Videos

In 2023, scientists with the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center completed a 3-week field operation in Lake Chelan, Washington, the third deepest lake in the conterminous United States, to acquire sediment cores, high-resolution bathymetry data, and chirp sub-bottom profiles.

In 2023, scientists with the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center completed a 3-week field operation in Lake Chelan, Washington, the third deepest lake in the conterminous United States, to acquire sediment cores, high-resolution bathymetry data, and chirp sub-bottom profiles.

Long before explosive eruptions formed the Yellowstone Caldera and heat from the magmatic system began feeding a dynamic hydrothermal system, there was the Absaroka volcanic range. Remnants of the rugged terrain are still visible on the east and north sides of Yellowstone National Park.

Over the past few decades, an area on the north rim of Yellowstone Caldera has risen and fallen. Just last year a new period of uplift in this area began!

On June 13, 2026, Yellowstone National Park’s newest geophysical monitoring sites captured a small hydrothermal explosion in Biscuit Basin! That story is the subject of this month’s video update.

Summer is here, and millions of people will be visiting Yellowstone National Park. People with questions. What is this scat I’m seeing? How does a geyser erupt? What makes Yellowstone so special?

Where’s the bathroom?

Did you hear that???  Well, Roaring Mountain isn’t quite as loud as it used to be, but it’s still one of the hottest thermal areas in all of Yellowstone National Park!

KABOOM! That’s what Yellowstone is famous for – huge explosive volcanic eruptions. There’s really nothing brewing right now, the magma chamber is mostly solid, but there have been quite a few hydrothermal eruptions and small explosions in both Biscuit Basin and Norris Geyser Basin as water in the hydrothermal system flashes to steam.

Ozette Lake is located above the locked portion of the northern Cascadia megathrust and is relatively isolated from other active faults.

Ozette Lake is located above the locked portion of the northern Cascadia megathrust and is relatively isolated from other active faults.

Meet a friend of ours. This friend has been monitoring changes of the ground surface in Yellowstone for decades and is so good that it can detect movement of just a few millimeters in magnitude (just a fraction of an inch). The friend? A continuous GPS station!

Postfire debris flows pose a hazard to human life, property, and infrastructure when they travel from steep source areas to urbanized alluvial fans or other developed areas.

Just last week, Kīlauea put on another dramatic display of lava fountaining and flows within the caldera, during its 37th episode of this most recent eruption. It doesn't seem like Hawaii and Yellowstone have a lot in common, but actually, those two magmatic systems have a common cause.

Get ready to journey to the bottom of the world! The Deep Ice Seismometer is a groundbreaking new tool that will revolutionize how we monitor earthquakes across the globe. Developed through a powerful collaboration between the U.S.

The Yellowstone caldera is vast – 45 miles across by 30 miles wide. You could fit over 60 islands of Manhattan in this area. There are deep canyons, like the one on the Yellowstone River, that reveal a complex geologic history. And, forested landscapes and features remind us that this special place is ever-changing.

During a USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory helicopter overflight on the morning of August 5, geologists observed a lava pond within the north vent of the ongoing Kīlauea summit eruption. The pond was feeding a subterranean lava tube contained within the east side of the vent cone, toward the floor of Halema‘uma‘u crater.

Just over one year ago, early morning visitors to Yellowstone’s Black Diamond Pool suddenly found themselves filming a spectacular event. The July 23, 2024 hydrothermal explosion threw material hundreds of feet high, including rocks that were a foot or more across.

Shakemovie animation showing seismic waves emanating from the magnitude 8.8 Kamchatka Peninsula earthquake.

A debris flow recorded by a USGS Landslide Monitoring Station in the 2024 Elk Fire burn area near Dayton, Wyoming. The flow was triggered by intense rainfall during a thunderstorm on the evening of July 15, 2025.

In this video, Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO) scientists Tyler Paladino and Alex Iezzi and Mount Rainier National Park Geologist Scott Beason provide an update on the earthquake swarm at Mount Rainier.

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.