NORTH AMERICAN REGIONS

VI. Rocky Mountains c. Wyoming

Key
  

RedRed-Term to define and remember YellowYellow-Place to locate and remember Bright Green-Agricultural product Green(crop), resource or another thing to locate and remember White and Blue - Narration to help understanding

The Black Hills

granite
The dark pines make the Mountains look black from a distance.

(are in South Dakota, but are connected to the Rockies)

There are some animals here.

Rocky Mountain Goat

Check out these weird shapes!

Another Mountain Top Experience

They are called the . . . Needles Granite can weather to these fantastic shapes.

Humans can adjust their environment, even mountains!

Mount Rushmore, South Dakota Rushmore,

Today an even larger monument is being carved in Hills. the Black Hills.

Crazy Horse, Chief of the Sioux

What happened here?

Fire is a natural phenomenon in the Rocky Mountains.

Lead, South Dakota

Whats this?

An open pit mine What is being mined? GOLD

Gold is the reason we took the Black Hills which the Sioux regarded as sacred . This lead to the Little Bighorn (Custers Last Stand) . . . And Wounded Knee.

Gold is also mined underground (Hard Rock Mining).

Wyoming

Whats this? Devils Tower

What movie was filmed here? Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Depending on your point of view Devils Tower is either: The basalt throat of an ancient eroded volcano or or An ancient tree stump clawed by a giant bear trying to get to two Indian girls.

As lava cools it can form these hexagonal columns of basalt. basalt.

The Bighorn Mountains

In northern Wyoming the first range of the Rockies are . . .

The highest point in the Bighorns is Cloud Peak (13,167)

Melting snow creates very cold streams.

What is this?

To which animals come to drink

Mule or Blacktail Deer

FIRE

Notice the grass. Now the sunlight gets to the soil, enabling more plants to grow. This area burned 7 or 8 years before this picture was taken.

This is Bighorn National Forest. Forest. A National Forest is owned by the Federal Government for the use of others. Therefore forestry, mining, road forestry, building, hunting and fishing is legal with permission. To preserve the resource, people will attempt to extinguish forest fires.

Grand Teton National Park

This is a National Park. Park.

These are the most photogenic mountains in the US. You have seen them before on TV.

Jackson Hole

Grand Teton (13,770)

Pronghorn Antelope

This is Grand Teton National Park. Park. A National Park is owned by the Federal Government Notice the for the preservation of nature.dead trees.

FIRE

Therefore private forestry, mining, road building, and hunting is illegal. If the fire is natural it will be allowed to burn.

Where are we?

Yellowstone National Park

Old Faithful Geyser

http://www.unmuseum.org/geysers.htm

Old Faithful

The opposite side of Old Faithful

Old Faithful Inn.

Note the decaying elk carcass. Since the death was natural, it is not removed by park rangers.

Obviously Old Faithful Inn was erected before the current rules about interfering with nature were instituted.

Another geyser

This precipitate is the minerals left after the geysers water has evaporated. It is called geyserite.

These mineral deposits are also called travertine. travertine.

Mammoth Hot Spring

From Ian Ebrecht

Yellowstone Lake

Even under Yellowstone Lake.

Some people come to Yellowstone just to fish.

Yellowstone Lake fills up a huge crater which is a collapsed volcano. This caldera). feature is called a caldera (caldera).

Cutthroat Trout abound.

Causes of Yellowstone


Yellowstone is located above a hot spot. spot. A hot spot is a thin spot in the Earths crust where magma is close to the surface. This heats the ground water forming geysers, geysers, hot springs, and mud pots. springs,

Hot Spring

Dissolved minerals precipitate out as the hot water evaporates.

Hot Spring

Hot Spring

Hot Spring

Yellowstone Lake

The various colors are thermophilic bacteria which only live in hot water. As the hot water flows away it cools. Different species of bacteria live in different temperature water. Bioengineering companies harvest these bacteria for use in genetically altering plants.

Palette by Bacteria

The hot water and mineral deposits have killed the trees.

These trees have been killed by hot ground water.

Mud Pot

Here the process of creation continues.

One sense that these pictures cannot stimulate is . . .

Why do they call it Yellowstone National Park?

Lower Yellowstone Falls (308)

People

Upper Yellowstone Falls (109) on the Yellowstone River

Yellowstone Canyon

Or we could have pinkstone. called it pinkstone. Both the yellow and the pink stone are types of rhyolite, an igneous rock. The Rocky Mountains are composed of igneous, igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rock.

