Images

View of Lower Geyser Basin. Note active thermal pools (Great Fountain Geyser) in the foreground with thermal grasslands—kept treeless by hot soils—and lodgepole pine forest in the distance. Photo by George Marler, 1959.

Aerial view of Black Opal Pool, Black Diamond Pool, and part of Wall Pool, all in Biscuit Basin, Yellowstone National Park, taken in 1959 sometime after the Hebgen Lake earthquake (which occurred on August 17 of that year).

Dragline work to lower the outlet channel of Earthquake Lake on October 18, 1959. The tripod on the hill at center left is one of five lighting plants that allowed nighttime work. Note the “bathtub ring” of killed trees along the shoreline marking the high stand of Earthquake Lake before lowering of the outlet channel. Photo by Mrs. Steven W. Nile (Dr.

View of the Madison Slide on August 21, 1959 with rapidly filling Earthquake Lake. Rock Creek Campground was near the flooded trees. Camping gear was left behind by survivors who sought high ground following the slide. Photo by Professor William B. Hall, Montana School of Mines Geology Department.

Irving Friedman (left) and William D. Long in 1958 carrying out experiments with welded volcanic tuffs at a USGS laboratory in Washington, D.C.

George Marler taking the temperature of a pool at the base of Giant Geyser in the 1950s. Photo from the Yellowstone Research Library.

An old sign and pile of coins in front of Morning Glory Pool in 1950. National Park Service Photograph by Condon.

An ash plume rises from the summit crater of Parícutin sometime during 1946-48. A thick ash deposit covers the foreground. An estimated 4,500 cattle and 550 horses died during the heavy ashfall in the early months of the eruption, devastating the local people who depended on the animals for food, plowing, and transportation.

Beryl Spring is a hydrothermal area in some restrictive topography! The road from Norris Geyser Basin to Madison Junction follows the Gibbon River through a tight valley. With not much of a choice, the road threads between the river and Beryl Spring over some exceedingly hot ground.

The Snake River flowing below the Teton Range. Photo by Ansel Adams, 1942, public domain, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/519904.

The interior of the Hamilton bathhouse in 1939.

Poster containing information about the chemical composition of water from Apollinaris Spring. Analysis is from 1906, but this poster is from the 1920s, when Horace Albright was the park’s Superintendent. Posters like this were posted in hotels and at the spring itself. 

Haynes postcard (from a colored photo by Jack Haynes) showing Apollinaris Spring shortly after its 1925 renovation.

Photograph taken several months after the Gros Ventre Slide, Wyoming, showing the slide path (background), debris at the toe (foreground), and the waters of Lower Slide Lake.  Photo by William C. Alden, U.S. Geological Survey, 1925.

Early visitors at Handkerchief Pool, Black Sand Basin, around 1923.

Visitors observing Beryl Spring from the side of the road in 1923, prior to the construction that breached its sinter cap and altered the spring’s characteristics. From the National Park Service archives, retrieved by M.A. Bellingham.

Old Faithful Inn, swimming pool, and store, with Beehive Geyser in the foreground, in 1921.

Campsite of Griggs expedition of 1917 on bench at north toe of Mount Cerberus near Katmai, Alaska. View to north-northwest down Lethe arm of the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. Photo courtesy of National Geographic Society.

The Fountain Hotel with Leather Pool in the foreground and the hot water pipe visible in the meadow. Photo by JP Clum Lantern. Date unknown. Public domain in YELL photo archives (https://www.nps.gov/features/yell/slidefile/history/1872_1918/structures/Page.htm).

Photo of Dr. Hermon Schlundt and a park ranger sampling a pool in Norris Geyser Basin for radium. The description of the photo states that this was the site where the radioactive element thorium was first discovered in the United States. Plate IIIB from Schlundt and Moore, 1909 (USGS Bulletin 395).

Historic colorized photograph of Old Faithful geyser and Old Faithful Inn. Originally, the shingle roofing of the Old Faithful Inn was painted red with a material thought to be a fire retardant. Today, the shingles have a natural wood finish.