To get us started, here is some assorted background on the geological setting of the Yellowstone SuperCaldera. As will become very evident, this is a
very volcanically active region, although because there has not been any significant volcanism during recorded times, it is often not recognized as
such by those not directly related to geological studies.
Yellowstone National Park covers 2,221,766 acres, which is roughly the size of the state of Connecticut. Most of the park is located in the
northwestern corner of Wyoming, but a small portion overlaps that state's boundaries with Montana and Idaho. The park is comprised primarily of high,
forested, volcanic plateaus that have been eroded over — the millennia by glaciation and stream flow and that are flanked on the north, east, and
south by mountains. The Continental Divide traverses the park from its southeastern corner to its «-western boundary. The elevation of the park
averages 8,000 feet, ranging from 5,282 feet in the north, where the Gardner River drains from the park, to 11,358 feet in the east, at the summit of
Eagle Peak in the Absaroka Range.
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The Washburn Range in Yellowstone forms the skyline between canyon village and tower fall. From a parking area on Dunraven Pass, an altitude of
8,850' above sea level, an old road leads to the summit of Mt. Washburn at 10,243'. The 1,400' climb has much to recommend it, including geology.
Seen along the road is a dark breccia consisting of anglular volcanic stones, embedded in a fine angular matrix. This breccia formed some 50 million
years ago when watery mixtures of ash and rocks flowed down mountain slopes onto then tropical lowlands. There are countless volcanic mudflows that
make up the Washburn Range and mountains to the east. All were deposited over a period of 10 million years.
Bedding planes separating breccia layers are instructive. In Mount Washburn and surrounding peaks, all slope northward. Shouldn't some slope
southward? Didn't debris also flow down the south slopes of ancient volcanoes? Well, where is the evidence?
We search to the south for these flows in vain. Far below us is Washburn Hot Springs, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Hayden Valley, and
Yellowstone Lake. The nearest recognizable peak is Mount Sheridan, in the Red Mountains, 37 miles south of Mount Washburn. The summits of Washburn and
Sheridan are within 65 feet of each other in elevation.
Volcanic breccias sloping only north combined with
gently rolling plateaus extending south to the Red Mountains suggest that the Washburn Range is only a remnant; the northern remnant of a much larger
and higher range that extended far to the south. This range is a part of the Absaroka volcanic field, which also forms the mountainous terrain east of
Yellowstone Lake. But how to account for the missing southern part of the Washburn Range? The answer lies down on the plateaus forming the heart of
Yellowstone. Road cuts between Dunraven Pass and Canyon Village glitter in the sun. The rock is rhyolite, the lava form of granite. It differs
fundamentally in its composition, origin, and age from the volcanic rocks composing Mount Washburn. Shiny black volcanic glass (obsidian) causes the
glitter.
Tens of rhyolite lava flows were erupted one after another in central Yellowstone. Canyon Village is built on one. Elephant Back Mountain, west of
Lake Hotel, is another. Several flows make up the plateau between Canyon Village and Norris, and several more bound the western margins of Yellowstone
Lake. Flows enclose Lewis and Shoshone lakes; they form the wooded boundaries of the geyser basins. Many streams follow seams between flows of
different ages.
Lava flows can be readily dated. They contain various radioactive elements which decay to form daughter products. By measuring the relative amounts of
parent material and daughter products and knowing the rate of change from parent to daughter, a geochronologist has a radioactive clock for dating the
ages of flows. Analysis, though, is not simple and geologic dates are usually followed by a fudge factor such as +/- 6,000 years. Between the Washburn
Range and the Red Mountains, lava flows range in age from about 500,000 years to 100,000 years. They are much younger than the 50 million-year-old
Absaroka volcanics.
GIacial times never seem far away in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. If you were to walk the streets of Chicago on a hot August day, you would have
a rough time believing that 150 centuries ago the land beneath the sidewalk was covered by ice thousands of feet thick. In Grand Teton National Park,
on the same August day, you can view a glacier. From the valley floor, the Teton Glacier is only 4.5 miles to the west and 7,000 feet up the mountain.
More glaciers grace the flanks of nearby Mt. Moran.
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These tuffs demonstrated conclusively that the volcanic events forming Yellowstone were not the products of many million years of geologic change
ending many millions of years ago. Rather, their time scale was compressed into only the last two million years. A long geologic history would have
allowed a more leisurely progression of events—a lava flow here, then a million years later another flow there. A longer geologic history would also
have called for intermittent periods of magma (molten rock) formation separated by periods of volcanic quiescence. Instead, this short time scale
compressed the sequence of explosions and flows and required a heat source much larger and younger than ever before imagined.
Caldera's are large basin-shaped volcanic depressions more or less circular in form. Caldera eruptions on the Yellowstone scale have a world wide
frequency of perhaps once every hundred thousand years. Somewhat smaller eruptions, on the scale of Crater Lake-Mount Mazama in Oregon, are more
frequent, perhaps every 1,000 years or less. Such explosive eruptions were not isolated events. Rather, they were climactic stages of magmatic
processes that extended over hundreds of thousands of years.
No one has ever seen a volcanic explosion on the scale of the Yellowstone eruptions, but smaller explosions have been observed and their activity
described. Consider Mount Tambora, on the island of Sumbawa, Indonesia to grasp some idea of what's involved when a caldera forms during or just
after an ash flow eruption. For about three years the volcano rumbled and fumed before a moderate eruption on April 5, 1815 produced thundering
explosions heard 870 miles away. Next morning volcanic ash began to fall and continued to fall though the explosions became progressively weaker
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