Midway Gyser Basin
Discover Grad Prismatic Spring-Yellowstone's largest hot spring. This is a map of the hillside that you can walk around to see the different hot springs.
There is Grand Prismatic Spring, Excelsior Geyser, Turquise Pool, and Opal Pool.
Life on the edge (big picture on the left)The billions of ciroorganisms lining this hot spring's runoff channels are called "extremophiles" because they line in condigtions that were once thought to be too exreme to host life. Extremophiles that live in hot springs are called "thermophiles" - heat lovers.
(bottom black bar) Yellowstone National Park is one of the most accessible places to studey extreme environments and the organisms that inhabit them. Understanding lifeforms here provides clues for scientists seraching for life elsewhere in the universe.
Because conditions on other planets in our solar system are harsh, if life exists elsewhere it is probably as some form of microscopic extremophile.
Miniature Forests
Within the rainbow of orange, brown, and red colors, some microrganisms life in communities of thick mats. Like miniature forests, theese mats have a vertical structor and stratified functions. Microbes that live on or near the top of the math (similar to a forest canopty) use sunligth to preform photosynthesis, which fules the mat community. Organisms living deeper in the math (similar to a forest understory) derive energy from chemicals produced by the surface microbes. They preform other vital functions such as decomposition and recycling nutrients to the mat's "canopy" just like their counterparts in a forest. All of these organisms create and ecosystem in the expanse of a few inches.
(first mini picture) Heat-loving photosynthetic microbes known as Phormidium and Synechococcus live in mats along Grand Prismatic Spring's runoff channels.
(2nd mini picture) (Bacterial Mat) Cross section of a Phormidium and Synechococcus mat showing the photosynthetic microbes (orange and green) overlying the nonphotosynthetic microbes (black).
Grand Prismatic Spring: Prism of Light, Spectrum of Life
Grand Prismatic Spring is the largest and one of the most brilliant of Yellowstone's many colorful hot springs. Its massive expanse stretches approximately 200 ft (61m) across. The high temperature of its water - 160 degrees Fahrenheit (70 degrees Centigrade) - ensures that the spring is often cloaked in steam.
Deep beneath us, magma from an active volcano heats water that rises to the surface through fissures in the rocks. The result is a hot spring that pours almost 500 gallons of hot water each minute into the Firehole River. Minerals Dissolved in the hot water are deposited and gradually build the gracefully terraced shoulders of this feature.
(black bar) Did you Know?
-Prismatic means brilliantly colored.
-The intense blue color in the center of this hot spring is due to sunlight being scattered by fine particles suspended in the water.
-The yellow, orange, and brown colors encircling the hot spring and lining the runoff channels are caused by thermophiles - heat-loving microorganisms. These microbes contain colorful pigments that allow them to make energy form sunlight and thrive in the harsh conditions of hot springs.
(mini inset photos bottom right)
Billions of thread-like filaments and sausage-shaped cells (left) of the thermophilic cyanobacteria Phormidium (for-MID-e-um) and Synechococcus (sin-e-ka-KAK-us) and Calothrix (KAL-o-thrix; right) build colorful orange and brown mats lining the runoff channels from Grand Prismatic Spring.
Buried Alive
Excelsior Geyser's rugged crater was created by rare massive geyser eruptions. Surprisingly, it also preserves a record of past life.
For thousands of years, microbes have grown in the runoff channels extending from nearby Grand Prismatic Spring. These vaset communities were buried alive as the flowing hot water deposited a crust of silical minerals. The resulting deposit, called sinter, preserved the shape of the microbial mat it entombed. As new mats grew, more layers developed. Today's formation is the result of this interplay between its living and nonliving componets.
Yellowstone's hydrothermal features provide a glimpse into the distant past when intense volcanism was widespread on the young Earth. The lifeforms found here help scientists understand the type of life that likely arouse and diversified billions of years ago on our planet.
(Yellow bar) Life Beyond Earth?
-Formations that entomb microbes in Yellowstone's geysers and hot springs may offer clues in the search for life on other worlds.
-Volcanic hot spring systems are believed to have existed on other planets in our solar system.
-If similar formation are found, they may contain evidence that life existed elsewhere in the universe.
(black box of inset oval picture) Layers of sinter (above) form the geyser wall and are the preserved remains of ancient microbial communities.
Excelsior Geyser
In the 1880s Excelsior Geyser erupted in bursts 50 to 300 feet high. The thermal violence formed the jagged crater and apparently ruptured the geyser's underground system, causing eruptions to cease after 1890.
On September 14, 1985, Excelsior roared back to life with Fourty-seven hours of major eruptions. It is impossible to predict when this dormant but powerful geyser's next eruption will occur.
(text in upper right of picture) Frank J. Haynes photographed this eruption in 1888. Like most geysers, Excelsior is unpredictable, with no discernible pattern to its eruptions.
