Images

USGS scientists Rebecca Kramer and Dan Dzurisin install a solar panel and GPS antenna (green square) at a semipermanent GPS station in the southern part of Yellowstone National Park. The work first required digging through 4 feet of snow!

Porcelain Basin in Norris Geyser Basin on May 18, 2019.

Photographs of Cistern Spring showing the draining behavior that occurs after major water eruptions of Steamboat Geyser. Left: about 2.5 hours after the onset of a major Steamboat eruption. Right: about 19.5 hours after that eruption.

Map of thermal areas in Yellowstone National Park. Most of Yellowstone's more than 10,000 thermal features are clustered together into about 120 distinct thermal areas (shown in red). Lakes are blue. The Yellowstone Caldera is solid black and the resurgent domes are dotted black. Roads are yellow.

High-spatial-resolution airborne images of the Tern Lake area from 1994, 2006, and 2017. The area of bright pixels identified in the Landsat-8 thermal infrared image corresponds to a newly emerging area of warm ground and tree kills about 32,500 m² (8 acres, or 4 soccer fields) in area.

Landsat-8 nighttime thermal infrared image from April 2017 showing the Tern Lake area. In Yellowstone, temperatures are extremely cold at night in the winter, and most lakes are frozen (dark pixels). West Tern Lake seems to be thawing here - perhaps it receives some thermal waters from nearby hot springs.

NASA Yellowstone astrobiology expedition team members stand in front of Great Fountain Geyser after completion of field work, February 28, 2019. Research conducted under Yellowstone Research Permit YELL-2019-SCI-8094.

Map of seismicity (white circles) in the Yellowstone region during 2018. Yellow lines are roads, red line shows the caldera boundary, Yellowstone National Park is outlined in black, and dashed lines denote state boundaries.

Map showing the northwestern corner of the Sour Creek Dome. The red lines mark the area where the map will be changing to become more accurate. Figure adapted from Wilson et al. 2018 (Bulletin of Volcanology, v. 80, article 53; doi:10.1007/s00445-018-1229-x).

Vertical motion at GPS station P350, in Idaho, together with nearby snowpack measurements (given as snow water equivalent). The GPS station moves downward as snowpack grows, and moves upward after it melts away. Taken from Knappe, et al., 2018 (https://doi.org/10.1029/2018WR023289).

Vertical ground motion (red line) measured at GPS site P350, in central Idaho, and snow depth (expressed as Snow Water Equivalent, or SWE; blue line) measured at a nearby SNOTEL site, during 2010-2016. The GPS station moved downward due to the increasing load of the accumulating snow during winter months, and then upward when the snow melted during summer months.

Coring platform assembled on the shore of Goose Lake, in Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, in 2018. Today, the nearest thermal features are 400 meters (about 1300 feet) away from Goose Lake, but thousands of years ago Goose Lake itself showed indications of being thermally active!. Steam from Midway Geyser Basin can be seen in the distance.

Hydrothermal sediment deposits from the Goose Lake sediment core, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park. The orange sediment (left, scale in cm) consists mostly of fluorite, a common mineral in some hydrothermal deposits, but not usually found in lake sediments.

The four subbasins of Norris Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, as seen on a Google Earth base map.  The curving line to the east of Norris Geyser Basin is the Grand Loop Road (Norris Junction is in the center-right of the image). Figure developed by Bill Keller, Yellowstone National Park. 

A section of the Porcelain Basin Loop boardwalk in the Norris Geyser Basin was removed because the ground below sections of the boardwalk became too hot and made charcoal of the wood footings that support the structure. Luckily enough in this case, the boardwalk was shifted about 3 feet to avoid the new hot ground.

Map depicting instruments deployed around Yellowstone Lake in 2018.

Geologic time scale showing the geologic eons, eras, periods, epochs, and associated ages in millions of years ago (MYA). The time scale also shows major evolutionary and tectonic events in North America.

GPS time series from station NRWY, near Norris Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park. The three plots show how the station is moving in a north-south direction (top), east-west direction (middle), and up-down direction (bottom).

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View of a clear blue hot spring pool of alkaline chloride fluid with silica sinter apron around it at Biscuit Basin.  This pool is generally close to the boiling temperature (200℉, 93℃) at this altitude (7200 ft, 2195 m).

Alkaline-chloride waters from an eruption of Old Faithful flow over the edge of the white silica sinter terrace into the Firehole River.  The orange coloration on the sinter terrace is due to thermophilic (high temperature) bacteria living in the warm fluids.  Old Faithful Inn is in the background, with the wooded Summit Lake rhyolitic lava flow behind.&nb