Yellowstone News and Information

Yellowstone Emits As Much Carbon Dioxide as an Erupting Volcano

Ferdinand Hayden And The Founding Of Yellowstone National Park By  Yellowstone Volcano Observatory   October 30, 2023 Geologist Ferdinand Hayden directed the first scientific exploration of Yellowstone in 1871, leading directly to the founding of the world’s first national park in the following year. Hayden’s noteworthy achievements in science and conservation, however, are clouded by his views of indigenous people.     Yellowstone  Caldera  Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. This week's contribution is from Cole Messa, Ph.D. student, and Ken Sims, Professor of Geology and Geophysics, both at the University of Wyoming. Yellowstone—the " land of the burning ground "—has been known to indigenous people for at least 11,000 years. In fact, in 1805 the  governor of Louisiana Territory described a map drawn on a bison hide by an indigenous American showing a “volcano” on the Yellowstone River . It wasn’t

  Silver Gate—the Mammoth Terraces of yesteryear! Release Date: September 6, 2021 Just south of Mammoth Hot Springs, near the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park, lies a jumble of white/gray rock known as the Hoodoos or, more formally, Silver Gate.  The origin of this deposit is a quintessential tale of the dynamic nature of Yellowstone. Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. This week's contribution is from Michael Poland, geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey and Scientist-in-Charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. A few miles south of Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park, Highway 89 winds through the white/gray jumble of rocks known as the Hoodoos, or Silver Gate, that formed when travertine from Terrace Mountain collapsed in a landslide. Imagine you have just arrived at the north entrance to

 Why Study Geysers?

Preserving the legacy of geologic mapping in Yellowstone Release Date: March 15, 2021 Before the age of cheap computers, handheld GPS, and other innovations, geologic mapping was done with a compass, paper, and pencil.  An effort is underway to digitally preserve and publish these valuable geologic maps, some of which depict Yellowstone thermal areas at a very fine scale! Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. This week's contribution is from Dakota Churchill, contractor with the USGS and student at UC Berkeley. In the 1960s and 70s, a group of  USGS Geological survey scientists began to tackle the challenge of mapping Yellowstone.   The team included Bob Christensen, Don White, Robert Fournier, Alfred Truesdell, and L.J. Patrick Muffler, and they spent every summer between 1966 and 1971 doing fieldwork in Yellowstone. This was a huge