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
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