Millions of visitors to the US each year are aware of the geological features of the park, powered by wells of hot water. We don't know much about the underlying plumbing beneath the site.
A new study shows the paths of the hot fluids that make their way to the surface, as well as the geological faults that determine their routes.
The data was gathered via an instrument called a SkyTEM312, which is carried by a helicopter, which sends bursts of signals downwards, resulting in different responses depending on the features of the rock underneath the surface.
W. Steven Holbrook is a man.
The image was produced from SkyTEM data and shows blue and red lava flows.
Steven Holbrook from Virginia Tech says that the knowledge of the park has a subsurface gap.
We know a lot about the surface features from direct observation, but we don't know what's in the middle. We were able to fill in the gaps for the first time thanks to this project.
The data gathered by SkyTEM was carefully analyzed to reconstruct a cross-section of the depths. A lot of the park's most famous features lie on top of clay-capped, high-flux channels running along volcanic rock faults and fissures.
The analysis showed that the water was rising from the depths of more than a kilometer under the park. The thermal phenomenon that Yellowstone is known for is caused by variations in this mix.
The deeper structure beneath parts of the park has very different chemistry and temperatures than the surface. It seems that the differences are caused by the different ways in which the ground and water mix.
Holbrook says that the combination of high electrical conductivity and low magnetization shows up very clearly in the data.
The helicopter and its attached SkyTEM weren't able to cover the whole of the park, and the scanning resolution wasn't high enough to identify individual water channels leading to specific features, but the data is still very useful.
The authors of the new study say that biologists, geologists and hydrologists have already expressed an interest in using the data, looking at everything from microbiological diversity across the park to the historical record of past lava flows.
The work reported in this study could be used to get warnings of volcanic dangers when the clay layers underneath Yellowstone get temporarily sealed off, leading to a dangerous and potentially explosive build up of gas.
Holbrook says that the data set is so big that they only scratched the surface with the first paper. It will be a data set that keeps giving.
The research has been published.
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