Images

The head of an immature wetsalts tiger beetle at the entrance to the burrow it dug. Photo by Robert K. D. Peterson, 2017.

Time series of vertical displacements during April–October 2017 at four GPS stations (LAK1, LAK2, LKWY, and SEDG) on the north side of Yellowstone Lake. Downward trends indicate subsidence and upward trends show uplift. Uplift “spikes” in late September are related to inclement weather and do not show true deformation. Error bars are one standard deviation.

Map showing volcanoes that formed at the leading edge of the Yellowstone hotspot in the past several million years.  (A) Map of northwest Wyoming, eastern Idaho, and southern Montana (modified from Brueseke et al., 2017, https://doi.org/10.1130/GES01553.1).  Upper Wind River Basin (UWRB) is depicted by dashe

Horizontal displacements from campaign (black vectors) and continuous (red vectors, with station names given) GPS stations, as well as vertical displacements (indicated by color of GPS station symbol) near South Sister, Oregon. Length of arrow gives amount of horizontal displacement, with scale in lower left showing an arrow length

Grant Village boat dock, on the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake, where a water-level sensor measures the level of the lake. Photo by David Mencin (EarthScope Consortium).

Photograph showing roadcut exposure of Huckleberry Ridge Tuff and Mesa Falls Tuff along U.S. Route 20 between Ashton and Island Park, Idaho. This exposure is approximately 60 feet high.

WorldView-2 natural-color satellite image from December 9, 2017, showing thermal areas as snow-free zones on the north side of Mallard Lake resurgent dome in Yellowstone National Park.

A blue glow is emitted by radiation during operation of the USGS TRIGA® Reactor, a low-power nuclear research reactor in Denver, Colorado. Photo by Christopher Farwell, October 27, 2017.

A weir constructed by Irving Friedman and Dan Norton to measure water discharge and to monitor changes in hydrothermal activity on a tributary flowing into Boundary Creek in southwest Yellowstone National Park. USGS photo by Shaul Hurwitz, September 17, 2017.

Focal mechanism determined by moment tensor analysis, which uses a model to fit the long-period (~10 s period or greater) ground motion records recorded at multiple locations.

A newly emerged adult wetsalts tiger beetle. Photo by Robert K. D. Peterson, 2017.

Panoramic of the West Yellowstone rhyolite lava flow taken along Highway 20 (between the West entrance of Yellowstone National Park and Madison Junction). The flow is approximately 111,000 years old and has a volume of about 41 km³ (10 mi³). 

Big Southern Butte, a rhyolite dome located in the eastern Snake River Plain of Idaho. Photo by Devin Englestead, BLM (https://flic.kr/p/VYMDKz).

A geologist examples a basaltic lava flow along the Madison River, looking for an area that can yield samples suitable for ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar geochronology.  USGS photo by Jorge Vazquez, June 2017.

Allan Lerner works in the USGS volcanic gas geochemistry group. The photo was taken in the crater of Mount St. Helens, with Spirit Lake and Mount Rainier in the distance. USGS photo by P. Kelly.

Helicopter with airborne electromagnetics sensors dangling beneath as it flies over a portion of Yellowstone National Park.  Photo by Jeff Hungerford, November 2016.

Kullenberg coring platform from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Continental Scientific Drilling facility used to collect long (up to 12 m, or 40 feet) sediment cores from Yellowstone Lake.  Photo taken in September 2016 by Lisa Morgan.

Cut polycarbonate sections of sediment core collected from core YL16-3A from the Deep Hole, the deepest part of Yellowstone Lake at about 119 m (390 feet) depth, southeast of Stevenson Island. Photo taken in September 2016 by Lisa Morgan.

Beartooth Mountains looking west northwest from near Beartooth Pass, Wyoming. Photo by Jeff Havig, University of Minnesota, July 20, 2016.

Map of the Heart Mountain slide block. From Mitchell et al., 2015 ("Catastrophic emplacement of giant landslides aided by thermal decomposition: Heart Mountain, Wyoming." Earth and Planetary Science Letters 411: 199-207), modified from Anders et al. (2010).

Data from GPS station AB53 near the peak of a mountain on Mitkof Island, Alaska, including measured snow depth down at the base of the mountain. Notice how the North (top), east (second from the top), and vertical (third from the top) positions are impacted by the presence of snow. This is an extreme example of the influence of snow on GPS data.