Yellowstone National Park is a U.S. National Park located in the western states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. It is the first and oldest national park in the world and covers 3,468 square miles (8,983 square kilometers), mostly in the northwest corner of Wyoming. The park is famous for its various geysers, hot springs, supervolcano and other geothermal features and is home to grizzly bears, wolves, and free-ranging herds of bison and elk. It is the core of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the largest intact temperate zone ecosystems remaining on the planet. The world's most famous geyser, the Old Faithful, is also located in Yellowstone National Park.
Long before any recorded human history in Yellowstone, a massive volcanic eruption spewed an immense volume of ash that covered all of what is now the Western United States, much of the Midwestern area and northern Mexico and some areas of the Pacific Coast. The eruption left a huge caldera 43 miles by 18 miles (70 by 30 kilometers) sitting over a huge magma chamber. Yellowstone has registered three major volcanic eruption events in the last 2.2 million years with the last event occurring 640,000 years ago. Its eruptions are the largest known to have occurred on Earth within that timeframe, producing drastic climate change in the aftermath.
The result of these eruptions and ensuing natural development along with the effects of climate, is one of the most breathtaking and awe-inspiring locations in North America. Yellowstone can be called a textbook through which we can study development of the planet Earth through its various stages. We can also come to understand the nature of the Creator more fully, as a creator's character is revealed in the created being. Surely Yellowstone is a textbook worth studying and a park worth visiting simply to experience its vast sensory pleasures.
The human history of Yellowstone National Park begins at least 11,000 years ago when Native Americans first began to hunt and fish in the Yellowstone region. These Paleo-indians were of the Clovis culture who used significant amounts of obsidian found in the park to craft cutting tools and weapons. Arrowheads made of Yellowstone obsidian have been found as far away as the Mississippi Valley, indicating that a regular obsidian trade existed between the tribes of the Yellowstone region and tribes farther east. By the time white explorers first entered the region during the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805, they encountered the Nez Perce, Crow and Shoshone tribes. While passing through present day Montana, the expedition members were informed of the Yellowstone region to the south, but did not investigate it.
Early Exploration
In 1806 John Colter of the Lewis and Clark Expedition left the expedition to join a group of fur trappers. Splitting with them in 1807, he passed through a portion of what later became the park during the winter of 1807-1808, and observed at least one geothermal area in the northeastern section of the park, near Tower Falls. After surviving wounds he suffered in a battle with members of the Crow and Blackfoot tribes in 1809, he gave a description of a place of "fire and brimstone" that was dismissed by most people as delirium. The supposedly imaginary place was nicknamed "Colter's Hell." Over the next forty years, numerous reports from mountain men and trappers told of boiling mud, steaming rivers and petrified trees and animals, yet most of these reports were believed at the time to be myth.
After an 1856 exploration, mountain man James Bridger reported observing boiling springs, spouting water, and a mountain of glass and yellow rock. Because Bridger was known for being a "spinner of yarns" these reports were largely ignored. Nonetheless, his stories did arouse the interest of explorer and geologist F. V. Hayden, who, in 1859, began a two-year survey of the upper Missouri River region with United States Army surveyor W. F. Raynolds and Bridger as a guide. After exploring the Black Hills region of in what is now the state of South Dakota, the party neared the Yellowstone region, but heavy snows forced them to turn away. The American Civil War prevented any further attempts to explore the region until the late 1860s.
The first detailed expedition to the Yellowstone area was the Folsom Expedition of 1869, which consisted of three privately funded explorers. The members of the Folsom party followed the Yellowstone River to Yellowstone Lake, keeping a journal of their findings.
Based on the information reported by the Folsom Expedition, in 1870 a party of Montana residents organized the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition, headed by the surveyor-general of Montana, Henry Washburn. Among the group was Nathaniel P. Langford, who would later become known as "National Park" Langford, and a U.S. Army detachment commanded by Lieutenant Gustavus Doane. The expedition spent a month exploring the region, collecting specimens, and naming sites of interest. Cornelius Hedges, a member of the Washburn expedition, proposed the region be set aside and protected as a national park, and wrote a number of detailed articles about his observations for the Helena Herald newspaper between 1870-1871. Hedges essentially reinstated comments made in October 1865 by acting territorial governor Thomas Francis Meagher, who had previously commented that the region should be protected.
In 1871, 11 years after his failed first effort, F. V. Hayden successfully returned to Yellowstone with a second, larger expedition supported by government funding. He compiled a comprehensive report on Yellowstone which included large-format photographs by William Henry Jackson and paintings by Thomas Moran. This report helped to convince the U.S. Congress to withdraw this region from public auction and on March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park.
Geography
he Continental Divide of North America runs roughly diagonally through the southwestern part of the park. The divide is a topographic ridgeline that bisects the continent between Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean water drainages (the drainage from one-third of the park is on the Pacific side of this divide).
Both the Yellowstone River and the Snake River have their origins close to each other in the park. However, the headwaters of the Snake River are on the west side of the continental divide, and the headwaters of the Yellowstone River are on the east side of that divide. The result is that the waters of the Snake River head toward the Pacific Ocean, and the waters of the Yellowstone head for the Atlantic Ocean via the Gulf of Mexico.
The park sits on a high plateau which is, on average, 8,000 feet (2,400 meters) above sea level and is bounded on nearly all sides by mountain ranges of the Middle Rocky Mountains, which range from 10,000 to 14,000 feet (3,000 to 4,300 meters) in elevation. These ranges are: the Gallatin Range (to the northwest), Beartooth Mountains (to the north), Absaroka Mountains (to the east), Wind River Range (southeast corner), Teton Mountains (to the south), and the Madison Range (to the west). The most prominent summit in the plateau is Mount Washburn at 10,243 feet (3,122 meters).
Just outside of the southwestern park border is the Island Park Caldera, which is a plateau ringed by low hills. Beyond that are the Snake River Plains of southern Idaho, which are covered by flood basalts and slope gently to the southwest.
The major feature of the Yellowstone Plateau is the Yellowstone Caldera; a very large caldera which has been nearly filled-in with volcanic debris and measures 30 by 40 miles (50 by 60 kilometers). Within this caldera lies most of Yellowstone Lake, which is the largest high-elevation lake in North America, and two resurgent domes, which are areas that are uplifting at a slightly faster rate than the rest of the plateau.
The park received its name from its location at the headwaters of the Yellowstone River. French animal trappers gave this river the name "Roche Jaune," probably a translation of the Native Hidatsa name "Mi tsi a-da-zi," and the later American trappers rendered the French name into English as "Yellow Stone." Although it is commonly believed that the river was named for the yellow rocks seen in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Native American source name more likely derived from the yellowish bluffs located near present-day Billings, Montana.
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