Geology Underfoot in Yellowstone Country

by Marc S. Hendrix

Overview

Although it s also known for for wolves, bison, and stunning scenery, Yellowstone National Park was established as the world s first national park in 1872 largely because of its geological wonders. In Geology Underfoot in Yellowstone Country, author and geologist Marc Hendrix takes you to over twenty sites in the park and surrounding region that illustrate the deep-time story of Yellowstone Country, from its early existence as a seafloor hundreds of millions of years ago to an earthquake swarm in 2008 that caused some folks to wonder if the Yellowstone Volcano was going to blow its top again. Besides covering icons such as Old Faithful and Mammoth Hot Springs, Geology Underfoot in Yellowstone Country visits sites that are less well known but just as mind blowing, including outcrops of rock deposited by superfast incendiary flows of hot ash; the glacially sculpted grandeur of the Beartooth and Absaroka mountains witnessed along the Beartooth Highway; and the deadly Madison landslide that killed twenty-eight people in 1959. With prose tooled for the lay reader and a multitude of colorful photos and illustrations, Geology Underfoot in Yellowstone Country will help you read the landscape the way a geologist does.
The Geology Underfoot series encourages you to get out of your car for an up-close look at rocks and landforms. These books inform and enlighten, no matter how much or how little geology you already know. What s more, they re simply good reading, on-site or at home.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780878425761
Publisher:	Mountain Press
Publication date:	05/01/2011
Pages:	312
Sales rank:	964,212
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Marc S. Hendrix is a geology professor at the University of Montana in Missoula. Growing up in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Marc developed an early love of geology. Marc received a bachelor s degree in geology from Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, a master s degree in geology and geophysics from the University of Wisconsin, and a PhD in applied earth sciences from Stanford University. He currently lives in Missoula, Montana with his wife and two sons.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

Vignettes

1 The Missing Record of Deep Time 15

The Great Unconformity in Shoshone River Canyon

2 Invasion of the Trilobites 27

Cambrian Sea Life Flourishes near Cody

3 Limy Record of Shallow Seas 37

Mississippian Limestone at Pebble Creek Campground

4 The Cretaceous Interior Seaway 45

Marine Deposits in Gardner River Canyon

5 Mountains Reduced to Rubble 56

Sphinx Mountain and The Helmet

6 Basement Rock on the Rise 71

Uplift of Rattlesnake and Cedar Mountains

7 Strange Brew 79

The Unusual Volcanic Rocks near Sylvan Pass

8 Debris Flow Deposits 91

Coarse Conglomerate between Cody and East Entrance

9 Fossilized Forests 100

Petrified Wood in Tom Miner Basin

10 From Playa Lakes to Rushing Rivers 113

Landscape Changes Recorded at Hepburn's Mesa

11 Arrival of the Hot Spot 127

The First Caldera-Forming Eruption in Yellowstone

12 The Yellowstone Volcano Erupts Again! 143

Tuff Smothers the Region and a Caldera Forms

13 The Youngest Eruptions 157

Rhyolite Flows in the Firehole River Drainage

14 Ice Sculptures along the Beartooth Highway 171

Glaciers Carve Yellowstone's Landscapes

15 Rivers of Dirty Ice 186

Glacial Deposits in Northern Yellowstone

16 Melting Ice and Sliding Shale 197

Floods and Earthflows near Gardiner

17 Terraced Travertines 209

Mammoth's Famous Hot Springs

18 Siliceous Sinter 223

Old Faithful and Upper Geyser Basin

19 Hydrothermal Explosions 237

Norris Geyser Basin and Yellowstone Lake's North Shore

20 The Night the Ground Shook 251

The 1959 Hebgen Lake Earthquake

Epilogue: The Certainty of Change in Yellowstone 266

Glossary 273

Sources of More Information 283

GPS Coordinates for Stop Locations 291

Index 293