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Why was Yellowstone created?

Congress' principal purpose in creating Yellowstone National Park was to preserve the geysers and hot springs of the region and to protect the herds of bison, elk, and other wildlife that inhabited the park. They did so by closing the land to entry under the Homestead Act, mining laws, and other public lands statutes.



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Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act on March 1, 1872, which declared the park was “hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”

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As the site of one of the few remaining intact large ecosystems in the northern temperate zone of earth, Yellowstone's ecological communities provide unparalleled opportunities for conservation, study, and enjoyment of large-scale wildland ecosystem processes.

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Yellowstone is located at the convergence of the Great Plains, Great Basin, and Columbia Plateau. For more than 10,000 years before Yellowstone's designation as a park, Native American people lived, hunted, fished, gathered plants, quarried obsidian, and used thermal water for religious and medicinal purposes.

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We sometimes think of Yellowstone as an untouched landscape, but humans have been present in the area for over ten thousand years! The history and traditions of Indigenous people in Yellowstone are as rich as the landscape itself.

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Subsequent activity has been focused within the area of the National Park, and another huge eruption 631,000 years ago formed the Yellowstone caldera as we now see it. The three caldera-forming eruptions, respectively, were about 6,000, 700, and 2,500 times larger than the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mt. St.

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The Yellowstone supervolcano last erupted about 640,000 years ago. A sleeping giant is nestled in the western part of the United States. Though it stirs occasionally, it has not risen from slumber in nearly 70,000 years.

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Yellowstone was especially valuable as a source of obsidian, a volcanic glass used to make knives, arrowheads and other tools, and more than 50 ancient obsidian quarry sites have been documented in the park by archeologist Douglas MacDonald.

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Yellowstone National Park is a protected area showcasing significant geological phenomena and processes. It is also a unique manifestation of geothermal forces, natural beauty, and wild ecosystems where rare and endangered species thrive.

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More videos on YouTube
  • Yellowstone is home to more than 500 active geysers (more than half the world's geysers). ...
  • Yellowstone Lake has 131.7 sq. ...
  • Yellowstone is home to the largest concentration of mammals in the lower 48 states (67 species). ...
  • 285 species of birds can be found in Yellowstone (150 nesting).


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Instead, the name was attributed as early as 1805 to Native Americans who were referring to yellow sandstones along the banks of the Yellowstone River in eastern Montana, several hundred miles downstream and northeast of the Park.

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While Yellowstone explores the ranch's modern history, 1883 reveals how it was founded, and 1923 tackles how the Duttons kept the ranch running throughout the darkest and most depressed era in the state.

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As pressure is released, gases dissolved in the magma come out of solution, turning the magma into a boiling froth. The total energy released would be equivalent to an 875,000 megaton explosion. The shockwave would kill 90,000 people. Most of the lava would fall back into the crater.

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Three of the seven supervolcanoes in the world are in the U.S.:
  • California: Long Valley Caldera.
  • New Mexico: Valles Caldera.
  • Wyoming: Yellowstone.


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Yellowstone Supervolcano (Wyoming, United States) Effects of a major eruption: When the Yellowstone Caldera, or supervolcano, in Yellowstone National Park erupts again, its effects would be worldwide, the U.S. Geographical Survey said.

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