Images

A foggy, early morning view looking down the Gibbon River, off of Grand Loop Rd in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.

Looking down from the lookout point at Brink of Lower Falls, over the Yellowstone River, as it flows eastward through the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone".

Looking down from the lookout point at Brink of Lower Falls, over the Yellowstone River, as it flows south into the distance.

Need time to concentrate or relax? Then listen to the natural sounds of Rustic Falls in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Rustic Falls is a few miles south of Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.

Need time to concentrate or relax? Then listen to the natural sounds of Kepler Cascades in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Kepler Cascades is located just a couple miles away from Old Faithful within Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. 

Looking down on the lower portion of Artists' Paintpots in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Artists' Paintpots is a hydrothermal area with many colorful mud pots, hot springs, and geysers.

A view of Roaring Mountain in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. "Roaring Mountain is a large, acidic thermal area (solfatara) that contains many steam vents (fumaroles). In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the number, size, and power of the fumaroles was much greater than today." (NPS)

On the drive south of Mammoth Springs, you pass through Silver Gate which is a landslide deposit of travertine stone at least 400,000 years old. 

Mount Everts, as seen from Mammoth Hot Springs near the North Entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

GPS data from station P716, near Canyon Village, spanning 2005–2023. Top plot shows motion in a north-south direction (positive change is north), middle is east-west motion (positive change is east), and bottom plot is up-down motion (positive change is up).

Section of a sediment core from Rush Lake, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park.

A portion of organic-rich lake mud recovered from Rush Lake, in the Lower Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park. Younger sediments are to the left and older sediments are to the right. The researcher is pointing to a thin, white layer—the Mazama ash, produced during the eruption 7600 years ago that formed Crater Lake in Oregon.

Streamgage site and profiling tool on the Yellowstone River at Corwin Springs, Montana.  The gage house narrowly avoided damage during the June 2022 flood, which eroded the downstream bank.  The river profiling instrument helps to map the river bottom to assess streamflow rates and conditions.  USGS photo by Mike Poland, July 31, 2023.

High-resolution satellite images of the Porcelain Basin and Nuphar Lake areas of Norris Geyser Basin acquired by Quickbird-2 on September 11, 2006 and WorldView-3 on March 30, 2022.  Note the change in color of Nuphar lake, from deep green to light blue, over time, as well as the increased evidence of flow from thermal features on the east side of Porcelain Bas

Map of Norris Geyser Basin showing the locations of major subbasins, roads and trails, and Nuphar Lake.

High-resolution satellite images of the Porcelain Basin and Nuphar Lake areas of Norris Geyser Basin acquired by Quickbird-2 on September 11, 2006 (left), WorldView-3 on July 7, 2016 (middle), and WorldView-3 on March 30, 2022 (right).  Note the change in color of Nuphar lake, from deep green to light blue, over time, as well as the increased evidence of flow f

Visible (top) and thermal (bottom) images of Porcelain Basin looking to the north from the old roadbed.  Nuphar Lake is off the photograph to the right.  Cool-water seeps into Porcelain Basin are clearly evident in the thermal image and appear to flow underground from Nuphar Lake.  USGS photos by Mike Poland, July 1, 2023.

Map of Yellowstone region showing the backbone (triangles) and dense 2020 (yellow squares) seismic networks, and based on Wu et al. (2023).

Comparison between the velocity structures outlining the Yellowstone’s upper-crustal magma reservoir at 5 km (3 mi) depth based on sparse (left) and dense (right) seismic networks. The open squares denote the locations of seismic sensors. Warmer color indicates lower velocity, representing higher melt fraction within the medium.

Schematic model of Yellowstone’s subsurface magmatic sill complex based on seismic data collected in 2020.

Four examples of vertical ground shaking during Steamboat Geyser eruptions as recorded by seismic station YNM. The vertical scale is the same for each seismogram.