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Showing posts with the label travertine
Yellowstone Notebook
Silver Gate—the Mammoth Terraces of yesteryear! - Caldera Chronicles
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. Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details 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
The travertine of Mammoth Hot Springs - Caldera Chronicles
An outlier of Yellowstone's thermal areas: the travertine of Mammoth Hot Springs Release Date: July 12, 2021 Early explorers during the separate Washburn, Hayden, and Hague expeditions of the 1870s were astonished by the massive terraces and pools of hot-spring limestone, better known as travertine, at Mammoth Hot Springs—a chemical oddity that is quite different from other Yellowstone thermal areas. Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. This week's contribution is from Pat Shanks, research geologist emeritus with the U.S. Geological Survey. Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details Map of Yellowstone National Park showing locations of thermal basins that host hot springs, geysers, and mudpots. Dark green areas host alkaline-chloride fluids. Yellowstone Caldera margin shown as bold dashed line. Three main varieties of ho
Travertine: Yellowstone’s Hydrothermal Timekeeper - USGS
Travertine: Yellowstone’s Hydrothermal Timekeeper Release Date: May 24, 2021 Standing on the boardwalk next to any of Yellowstone’s hot, steamy, vigorously bubbling hot springs, mud pots, fumaroles, or geysers, you may be struck by the sheer amount of energy that powers this system, night and day. But how long have these features been active? To address this question, geologists can turn to the “clock” that is frozen within hydrothermal travertine deposits. Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. This week's contribution is from Lauren Harrison, a postdoctoral researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey. Travertine is a form of limestone composed of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are both made of calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ). In contrast to limestones that are formed in the ocean from the shells of tiny plankton and other marine