Yellowstone

Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. This week's contribution is from Sin-Mei Wu, Jamie Farrell, and Fan-Chi Lin, seismologists with the University of Utah Seismograph Stations and the Department of Geology and Geophysics.

Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. This week's contribution is from Mike Poland, geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey and Scientist-in-Charge, of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

How long has the magma chamber existed? And how can we explore such a complex question, given that we can't directly see several kilometers deep beneath the ground? It turns out that, in a way, we can use a crystal ball to look back in time at Yellowstone's magma chamber—a zircon crystal ball!

Have you ever wondered why geysers are rare and what causes them to erupt? And why scientists study geysers?

During the Spring term in 2019, geology students from Montana State University participated in a reading group focused on understanding the geology of the Yellowstone hotspot. The culmination of the class was a field trip into Yellowstone National Park to see first-hand the deposits that had been discussed throughout the semester.

Here at YVO we receive a lot of questions related to Yellowstone supereruption "what ifs" and "whens", even though that is the least possible scenario for future volcanic activity. News articles, websites, and videos often exaggerate the rarest events, while ignoring hazards that may actually happen during a person's life.

The faults in Yellowstone National Park vary greatly in age and how they formed, and they can be divided into two groups: relatively young faults that have been active in the last 1.6 million years of Earth's history, and older faults that are no longer active. Earthquakes are often associated with many of the younger faults in the park.

The month of May marks the start of many field studies for scientists affiliated with the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO).

Imagine for a moment that you could turn back the clock some two-hundred years or so and embark on a journey from east to west across the North American continent. Imagine that you had never heard of Yellowstone, or geysers and hot springs, and as far as you were concerned nature was epitomized by the patchy, deciduous forests and rolling hills of the Appalachian Mountains.

Much is known about volcanism occurring from Yellowstone within the past 2 million years, but many people are not aware that this landscape was also profoundly shaped by much older volcanism. Fifty million years ago, the Absaroka Volcanic Field dominated the region that is now Yellowstone National Park. Today, you can explore extensive fossil forests resulting from this explosive past.

Toting their surveying instruments to the tops of mountains or across continents, ancient (20th century) geodesists might have dreamed of an easier way to measure precise locations and track changes in ground motion over time. Today that dream has been realized with GPS and InSAR.