(text left of insert picture) Though its eruptions have been eratic, the geyser's outflow is nearly constant, pumping more than 4000 gallons of boiling water per minute ofer the crater rim into the Firehole River.
And now we go to Grand Teton National Park
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Memorial Parkway
This 23,770 acre tract links Yellowstone National Park to the north and Grand Teton National Park to the south. In 1972, congress created the John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Memorial Parkway in recognition of Mr. Rockefeller's work in establishing or expanding several national parks, including Grand Teton, Acadia, Great Smoky Mountains, and the Virgin Islands.
Grand Teton National Park
When set aside in 1929, Grand Teton National Park included mush of the Teton Range. Disturbed by development which threatened the views of the mountains, Mr. Rockefeller provided funds and fromed a land company to purchase property. He donated more than 33,000 valley acres to the American people, and this contribution served as a catalyst for the addition of most of Jackson Hole to the park in 1950.
(Photo in upper right) Philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and Mrs. Rockefeller in Grand Teton National Park (1931).
The Teton Range
Young, Restless, and Still Rising
In geologic time, these mountains are the energetic teenagers of the Rocky Mountain chain: active, growing, yet sculpted by erosion.
The Rise of the Range
Nine million years ago, the earth's crust broke into two rectangular block along the Teton fault, a 40-mile-long zone of weakness. Through sporadic movements, the western block hinged skyward to become the Teton Range, while the eastern block tilted downward to form the valley called Jackson Hole. The valley sank four times more than the mountains rose. Displacement continues, and an earthquake-producing movement along the fault can occur at any time.
Shaping the Mountains
Erosional forces continually shape the rising mountains. Wind, water, ice, and Glaciers, particularly of the last Ice Age, shaped the range into today's skyline. The sedimentary rock layers that covered the central peaks have been worn away, but mountain building continues counteracting erosion.
(picture of range across top of placard - Mountains from left to right) Buck Mtn., Teewinot Mt. Grand Teton, Mt. Owen, Mt. St. John, Leigh Lake (I know, this is not a mountain, but it is labled, so there you have it), Mt. Woodring, Mt. Moran, Bivouack Peak, Rolling Thunder Mountain, Eagles Rest Peak.
The Cathedral Group
Viewed from this perspective, Teewinot Mountain, the Grand Teton, and Mount Owen comprise the Cathedral Group.
"These peaks have been called the Cathedral Group . . . more evident here than in many of the great cathedrals of men is the Gothic Note. It is seen in the profiles of the countless firs and spruces congregated like worshipers on the lower slopes: it reappears higher in the converging lines of spire rising beyond spire: it attains supreme expression in the figures of the peaks themselves that, towering above all else, with pointed summits direct one's vision and thought yet higher." Fritiof Fryxell (1938) The Tetons - Interpretations of a Mountain Landscape
Fritiof Fryxell served as Grand Teton National Park's first ranger naturalist. As geologist, teacher, and mountaineer, he developed public education programs, trail maps, and safety rules for climbers. Fryxell's publications stand as classics of explanation and eloquence.
(Photo is of Fritiof Fryxell (1929))
(Text left of the map inset) In 1929, Congress established Grand Teton National Park to protect the heart of the Teton Range. In 1950, the park was expanded through the addition of most of this valley called Jackson Hole.
Fault Scarp
Measuring the Rise of the Range
A fault scarp provides visual evidence of displacement of adjoining blocks of the earth's crust along a fault. near the base of the Rockchuck Peak, the scarp shows nearly 60 feet of movment, mostly in the down-dropping of the valley. This movement generated earthquakes of the highest magnitude.
Geologists estimate that displacement will continue as it has for the last nine million years. Through periodic earthquake-producing jolts, the mountains will hinge upward and the valley will tilt downward.
(mountains in picture across the top of placard) Teewinot Mtn. Grand Teton, Mt. Owen, Mt. St. John, and Rockchuck Peak. (The inset photo of the fault scarp is toward the base of Rockchuck Peak.)
A Glacial LandscapeA glacier 3,000 feet thick once filled this valley. Repeatedly, enormous glaciers transported cobbles, gravel, and coarse sand as they advanced. As the glaciers retreated, torrential meltwaters wased and spread the rocky material throughout the valley. Rain and snow percolate rapidly through the cobbles, leaving little moisture for overlying soil. Sagebrush identifies this dry outwash plain.
Glacial Moraines
Mountain glaciers also acted as conveyor belts, forming glacial moraines by depositing rock material at their snouts and sides. Moraines contain cobbly silts and loams which hold moisture, making it available to the overlying soil. Lodgepole pine forests identify these nutrient-rich moraines.
(mountains in photo across the top) Static Peak, Buck Mtn. Mt. Wister, South Teton, Middle Teton, Grand Teton, Mt. Owen, Teewinot Mtn., and Mt. St. John.
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