Other igneous examples

Volcanic Ash Old lava flows

WhatVolcanic rock is this old lava? kind of ash

Basalt

Volcanic Ash

Naturally, when you are surrounded by so many mountains, what must the intrepid geographer do?

Climb One!

Specimen Ridge

The Route of Ascent

Lets go here . . .

. . .and look back

Looks easy, doesnt it?

We started here.

The specimen on specimen ridge is . . . A petrified tree

Its a petrified redwood which, geologists say, Was covered with volcanic ash, Cells were slowly replaced by minerals, Uplifted by the fault block Rockies, And is weathering out of the ridge.

Petrified Tree Rings

This occurs as minerals slowly replace organic matter.

Petrified Pines

forest.

Petrified tree

Its hard to tell the . . . from the . . .

When you get to the top you . . . . . . Look around!

Bitterroot

And return to the plain.

Hayden Valley

What happened here?

www.cnr.colostate.edu/~dkash/YNP%20fire.jpg

The Yellowstone Fires of 1988

 

 

The summer of 1988 was the driest in the Park's recorded history. More than 793,000 acres (36% of the park) were affected by fire. Fires begun outside of the park burned more than half the total acreage. Humans caused 9 fires; lightning caused 42 fires. About 300 (out of 50,000) large mammals, primarily elk, perished. $120 million was spent and 25,000 people participated in this firefighting effort, the largest in U.S. history. This huge effort saved human life and property, but had little impact on the fires themselves. themselves. Rain and snow finally stopped the advance of the fires in September.
www.yellowstone-natlwww.yellowstone-natl-park.com/fire.htm#fire

Aftermath of the 1988 Fires



 

  

The 1988 fires created a mosaic of burns, partial burns, and unburned areas that provided new habitats for plants and animals and new realms for research. What scientists have learned: Fertile soil with good-water holding capacity and dense, diverse vegetation before the goodfire recovered quickly. Grasslands returned to pre-fire appearance within a few years. preMany of the burned forests were mature lodgepole pine; this species is recolonizing pine; most of the burned areas. The first seedlings of Engelmann spruce, subalpine fir, Douglas-fir, and whitebark Douglaspine have emerged. Aspen reproduction has increased because fire stimulated the growth of suckers from the aspen's underground root system and left behind bare mineral soil that provides good conditions for aspen seedlings. Some of the grasses that elk eat were more nutritious after the fire. fire. Bears graze more frequently at burned than unburned sites. The fires have had no observable impact on the number of grizzly bears in greater Yellowstone. CavityCavity-nesting birds, such as bluebirds, had more dead trees for their nests; birds dependent on mature forests, such as boreal owls, lost habitat. No fire-related effects have been observed in the fish populations or the angling fireexperience in the six rivers that have been monitored regularly since 1988. Vegetation growth has slowed erosion in watersheds that had erosion and mudslides after the fires, such as the Gibbon River.
www.yellowstone-natlwww.yellowstone-natl-park.com/fire.htm#fire

Yellowstone in 1989

Note the different colors.

Trees living

Completely burned

Trees killed but not burned up

Area of complete devastation

But notice the new growth

Most of these seedlings are fireweed, which next year will look like . . .

This seedling is a lodgepole pine.

Most of the trees in Yellowstone are lodgepole pine. pine.

They are adapted to fire. Most of the cones of the lodgepole pine can open and release their seed ONLY when they achieve a temperature that can only be reached in a fire.

Frequent fires kill woody plants (like this aspen), keeping grasslands open.

This provides better grazing for . . .

Elk

Note the burned trees.

Note the damage to trees, caused by the bison sharpening their horns.

bison

moose

moose

cow calf

Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone River

Yellowstone Canyon

Yellowstone Lake

The areas affected by the fires of 1988 are light green.

www.lpi.usra.edu/education/EPO/yellowstone2002

2007

From Ian Ebrecht

Yellowstone Park Grand Teton

Devils Tower

Black Hills
Mount Rushmore

Pikes Peak

So fires in the Rockies are: Devastating Natural Reoccurring Revitalizing Healthy That is why they are left alone in a National Park. Park.

Evermore

Quothe the raven.

NORTH AMERICAN REGIONS

VI. Rocky Mountains
c. Wyoming

The End