![]() Much of the park is covered by subalpine forests, mostly lodgepole pine. The largest is the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone, where water drops 94 meters (308 feet). The rugged, mountainous terrain gives rise to at least 290 waterfalls taller than 5 meters (15 feet). The Yellowstone, Snake, and other rivers have cut deep channels and canyons through the volcanic deposits over thousands of years. The volcanic plumbing beneath the park is still active, giving energy to more than ten thousand hot springs, mud pots, terraces, and geysers-most famously, Old Faithful. The region is pockmarked with several calderas, many of them now filled with lake water. Two eruptions between 1.2 million and 600,000 years ago each ejected more than 1,000 cubic kilometers (240 cubic miles) of molten material, making them two of the largest volcanic eruptions in Earth’s geologic record. Most of the landscape here is the product of intense volcanic activity in the not-too-distant past. The photograph below from the National Park Service shows a section of Yellowstone Canyon. The model gives a three-dimensional sense of the landscape. ![]() In the images at the top of this page, the Landsat data have been overlaid on a digital elevation model created with data from the ASTER instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite. The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite acquired a natural-color image of Yellowstone on June 9, 2013. It is a place of superlatives, sheltering the oldest and largest bison herd in the United States and the largest supervolcano on the planet. Yellowstone National Park captures the spirit and purpose of the National Park Service, blending modern and ancient human history with nature in its raw complexity.Ĭovering 3,468 square miles (8983 square kilometers) in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, Yellowstone National Park is larger than the states of Delaware and Rhode Island. Its geological and biological wonders have led international groups to declare it a world heritage site and a biosphere reserve. “Our national heritage is richer than just scenic features the realization is coming that perhaps our greatest national heritage is nature itself, with all its complexity and its abundance of life, which, when combined with great scenic beauty as it is in the national parks, becomes of unlimited value.” - George Wright, Joseph Dixon, and Ben Thompson, Fauna of the National Parks of the United States (1933)Įstablished in 1872, it was the first national park in the United States, and perhaps the world.
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