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After Dark in the Park

May 18, 2017

A team of researchers worked well past sunset on the shore of Yellowstone Lake in 2016 to section and catalog a core they had taken from the lake bed earlier in the day. The group was part of the NSF-funded Hydrothermal Dynamics of Yellowstone Lake project to understand how earthquakes, volcanism, and climate affect the unusually sensitive hydrothermal system hidden from view beneath the surface of the lake. Though difficult to access, this hydrothermal system provides an ideal natural laboratory to study relationships between the deep earth and the surface and also serves as a window into the geologic processses that drive natural phenomena elsewhere in the park. (Photo by Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)