This is my first foray into digital video editing. I just got a Flip digital camcorder and have been taking it to work with me. Some explanations and tidbits about what's featured.
The Lower Falls and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
These falls are 308ft tall. The Yellowstone River flows from a layer of volcanic tuff into hydrothermally altered rhyolite. A geyser basin about the size of the Upper Geyser Basin (Old Faithful) once sat on this location. The Yellowstone River changed course around the end of the last Ice Age and came through the basin very quickly eroding it out. The ice dome in front of the falls is created solely by the freezing of mist coming off the falls. If the temperature stays low enough for long enough, the ice dome can reach heights up to half the height of the falls (approximately 150ft.). On this day, the temperature was so low I could see the mist from the Grand Loop Road near Canyon Corrals.
Washburn Hot Springs Overlook.
The thermal area on the left side of the frame are the Washburn Hot Springs. Mount Washburn is an old volcano and during the last caldera explosion, two-thirds of the mountain were blown away. The cliff behind the hot springs is the south rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The mountains in the background are the Absarokas and make up the eastern boundary of the park. I was standing on the flanks of Mount Washburn, which is at the northern end of the caldera. The Red Mountains shown at the end of that shot are on the far south end of the caldera, so we're looking across the caldera here.
The Upper Falls.
These are found about a half mile upstream from the Lower Falls. While these are only about a third of the height of the Lower Falls, they are still impressive, especially in the winter. Earlier in the season, people were consistently seeing otters at the base.
Fountain Paint Pots.
These are probably the most famous paint pots on the planet. The bubbling sounds like spaghetti sauce left on the stove too long. Mud features are consistently the most acidic in the park, usually between 2 and 3 on the pH scale. Mud features would be hot springs, except the water has a high hydrogen sulfide content. Microorganisms in the water love to eat that hydrogen sulfide; their waste product is sulfuric acid. That acid eats away at the nice lava rock turning it into soft clay minerals like kaolinite. This clay mixes with the water to create the mud. The bubbles are gases escaping.
I hope you like the video and hopefully I'll be getting some more of these video snapshots up!
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