Free Republic

The concept of an eye-catching water feature took on a new slant for Shaun Payne when a 25-metre geyser blew its stack in his back garden near Lake Taupo. Mr Payne, who has lived in Tokaanu village at the southern end of Lake Taupo for just over a year, said the day began as normal. He said he was having a cup of tea with a friend about 9.30am yesterday morning when he heard a loud rumbling noise. "There's an 80-year-old bore in the back garden we use to pump hot water into our hot pool and you can always...

(CBS) For years, CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, scientists have tried to understand the dynamic nature of Yellowstone National Park. "It's beautiful up here, everybody should see this at one time or another," says one appreciative observer. Scientist Lisa Morgan may have unlocked one piece in the puzzle, deep below the park's biggest lake. "It is kind of the last unmapped frontier in Yellowstone National Park," says Morgan. What she found looks more like the surface of the moon. Using sonar she's identified a massive bulging dome the size of seven football fields. The only other underwater dome in...

ELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. — The rolling pine forests, snowcapped mountains and crisp fall evenings here tend to make people forget the fact that the park sits atop a huge simmering underground volcano. But new geologic events have served up reminders.In a few days in July, acidic ground water dissolved parts of the unpaved trails in the Norris Geyser Basin, and the ground temperature of the trails shot up to 200 degrees from the usual maximum of 80. Park officials closed nearly half of the basin's trails, and they remain shut. On Aug. 21, a magnitude 4.4 earthquake shook the...

<p>YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. -- Steam wafted over Hank Heasler as he stood on a boardwalk and watched water from Steamboat Geyser shoot into the air with an attention-grabbing "WHOOSH!"</p> <p>"This could be it," the park geologist said excitedly, squinting against the morning sun at the impressive spray. But Heasler had no better idea than the tourists around him as to when the world's tallest geyser would next erupt.</p>

Link Post: Geology Picture of the Week, October 13-19, 2002