Being in Yellowstone National Park (YNP) in winter is always amazing. It’s a good time to watch animal behavior – minus the confusion of the many human interactions that one normally runs into during the summer season! It’s also a prime time to observe animal tracks in the snow and get insight into the movement…
Category: Wyoming geology
Yellowstone Flood Damage Update – Lamar Valley to Cooke City Road Reopens
The historic Yellowstone flood of early June 2022 dramatically changed the fluvial geomorphology in the northern part of Yellowstone National Park (YNP). According to the National Weather Service Billings, Montana, the Beartooth and Absaroka mountain ranges in this part of YNP had from 0.8 inches to over 5 inches of rainfall from June 10th through…
Flagstaff Rim, Wyoming – A Classic Area of Continental Eocene Tuffs and Fossil Vertebrates
The Flagstaff Rim area in central Wyoming contains a classic geological section of Tertiary continental rocks that, for the most part, range in age from approximately 37 million years to about 35 million years. These strata are then capped by gravels that may be late Tertiary in age (probably younger than 20 million years in…
Greater Yellowstone Area Eocene to Recent Hydrothermal Springs
Geologic field work is always fun, but especially so when it turns up something unexpected. Working on Eocene to Recent geology and vertebrate paleontology in the Gravelly Range, southwestern Montana promised to be enthralling because the volcanics, sedimentary units, and vertebrate fossils are at elevations of about 9,000 feet. But to come across extensive, unmapped…
Winter Trekking Through Yellowstone’s Thermal and Glacial Features
Some winter days in Yellowstone National Park are so amazing with clear blue skies and sparkling snow that they just take your breathe away. Luckily enough, I just experienced several of these kinds of days which I packed full of cross country skiing, snowshoeing, and animal watching. One of the groomed trails that held a…
Tertiary Paleovalleys in the Laramie Mountains, Wyoming
The Laramie Mountains are part of the central Rocky Mountains in southeastern Wyoming. Archean and Proterozoic rocks form the bulk of the mountain range due to late Cretaceous–early Eocene (Laramide) basement-involved uplift. Hogbacks made of Paleozoic to Mesozoic age rocks flank much of the Precambrian cored mountain areas. But what sets the Laramie Mountains apart from the…
Yellowstone’s Firehole Lake Drive Reopens
Last Thursday (July 10),Yellowstone National Park (YNP) temporarily closed the 3.3 mile-long Firehole Lake Drive, a paved road that traverses some of Lower Geyser Basin. Melting asphalt on a part of the road near the start of the loop drive became a “soupy mess”, according to Dan Hottle, YNP spokesman. Hottle told Live Science that…