Images

Map of Yellowstone National Park showing geologic structures, including the caldera, inner ring fault, and resurgent domes, and and thermal areas (colored red).

Examples of some of the instrumentation commonly found in a geology experimental research lab.

Map of Two Ocean Pass and the Parting of the Waters. Pacific Creek flows southwest toward the Snake River, and Atlantic Creek flows northeast toward the Yellowstone River. The green line is the Continental Divide.

Map of North American showing the Continental Divide -- an invisible line that separates the major watersheds flowing to different oceans.

Cross sections from one-dimensional electrical resistivity (top of each section) and three-dimensional magnetic susceptibility inverted models (bottom of each section) along profiles that span (a) Norris Geyser Basin, and (b) Upper Geyser Basin.  Geologic and geothermal features are from the Yellowstone geologic map. VE=vertical exaggeration.

Schematic cross section of the magmatic system underneath Yellowstone Caldera and illustrating the processes of rhyolite formation.

Vertical deformation measured at three caldera systems: Yellowstone, Wyoming (red), Long Valley, California (green), and Campi Flegrei, Italy (blue).  Triangles show data collected by leveling, and circles by GPS.  All three calderas have gone up and down over time, but the scale of change at Campi Flegrei dwarfs that at Long Valley and Yellowstone. 

Top image is a view of the Silver Gate landslide complex, near Mammoth Hot Springs, from Bunsen Peak. Bottom shows roughly the same view using lidar data, colored to show elevation highs and lows and shaded by slope. Landslide scarps, roads, trails, and Glen Creek (lower left), all obscured by trees in the photograph, are much more visible in the lidar.

3D renderings of elevation change between August 2007 and October 2020 along the Lamar River in the northeast part of Yellowstone National Park.  Red regions represent >1 m (3 ft) of elevation loss, yellow indicates no change, and blue represents >1 m (3 ft) of elevation gain.

Spectrogram of a possible long-period (LP) earthquake in Yellowstone that occurred on August 26, 2021, near Norris Geyser Basin.  The top panel shows a 30-second seismogram recorded at seismic station YHH.  The bottom panel shows the spectrogram with energy concentrated in the 1–3 Hz range and lasting for ~15 seconds.

Spectrogram of a typical volcano-tectonic (VT) earthquake that occurred near Norris Geyser Basin, in the same region similar depth as the possible long-period (LP) event that was recorded on August 26, 2021.  The top panel shows a 30-second seismogram recorded at seismic station YHH.  The bottom panel shows the spectrogram with energy ranging from 1-15 Hz

Top shows aerial photo of a section of US Highway 191 north of West Yellowstone in Montana. Bottom shows lidar imagery that reveals the road traversing a landslide deposit. High elevations are brown and white, and green is lower elevation. Shading indicates steeper slopes.

Landsat 8 nighttime thermal infrared image of Yellowstone from 28 January 2022.  Inset images are zoomed in on the area outlined by the white square.  Inset image (A) has the raw data values, which range from 9070 to 21284.  Inset image (B) shows the same image converted to spectral radiance, where values range from 3.13 to 7.21 W/m²/micron

Signals from a suspected icequake that occurred on Yellowstone Lake recorded at Yellowstone Seismic Network stations YLA on Lake Butte (top) and YTP at The Promontory (bottom 3 plots). Plot shows about 2 minutes of data from January 24, 2022, starting at about 7:43:34 p.m. MST.  YLA waveform (YLA EHZ) was recorded on a vertical short-period sensor.

Signals recorded at station YDD in Yellowstone National Park from the 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai volcanic eruption. The seismometer at YDD recorded both the direct seismic phase (top left) as well as the atmospheric Lamb Wave that coupled to the ground as it propagated (top right).  The infrasound microphone at YDD recorded the atmospheric disturbance

Signals recorded at station YDD in Yellowstone National Park from the 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai volcanic eruption. The seismometer at YDD recorded both the direct seismic phase (top left) as well as the atmospheric Lamb Wave that coupled to the ground as it propagated (top right).  The infrasound microphone at YDD recorded the atmospheric disturbance

Map of seismicity (red circles) in the Yellowstone region during 2021. Gray lines are roads, black dashed line shows the caldera boundary, Yellowstone National Park is outlined by black dot-dashed line, and gray dashed lines denote state boundaries.

Scarp of the Uhl Hill fault. Photo (top) is looking west at the east-facing fault scarp, with a geologist at the top of the scarp for scale. Here, the fault cuts through Pinedale-1 glacial deposits just south of a Pinedale-2 end moraine. Plot (bottom) is a scarp profile generated from lidar elevation data.

Boiling River near Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park.  Photo by R. Robinson.

Left photo shows a loose piece of siliceous sinter that was precipitated around a photosynthetic microbial mat in the Lower Geyser Basin.  The microbial mat died when the outflow channel changed positions.

On the left is Castle Geyser during an eruption with a pool from nearby Tortoise Shell Spring showing photosynthetic pigments at the bottom. The middle image is of a small pool in the Geyser Hill Group in the Upper Geyser Basin with an outflow channel full of yellow, green, orange, red, and brown pigmented phototrophic microbial mats.