Until a U.S. Geological Survey team mapped the hydrothermal features at the bottom of Yellowstone Lake, its history and hazards were largely a mystery.
A member of that team, Lisa Morzel, spoke in room 216 of the S.H. Knight Geology building on Monday as part of the University of Wyoming Department of Geology and Geophysics Distinguished Lecturer series.
Morzel is a geologist as well as current member of the Boulder City council and has conducted geological studies on the features lying within Yellowstone lake. During her talk Morzel highlighted her findings and the history of volcanism and hydrothermal activity within Yellowstone lake as well as talking about her own research in Yellowstone lake.
She started her speech by outlining sections of the caldera that showed evidence of activity in the Precambrian, Mesozoic and Paleozoic eras before transitioning into her main focus, which is the Yellowstone Caldera.
Morzel pointed out the gaps in geological mapping around Yellowstone caldera as well.
“The units in green are the Lava Creek Tuff they are products of the Yellowstone Caldera and inside you see the two resurgent domes and big holes and there are no geologic maps in it except for Yellowstone Lake now,” Morzel said.
Morzel talked about her own mapping of Yellowstone, particularly in between 1999 and 2003.
“In 1999-2003 a group of us from the USGS, along with Dave Lovalvo of the Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration, mapped Yellowstone Lake, and we did a barometric map and we found a lot of things about Yellowstone,” said Morzel.
Morzel said that they found the edge of the caldera and also that the morphology of the lake was “primarily rhyolitic lava flows.” Along with this discovery they found that the islands held up in Yellowstone lake are held up by rhyolitic lava flows.
The researchers discovered that the craters in Yellowstone lake are results of hydrothermal explosions and not glacial activity.
In addition to its ancient changes, Morzel talked about the seasonally changing environment of Yellowstone lake.
“The lake overturns in December, the water column structure is different than winter,” Morzel said.
A big concern with the hydrothermal lake under Yellowstone is its potential to explode.
“Now it’s the earthquakes and big hydrothermal explosions that we are concerned about. They occur every thousands of years and we don’t know what causes them,” said Morzel.
In addition to these larger aspects of Yellowstone lake Morzel talked about Siliceous spires which are created by diatoms and silica and are found within Yellowstone lake.
Morzel closed out her speech by saying “one of the cool things is that you never stop discovering.”
