A striking Yellowstone steam plume appeared, then disappeared. What happened?
Yellowstone visitors got to see a striking new thermal vent late last year – and it may make a return appearance.
The new feature was spotted in Yellowstone National Park early on Aug. 5 by an eagle-eyed scientist. The park geology team soon verified it was indeed new thermal activity.
It remained prominent into the fall of 2024: a strong steam plume that remained visible from a nearby road on chilly mornings, the U.S. Geological Survey said. But as fall began to turn into winter, the steam plume slowly disappeared.
The feature remains active, but there is some water in the vent, decreasing the amount of steam that is released.
Whether or not the strong plume returns in the summer of 2025 remains to be seen, the U.S. Geological Survey said in March 2025.
Discovering Yellowstone: The lesser-known story of America's first national park
Things always changing at Yellowstone
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, "geologically speaking, things are always changing at Yellowstone – especially in the hydrothermal areas. It’s simply the nature of the complex hydrothermal system that overlies one of the planet’s largest magma reservoirs."
Mike Poland, of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, said “the feature itself is new. That there would be a new feature is, you know, mundane,” he told The Associated Press. “The noteworthy part … was just that it was so noticeable. But the sort of overall idea that there would be a new feature that formed is pretty normal.”
100 hydrothermal areas in Yellowstone
Geologists have mapped more than 100 major hydrothermal areas in Yellowstone National Park, and there are many more than 10,000 hydrothermal features within its boundaries. The activity from these features waxes and wanes with time.
Although this hydrothermal activity may seem new to us, it may also just be just the latest manifestation of activity a short distance away that kicked into existence more than two decades ago, the U.S. Geological Survey said. On March 10, 2003, a similar type of hydrothermal activity was first observed on the other side of the same lava flow where the new feature is located, just west of Nymph Lake.