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Yellowstone
National Park - Forces of the Northern Range - The Land Tells the Story
Location
of sign - on the Forces of the Northern Range Trail between Tower
Junction and Mammoth Hot Springs
in
Yellowstone National Park.
Photo
taken June 2008
Text
of sign:
The Land Tells the
Story
The rocky outcropping in front of you tells part of a violent story of
Yellowstone's volcano - one of the largest volcanoes on Earth.
About
two million years ago Yellowstone's volcano so enormous that it is
called a "super volcano" - exploded violently, coated the
earth
with ash for thousands of miles! Near the eruption, ashfall
buried the ground in deep layers. Then the ash became
compressed
or "welded," creating a layer of rock now called
"Huckleberry Ridge Tuff".
Yellowstone's
super volcano erupted two more times. The most recent eruption
left a gigantic crater, or caldera, in the heart of
Yellowstone.
This massive caldera, about 30 miles wide and 45 miles long, was
first verified with the use of satellite photography.
Yellowstone's
immense eruptions were many times larger than the catastrophic Mt.
St. Helens, Washington, explosion in 1980.
Yellowstone's
Big Blast
Yellowstone's
volcano is still alive today. Two dome-like areas rise and
fall as magma moves beneath the park. Although
geologists
cannot predict when it will erupt again, these "resurgent
domes" give clues about the future.
Did
ash from a giant Yellowstone eruption cover the area where you live?
This
exhibit made possible by a generous grant from the Yellowstone Association.
Graphics
on the sign
In
addition to the text there is a picture of Huckleberry Ridge Tuff, a photo of
Mt. St. Helens. There is a map of the Yellowstone
eruptions
and another of the ashfall area.
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out by submitting
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