Michael Poland

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.

This video is from the Biscuit Basin camera, which is located on the boardwalk adjacent to Black Diamond Pool (the blue-water feature in the foreground) and looking to the north.  Black Diamond Pool was the site of a hydrothermal explosion on July 23, 2024, and the pool has erupted numerous times since that event.

Video from a research and monitoring camera located at Biscuit Basin, Yellowstone National Park, recorded between 05:09:45 and 05:10:15 a.m. MDT on June 13, 2026.  Black Diamond Pool, site of a hydrothermal explosion on July 23, 2024, is steaming in the foreground.  At about 05:09:50 a.m.

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!

What do Yellowstone National Park and your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate have in common?  LONE STAR!!!!!

Lone Star is not just an iconic movie hero of the 1980s (and also next year!). It’s an iconic Yellowstone geyser as well!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.