Yellowstone News and Information

Mushroom Pool: The subtle spring with the spectacular story By  Yellowstone Volcano Observatory   March 9, 2026 Mushroom Pool is nondescript in appearance, but its impacts on microbiology and on how research is done in Yellowstone National Park have been profound. 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. Mushroom Pool is a small hot spring in Yellowstone’s Lower Geyser Basin that looms large in science. The spring’s fun(gi) name might have been given in the 1890s due to its appearance or the presence of algae and bacteria. Media Sources/Usage: Public Domain.  View Media Details Mushroom Pool, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park. Old roads were routed very near this feature as early as 1895, when the poo...

  Enzyme Discovered In Yellowstone Aids Groundbreaking DNA Research “And I think the really important thing that I realized, and I think it’s what motivates a lot of people in science, is that I knew I was the first person in the world to ever see this . . . . Nobody else had. I still get goosebumps. You just realize that God has given you the permission to see what’s on the other side.” Hudson Freeze, commenting on his discovery at Yellowstone in  1966, as a young undergraduate student from Indiana University’s honors program

  COVID-19 tests rely on bacteria discovered in a natural pool in the 1960s     Image: Brock, Thomas. Public domain