Minerva Terrace, Yellowstone National Park
In the north-west corner of Yellowstone National Park, which itself sits in north-western Wyoming, there is a large hot spring complex called Mammoth Hot Springs. It is a large hill of travertine that has been created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate (over two tonnes flows into Mammoth each day in a solution).
Although these springs lie outside the Yellowstone caldera boundary, their energy has been attributed to the same magmatic system that fuels the other geothermal areas nearby. The hot water that feeds Mammoth comes from Norris Geyser Basin after travelling underground via a fault line that runs through limestone and roughly parallel to the Norris-to-Mammoth road (the limestone is the source of the calcium carbonate). Shallow circulation along this corridor allows Norris' superheated water to slightly cool before surfacing at Mammoth, generally at about 80°C.
Algae living in the warm pools have tinted the travertine shades of brown, orange, red and green. Thermal activity here is extensive both over time and distance. Terrace Mountain at Mammoth Hot Springs is the largest known carbonate-depositing spring in the world. The most famous feature at the springs is the Minerva Terrace, a cascade series of travertine terraces, an element of which is seen above.
Scanned from a negative, this is a larger and sharper version of an image I posted a number of years ago.
Minerva Terrace, Yellowstone National Park
In the north-west corner of Yellowstone National Park, which itself sits in north-western Wyoming, there is a large hot spring complex called Mammoth Hot Springs. It is a large hill of travertine that has been created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate (over two tonnes flows into Mammoth each day in a solution).
Although these springs lie outside the Yellowstone caldera boundary, their energy has been attributed to the same magmatic system that fuels the other geothermal areas nearby. The hot water that feeds Mammoth comes from Norris Geyser Basin after travelling underground via a fault line that runs through limestone and roughly parallel to the Norris-to-Mammoth road (the limestone is the source of the calcium carbonate). Shallow circulation along this corridor allows Norris' superheated water to slightly cool before surfacing at Mammoth, generally at about 80°C.
Algae living in the warm pools have tinted the travertine shades of brown, orange, red and green. Thermal activity here is extensive both over time and distance. Terrace Mountain at Mammoth Hot Springs is the largest known carbonate-depositing spring in the world. The most famous feature at the springs is the Minerva Terrace, a cascade series of travertine terraces, an element of which is seen above.
Scanned from a negative, this is a larger and sharper version of an image I posted a number of years ago.