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Yellowstone Geysers

10 Jun

A geyser is a spring that periodically ejects water and steam. The term comes from the Icelandic word geysa, which means “to gush”. Approximately 1,000 geysers exist on Earth, so they are rare and quite a sight to see. Almost half of the geysers and geothermal features in the world are located in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Geysers are a vent in the Earth’s surface that exist near active volcano areas due to the proximity of magma. Yellowstone has so many geysers because it is located inside a supervolcano caldera which erupted approximately 640,000 years ago.

Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park is the most famous and well known geyser in the world. It erupts 106 to 185 feet in the air every 45 to 125 minutes and is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States. If you can’t make the trip out to see it for yourself, the National Park Service maintains a web camera of Old Faithful which updates every 20 seconds during the daytime. But with 300 geysers and over 10,000 geothermal features, there is a lot more to see at Yellowstone than Old Faithful alone.

Located in the Upper Geyser Basin along with Old Faithful are Cattle Geyser, Lion Geyser, and Beehive Geyser. Cattle Geyser is a cone geyser that erupts twice a day. An impressive geyser to watch, it shoots water and steam 90 feet into the air for 20 minutes, over four times as long as Old Faithful. Though once thought to be over 5,000 years old, geologists have now determined using carbon-14 dating that Cattle Geyser is approximately 1,022 years old.

Lion Geyser was named after the loud roaring sound the steam makes when it erupts. It is the largest geyser in the local Lion Group, which includes Little Cub Geyser, Big Cub Geyser, and Lioness Geyser.

Beehive Geyser was one of the first seven geysers the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition of 1870 observed erupting. About twice a day, Beehive Geyser erupts with a height of 200 feet and duration of 5 minutes. Less than 30 minutes before Beehive Geyser erupts, a small geyser known as Beehive’s Indicator shoots up a 20 foot stream that continues until Beehive Geyser erupts.

Steamboat Geyser in the Norris Geyser Basin is the largest geyser in the world. When it erupts, it shoots water up to 300 feet in the air. This geyser erupts on an irregular schedule ranging from 4 days to 50 years. Steamboat Geyser continues to vent steam for 48 hours after an eruption. The last time Steamboat Geyser erupted was on May 23, 2005.

Rustic Geyser in the Heart Lake Basin was discovered by 1878 Hayden Expedition. Surrounding the geyser was logs that were placed by Native Americans or European explorers. Though this geyser has long periods of unexplained dormancy, when it is active it erupts every 10 to 90 minutes. Water slowly rises to the rim before Rustic Geyser suddenly and very briefly erupts.

Soap Kettle Geyser is a large crater in the Shoshone Geyser Basin that slowly fills with water. Every 10 to 20 minutes, an eruption occurs with some bursts reaching 6 feet, but most of the activity is short splashing springs. After the eruption, the pool drains and begins to refill for the next eruption.

With so many geysers, this article can only provide a glimpse of all that Yellowstone has to offer. Though no trip to Yellowstone would be complete without a visit to Old Faithful, take time out of your vacation to visit some of these lesser known geysers. Though you may not be able to see them all erupt, they certainly are an impressive sight nevertheless.

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Yellowstone Volcanoes

28 May

Each year, more than three million visitors travel to Yellowstone National Park to admire its splendor, including numerous thermal pools, thousands of steaming geysers, fumaroles, and bubbling mudpots. However, this beauty masks one of the largest and most destructive forces on our planet – a major volcanic system of Yellowstone supervolcano. Hidden under the ground, this powerful volcanic, hydrothermal, and tectonic force–from Yellowstone volcanoes activity to earthquakes, erosion, and glaciers–continually re-shapes the dynamic landscape of this beautiful America’s first national park. The evidence for this underground activity includes thousands of earthquakes per year (up to magnitude 3.3, but in most cases, these earthquakes are too small to be felt), subsidence and uplift of the ground surface, as well as persistent hydrothermal activity. Eventually, it is very likely that these changes can culminate in another volcanic eruption or a large earthquake, both of which have frequently occurred in the geologic past of Yellowstone National Park.

To assess the potential hazards from volcanic eruptions and future earthquakes, scientists from the University of Utah and the US Geological Survey are working together to provide the most up-to-date reports on Yellowstone volcanoes activity.

Yellowstone Caldera

The Yellowstone Plateau is situated between the Northern and Middle Rocky Mountains and lies in the middle of one of the largest volcanic fields on our planet, dating back to 2.5 million years ago. The major eruptions of Yellowstone volcanoes were very voluminous. However they resulted in superficial expressions of magma and in several places affected high crustal levels. Since 2.5 million years ago, the total amount of magma erupted from the Yellowstone volcanoes approaches to 6,000 cubic kilometers.

With so much magma erupted from the volcanoes, enormous calderas associated with a very subtle morphology were produced. The youngest of three nested calderas is the Yellowstone caldera, one of the largest and most active calderas on Earth. It is an elliptical depression in about 80 kilometers in length and 50 kilometers in widths and occupies much of Yellowstone National Park.

The two older calderas form a part of a circular basin at the west edge of the Yellowstone Plateau and are called Island Park.

Yellowstone Caldera features world’s most spectacular geysers, bubbling mudpots and boiling geysers that have made Yellowstone National Park so famous. Even the Grand Canyon owes its existence to the tremendous forces of Yellowstone volcanoes that affected the region during the past 2 million years. Although the latest eruptions were nearly 70,000 years ago, such immense hydrothermal activity indicates that magma is very close to the surface at the Yellowstone caldera, which means that the crust is still restless. According to surveys, in the center of the caldera area rose up to 86 centimeters between 1923 and 1984 and then it slightly subsided between 1985 and 1989. Scientists hesitate about the cause of this surface instability and presume that it is related to the withdrawal or addition of magma beneath the caldera surface. Furthermore, Yellowstone National Park and the areas west to the park are historically considered to be the most seismically active regions in the Rocky Mountains. Beneath the entire caldera small earthquakes are common, but most are felt in the area close to Hebgen Lake, where a magnitude 7.5 earthquake occurred in 1959.

Volcanic History Overview

The Yellowstone Plateau was shaped through three volcanic cycles that span 2 million years, including some of the largest known eruptions in the world. About 2.1 million years ago, an eruption of more than 2,450 cubic kilometers Huckleberry Ridge Tuff created a 75 kilometer-long caldera known as Island Park. The second eruption of the Mesa Falls Tuff occurred around 1.3 million years ago and developed the Henrys Fork caldera, which is about 16 kilometer-wide. Subsequently, the volcanic activity turned to the present Yellowstone Plateau and in 640,000 years ago culminated with the eruption of more than 1,000 cubic kilometers of Lava Creek Tuff, which formed the present Yellowstone caldera, 45 kilometers-wide and 85 kilometers-long. Between 150,000 and 70,000 years ago, voluminous rhyolitic lava flows (more than 1,000 cubic meters) were erupted. Since the late Pleistocene, there were no magmatic eruptions. However, near Yellowstone Lake large eruptions occurred during the Holocene. The magmatic heat powering the past eruptions still fuels the park’s geysers, fumaroles, hot springs, and mudpots. And the spectacular Grand Canyon provides a glimpse on our planet’s interior: the boundaries of lava flows are highlighted with magnificent waterfalls. Rugged mountains reward both eye and spirit.