Yellowstone National Park

Marci Allen

Yellowstone

Yellowstone National Park has a variety of elements that were discussed in class

Not only is it a hot spot, as mentioned, but it is the home to volcanoes, earthquakes, hot pots, and wild fires.

Note: All photographs were taken by Marci Allen unless indicated otherwise

Yellowstone Caldera

The Yellowstone Caldera is the largest volcanic system in North America Also known as

“super volcano” The Caldera’s first

eruption occurred 640,000 years ago

Since then, there have been more than 80 eruptions

A caldera is created when a magma chamber collapses, causing a massive eruption.

There are no predictions of when the next eruption will occur.

Geysers

Yellowstone has 300 geysers (2/3 of the total geysers in the world)

The most famous geyser is Old Faithful

The largest geyser is the Steamboat Geyser

Yellowstone contains 10,000 other geothermal features

Old Faithful

More than 137,000 eruptions have been recorded

Shoots 3,700-8,400 gallons of water up to 185 feet

Eruptions last 1.5-5 minutes

Earthquakes have caused time between eruptions to increase

In 1939 the average interval was 66.5 minutes but now the average is 90 minutes

Old Faithful

Geothermal Features

Earthquakes

Yellowstone experiences thousands of small earthquakes each year

There have been six earthquakes with a magnitude of 6 or higher

In 1959 there was 7.5 earthquake that caused a landslide that broke a dam on Hebgen Lake, creating a new lake called Quake Lake 28 people died Caused geysers to erupt

Hebgen Lake

Wild Fires Lightening causes 35 fires

each year People cause 6-10 fires each

year Most fires burn about an acre

of land before they burn out To reduce threats, controlled

burns are performed In 1988 there was an extreme

drought Seven fires burned 793,000

acres of land in just a few months

More regulations and restrictions were created to prevent this from happening again

Fire near Yellowstone in 2007