Subsurface Images of Yellowstone National Park Reveal “Mystery Sandwich” Plumbing System

upstart writes:

Stunning Subsurface Images of Yellowstone National Park Reveal "Mystery Sandwich" Plumbing System:

The geysers and fumaroles of Yellowstone National Park are among the most iconic and popular geological features on our planet. Each year, millions of visitors travel to the park to marvel at the towering eruptions of Old Faithful, the bubbling mud cauldrons of Artists Paint Pots, the crystal-clear water, and iridescent colors of Grand Prismatic Spring, and the stacked travertine terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs.

Those who have visited the park may have asked themselves, "Where does all the hot water come from?" A study published last week in Nature, co-authored by Virginia Tech's W. Steven Holbrook and colleagues from the U.S. Geological Survey and Aarhus University in Denmark, provides stunning subsurface images that begin to answer that question.

The research team used geophysical data collected from a helicopter to create images of Yellowstone's subsurface "plumbing" system. The method detects features with unusual electrical and magnetic properties indicative of hydrothermal alteration.

"The combination of high electrical conductivity and low magnetization is like a fingerprint of hydrothermal activity that shows up very clearly in the data," said Holbrook, a professor of geophysics and head of the Department of Geosciences in Virginia Tech's College of Science. "The method is essentially a hydrothermal pathway detector."

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