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In an ever-changing environment, thermal features come and go over decades in Yellowstone National Park. Now, the US Geological Survey has announced that a brand new spa area has just been discovered within the park's boundaries, with developments over the last 20 years.
Located in the Tern Lakes area, northwest of Yellowstone Lake, the spa area began to form in the late 1990s or early 2000s. A considerable number of trees were destroyed by Thermal processes between 2006 and 2017. A quick search on Google Earth coordinates (44.6635 ° N, 110.279 ° W) shows a sterile and ashy landscape, devoid of vegetation and dotted with fallen dead wood.
Yes, it must be said. The emergence of new thermal characteristics in no way indicates an impending disaster under the supervision of the park's supervisor.
"This is exactly the type of behavior we expect from Yellowstone's dynamic hydrothermal activity, and he points out that changes are constantly occurring, sometimes in remote and generally inaccessible areas of the park," scientists wrote in an article. of blog.
The area that makes up Yellowstone National Park is dynamic and a great guinea pig to understand the workings of Earth's processes in real time. To track these changes, scientists are using satellite-based thermal infrared remote sensing to map the locations of thermal zones and their evolution over time. In this case, Landsat-8 thermal infrared images were acquired at night to reveal the contrast between the thermal zones and the unheated soil. The April 2017 surveys were recorded in a warm and unexpected area between the western Tern Lake and the previously mapped Lake Tern area, which did not correspond to any previously mapped thermal features. The scientists went to the archives.
To locate the new thermal area, geologists have searched and compared decades of historical aerial imagery. They discovered for the first time a large area of dead trees and shiny soils in 2017 during the badysis of high resolution aerial imagery performed by the National Agricultural Imaging Program ( NIPA). They searched the archives and found that the 2006 NAIP images showed a smaller portion of the debadd area, as well as the beginning of a tree-destroying area with many dying trees of a reddish-brown color among those who were in good health. The 1994 aerial images clearly show that the area was once filled with healthy trees and had no trace of a spa area.
A thermal zone is a contiguous geological unit containing one or more thermal elements, such as fumaroles, thermal springs or geysers surrounded by a soil altered by hydrothermal processes. In Yellowstone National Park, there are more than 10,000 thermal features, most of which are grouped into approximately 120 distinct zones. Lake Tern is one of those areas, but do not book your ticket right now. The area is deep in the Yellowstone hinterland and sees very few visitors.
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