Discovering new thermal areas in Yellowstone's dynamic landscape!
April 01, 2019
Landsat-8 nighttime thermal infrared image from April 2017 showing the Tern Lake area. In Yellowstone, temperatures are extremely cold at night in the winter, and most lakes are frozen (dark pixels). West Tern Lake seems to be thawing here - perhaps it receives some thermal waters from nearby hot springs. The patch of bright (warm) pixels between West Tern Lake and the Tern Lake thermal area has emerged over the last 20 years. Lakes are outlined in blue; the boundary of the Sour Creek resurgent dome is in black; known thermal areas are outlined in red; and the red triangles are individual thermal features that have been mapped.
Yellowstone's thermal areas are the surface expression of the deeper magmatic system, and they are always changing. They heat up, they cool down, and they can move around. A recent spectacular example was the
September 2018 emergence of a new thermal feature and eruption of the long-dormant Ear Spring in the Upper Geyser Basin, near Old Faithful. Even more impressive was the
expansion of heated ground in the Back Basin of the Norris Geyser Basin in 2003. These sorts of changes are part of the normal life cycles of thermal areas in Yellowstone National Park.
Recently, we have discovered another phenomenal example of thermal change – the emergence of an entirely new thermal area, which has taken place over the past 20 years!
Landsat-8 nighttime thermal infrared image from April 2017 showing the Tern Lake area. In Yellowstone, temperatures are extremely cold at night in the winter, and most lakes are frozen (dark pixels). West Tern Lake seems to be thawing here - perhaps it receives some thermal waters from nearby hot springs. The patch of bright (warm) pixels between West Tern Lake and the Tern Lake thermal area has emerged over the last 20 years. Lakes are outlined in blue; the boundary of the Sour Creek resurgent dome is in black; known thermal areas are outlined in red; and the red triangles are individual thermal features that have been mapped.
https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/observatories/yvo/
Descoberta de novas zonas termais no vulcão Yellowstone