Yellowstone News and Information

  Yellowstone’s Cool Thermal Areas Release Date: April 5, 2021 Yes, some of Yellowstone’s thermal areas are cool—as in, no longer hot.  Cooling is part of the “life cycle” of a thermal area.  And just as it’s important to keep track of where thermal areas warm up, it’s also important to keep track of where they are cooling down. Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. This week's contribution is from R. Greg Vaughan, research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey. We do not define the habitat of wolves just by observing where a wolf pack may be standing at any given moment; they move around.  Similarly, you can think of a thermal area as the “habitat” of individual thermal features, like geysers and hot springs.  Hot fluids also move around (underground), so just because a patch of ground in Yellowstone is either warm or cool d