Yellowstone National Park

Subject : Environment

Section: Place in news

Context: Yellowstone Celebrates Its 150th Birthday This March

Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone NP is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho.
Yellowstone was the first national park in the US and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world.
The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular.
While it represents many types of biomes, the subalpine forest is the most abundant. It is part of the South Central Rockies forests ecoregion.
The area also represents the one point where the three major river basins of the western U.S. converge.
The rivers of the Snake-Columbia basin, Green-Colorado basin, and Missouri River Basin all begin as snow on the Continental Divide as it weaves across Yellowstone’s peaks and plateaus.
Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest high-elevation lakes in North America and is centered over the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest supervolcano on the continent.
The caldera is considered a dormant volcano. It has erupted with tremendous force several times in the last two million years.
Well over half of the world’s geysers and hydrothermal features are in Yellowstone, fueled by this ongoing volcanism. Lava flows and rocks from volcanic eruptions cover most of the land area of Yellowstone.