• Visitors stand on the boardwalk of Grand Prismatic, the park's largest hot spring which is ringed with orange, brown and yellow runoff channels.

    Yellowstone

    National Park ID,MT,WY

Caldera

Yellowstone's caldera
 
At Yellowstone and some other volcanoes, some scientists theorize that the earth's crust fractures and cracks in a concentric or ring-fracture pattern. At some point these cracks reach the magma “reservoir,” release the pressure, and the volcano explodes. The huge amount of material released causes the volcano to collapse into a huge crater—a caldera. (Illustration based on Smith, R. B., and Siegel, L., 2000, Windows into the Earth; New York, Oxford University Press.)

Did You Know?

Seventh Cavalry Ensignia Pin.

Prior to the establishment of the National Park Service, the U.S. Army protected Yellowstone between 1886 and 1918. Fort Yellowstone was established at Mammoth Hot Springs for that purpose.