Millions of years ago, the North American continent was dragged over the world's largest continental hotspot (a huge column of molten rock rising from the earth's interior), tracing a 5 mile wide, 500 mile long path northeastward across Idaho and generating huge volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. The hotspot lifted the Yellowstone Plateau to more than 7000 feet and pushed the Northern Rockies to new heights. This book is the story of those events and how thelandscape of the two great national parks was shaped by earthquakes, volcanoes, geysers and, in the uplifted Rocky Mountains, mountain glaciers. The story is also a 'window' into the earth's interior, revealing the dynamic processes within.

Robert B. Smith is a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah and a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Geological Society of America. He has spent his career studying the Yellowstone-Teton region. Lee J. Siegel has written about science since 1976, most recently as science editor of The Salt Lake Tribune. He contributed to the Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption by The Daily News of Longview, Washington, and in 1996, he won the Utah Seismic Safety Commissions first annual Outstanding Contribution to Earthquake Safety in Utah Award.

• Preface


• 1: A Land of Scenery and Violence


• 2: In the Wake of the Yellowstone Hotspot


• 3: Cataclysm! The Hotspot Reaches Yellowstone


• 4: How Yellowstone Works


• 5: The Broken Earth: Why the Tetons are Grand


• 6: Ice Over Fire: Glaciers Carve the Landscape


• 7: Future Disasters


• 8: Grand Teton Tour


• 9: Yellowstone Tour


• References