Videos

Happy New Year! Let's go back and take a look at the top five geologic stories for Yellowstone in 2025.

Number five: Rumors. It was a year of internet rumors, mostly related to animals fleeing the park, and none of which were true.

Grand Prismatic Spring is the largest hot spring in the US, and one of the largest in the world. The boiling lake was named for the spectacular array of colors along its rim.

This video, recorded by a webcam, shows a small eruption from Black Diamond Pool in the Biscuit Basin subbasin of Upper Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, at 8:39 p.m. MDT on May 31, 2025.  The pool was the site of a hydrothermal explosion on July 23, 2024.

This presentation by Dr. Jake Lowenstern was prepared for the AGU 2024-2025 Distinguished Lecture Series. It discusses the challenges of volcano monitoring, eruption forecasting, and protecting vulnerable populations.

Let’s get you caught up on what we’ve learned about the July 23, 2024, hydrothermal explosion in Biscuit Basin, in this Yellowstone Volcano Observatory Monthly Update for October 2024. 

Read Caldera Chronicles

In this month's video, we update you on the Biscuit Basin explosion on July 23, 2024, and discuss the 65th anniversary of the M7.3 Hegben Lake earthquake. 
 

Volcanic ash in Kansas? It's true there's thick deposits there, but where are the source volcanoes? Geologists began puzzling over this in the late 1800s when these deposits were first recognized. 

If a geyser erupts and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Of course it does, and now we can hear it no matter when it happens thanks to a new monitoring station in Yellowstone National Park.

Steamboat Geyser is the tallest geyser in the world. It has been putting on a show the last few years for visitors at Yellowstone National Park with a record number of water eruptions, 48 eruptions each in 2019 and 2020. But it's only had eight eruptions in 2023. Is Steamboat losing steam? 

Lava flows are one of the coolest (or maybe hottest!) features about volcanoes, but what would a lava flow look like if you could peel away the surface and take a peek underneath?

What geologic hazard is most likely to occur in the Yellowstone region on human timescales?

A routine helicopter overflight provided aerial views of Halema‘uma‘u crater, at the summit of Kīlauea. The crater floor is covered by solidified lava erupted during the previous summit eruption, earlier this year. Inflation and seismic activity in the summit region indicate ongoing unrest. USGS video by M. Patrick.

The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens was monumental in so many different ways. It had a huge impact on the geography of southwestern Washington, ash affected many people, lives were lost, and lessons were learned. The eruption also led to the creation of the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington.

The good news is that volcanoes usually change behavior before they erupt, in ways that are detectable by monitoring instruments.

Throughout most of human existence, we haven't known much about how volcanoes work. Because of their immense power, they have terrified and fascinated us, and remain places of great spiritual importance for many people. The lack of knowledge about volcanoes has sometimes resulted in tragic and deadly disasters.

Arc volcanoes often show evidence for new magma coming from the lower crust and interacting with old magma in the shallow crustal storage system.