Yellowstone Hot Springs

Our first day in Yellowstone was actually spent in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the Grand Teton National Park.  Our second day in Yellowstone was literally in Yellowstone.  We saw so-o-o-o many cool things!

Of course, Yellowstone is one humongous volcano - which is why there are all these hot springs and geysers everywhere.

The last eruption was 640,000 years ago, and it left a caldera of 34 miles by 45 miles.  MILES!  That was one SUPER volcano!  Most of Yellowstone National Park is inside the caldera.  A caldera is formed when a volcano spews its lava so fast that the solid land mass above the lava bed collapses inward.

Think about this: in volcanic terms, Yellowstone is over a "hot spot," and the surface features are floating on magma, or molten rock.  That's kinda spooky.  It's like camping on an iceberg - only the ocean is a gazillion degrees hot!

The atmosphere around any of these springs or geysers is of sulphur.  It's really awful.  But again, we're talkin' volcanos here. Within the past 17 million years, 142 or more caldera-forming eruptions have occurred from the Yellowstone hotspot.  Just a mere 10 or 12 million years ago in southern Idaho a caldera was formed over the Yellowstone hotspot, and it blew ash all the way to Nebraska (1,000 miles).  Take a trip to Ashfall Fossil Beds there and see evidence that large herds of rhinoceros, camel, and other animals were killed as a result of the foot deep covering of volcanic ash.  (Rhinoceros and camel?  In America?  I knew camels were brought over by the cavalry in the 1800's to be used out west, but I didn't know they were in America before that.  And rhinoceros??)  Who knew..

From mid-summer 2004 through mid-summer 2008, the land surface within the Yellowstone caldera moved upwards as much as 8 inches at the White Lake GPS station.  Read that again:  the Yellowstone caldera - the surface ground - moved upwards as much as eight inches!  That's really spooky - and did anyone tell the folks that were vacationing there then?  They certainly never told us, and we were there!

By the end of 2009, the uplift had slowed significantly and appeared to have stopped.  

Far away earthquakes have caused the geothermal features of Yellowstone to hiccup, so to speak.  Their "behavior" or timing was off for several months after quakes in California and Alaska in 1992.

This is the Great Fountain Geyser.  It's not as faithful as Old Faithful, but it is predictable.  We missed the actual eruption of Great Fountain because it was about 4:30 A.M.  I don't get up at 4:30 A.M. in 40 degree weather for nuthin' honey...

But these guys are fascinating and should put us in awe of how this planet is held together ...