Yellowstone Lake Panorama from Sedge Bay
This view looks across Yellowstone Lake from the shores Sedge Bay along the East Entrance Road In Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. The hill on the left side of the photo is Steamboat Point. One close inspection of the photo, steam can be seen rising from fumaroles at the base of the hill just above the lake. These fumaroles are some of the first thermal features encountered by visitors who enter the park from the East Entrance. Fumaroles are vents or openings at the surface where volcanic gases and vapors are emitted. Faint to loud roars and hissing can be heard as the gas escapes the vent. Most of the vapor emitted by fumaroles is steam, formed as groundwater circulates deeply through heated rock. The water vapor mixes with volcanic gases given off by magma deep below in Yellowstone’s caldera. These volcanic gases include sulfur compounds, such as various sulfur oxides and hydrogen sulfide which accounts for the sulfur or “rotten egg smell” visitors may notice. There are no geysers that erupt water here. The fumaroles at Steamboat Point are some of the thermal features associated with the Marys Bay hydrothermal explosion crater on the side of Yellowstone Lake. There are several such hydrothermal explosion craters scattered across Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. They range from tens of feet to more than a mile across. This one at Marys Bay is not only the largest hydrothermal explosion crater documented in Yellowstone but it is also the largest in the world. It measures 1.5 miles (2.6 km) in diameter and forms an embayment on the north side of Lake Yellowstone. The crater, which formed 13,800 years ago, may have been the result of several separate explosions over a short period of time. The cause or trigger for these hydrothermal explosions are not fully understood but pressure release due to glacial melting, earthquakes, or rapid changes in lake levels could be significant factors. Geological studies have found that these large, violent hydrothermal events are independent of associated volcanism. In the past 16,000 years, none of these events have been followed by an eruption of magma. The deeper magma systems seen unaffected by these sometimes spectacular steam explosions in their overlying hydrothermal systems.
The hill across the lake just beyond its western shore is The Elephant Back. Most of the top of this hill lies above 8600 feet above sea level (ASL) with the culmination at 8731 feet ASL. Elephant Back is typical of the topography in the center of the Yellowstone Caldera.
Yellowstone Lake Panorama from Sedge Bay
This view looks across Yellowstone Lake from the shores Sedge Bay along the East Entrance Road In Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. The hill on the left side of the photo is Steamboat Point. One close inspection of the photo, steam can be seen rising from fumaroles at the base of the hill just above the lake. These fumaroles are some of the first thermal features encountered by visitors who enter the park from the East Entrance. Fumaroles are vents or openings at the surface where volcanic gases and vapors are emitted. Faint to loud roars and hissing can be heard as the gas escapes the vent. Most of the vapor emitted by fumaroles is steam, formed as groundwater circulates deeply through heated rock. The water vapor mixes with volcanic gases given off by magma deep below in Yellowstone’s caldera. These volcanic gases include sulfur compounds, such as various sulfur oxides and hydrogen sulfide which accounts for the sulfur or “rotten egg smell” visitors may notice. There are no geysers that erupt water here. The fumaroles at Steamboat Point are some of the thermal features associated with the Marys Bay hydrothermal explosion crater on the side of Yellowstone Lake. There are several such hydrothermal explosion craters scattered across Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. They range from tens of feet to more than a mile across. This one at Marys Bay is not only the largest hydrothermal explosion crater documented in Yellowstone but it is also the largest in the world. It measures 1.5 miles (2.6 km) in diameter and forms an embayment on the north side of Lake Yellowstone. The crater, which formed 13,800 years ago, may have been the result of several separate explosions over a short period of time. The cause or trigger for these hydrothermal explosions are not fully understood but pressure release due to glacial melting, earthquakes, or rapid changes in lake levels could be significant factors. Geological studies have found that these large, violent hydrothermal events are independent of associated volcanism. In the past 16,000 years, none of these events have been followed by an eruption of magma. The deeper magma systems seen unaffected by these sometimes spectacular steam explosions in their overlying hydrothermal systems.
The hill across the lake just beyond its western shore is The Elephant Back. Most of the top of this hill lies above 8600 feet above sea level (ASL) with the culmination at 8731 feet ASL. Elephant Back is typical of the topography in the center of the Yellowstone Caldera.