago, the Yellowstone hotspot was beneath the area where Oregon, Nevada, and Idaho meet. It produced its first big caldera forming eruptions here. As the North American plate of Earth's surface drifted southwest over the hotspot, about 100 giant eruptions punched through the drifting plate, forming a chain of giant calderas stretching almost 500 miles from the Oregon-Nevado-Idaho border, northeast across Idaho to Yellowstone National Park in northwest Wyoming. Yellowstone has been perched atop the hotspot for the past 2 million years, and a 45-by-30-mile-wide caldera now forms the heart of the national park. Scientist refer to the caldera as "a giant caldera at unrest". This volcano has created the current geography of the park 640,000 years ago after a gigantic eruption. Yellowstone volcanic eruptions have occurred in the past 2.1 million years ago, 1.3 million years ago, then 640,000 years ago. Some scientist wonder if the volcano is overdue for another explosion?
Yellowstone is renowned for the world's largest and most spectacular display of geysers, hot springs, and steam vents. Some 200 to 250 geysers spout off each year at Yellowstone, with thousands of hot springs and steam vents. Yellowstone is also renowned for its cataclysmic eruptions, ground-ripping earthquakes, gargantuan landslides, and floods, all which are horrible natural disasters for humans to endure. However, these geological processes have shaped the wonders of Yellowstone, the forces responsible for scenic wonders that now draw millions of people to the national park. A human life is but an instant in geologic time, so people have trouble reacting to the threat of infrequent geologic catastrophes. Yet as time continues, the same geologic forces that sculpted this beautiful landscpae will do so again, with awful consequences for living creatures.
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