Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Vents


Every mud hot spot, geyser, and hot lake is heated by the caldera under the earth. There are hundereds of vents that let heat but not magma escape to the surface. As pressure builds up and water vaporates geysers ejects boiling water and the mud hot spots boil. All the heat is created from the enormous magma caldera deep beneath the earths surface.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Gysers of Yellowstone

Yellowstone is home to some 10,000 thermal features, over 500 hundred of which are geysers. In fact, Yellowstone contains the majority of the worlds geysers. Within Yellowstone's thermal features can be seen the product of millions of years of geology at work. Much of Yellowstone sits inside an ancient volcanic caldera. Yellowstone is composed of almost 75 geysers. There are about 9 different geysers in each main named geyser; Gibbson, Heart Lake, Lone Star, Lower, Midway, Norris, Shoshone, Upper, and West Thumb, witch are all atcive.

Yellowstone Supervolcano

Yellowstone Caldera is one of the largest and most active caldera in the world. A caldera is a large, basinlike depression resulting from the explosion or collapse of the center of a volcano. The spectacular geysers, boiling hot spots, and mud spots that have made Yellowstone famous and even the strikingly beautiful Grand Canyon of Yellowstone through which the Yellowstone River plunges owe their existence to the tremendous volcanic forces that have affected the region during the past 2 million years.Yellowstone eruptions occurred 2.1 million years ago, depositing the Huckleberry Ridge ash bed. These eruptions left behind huge volcanic depressions called calderas and spread volcanic ash over large parts of North America. If another large caldera-forming eruption were to occur at Yellowstone, its effects would be worldwide. Thick ash deposits would bury vast areas of the United States, and injection of huge volumes of volcanic gases into the atmosphere could drastically affect global climate.