Overview of Project Goals
and Interpretive Themes

Yellowstone’s geothermal features have long fascinated park visitors. From the time that Americans first heard of the Yellowstone region, it was the “curiosities” of the area—the geysers and other hydrothermal wonders—that spurred further exploration and the eventual protection of Yellowstone as the world’s first national park (Haines, 1974). Today, it is still these natural wonders that draw approximately three million visitors to Yellowstone National Park each year from all regions of the United States and from around the world.

The new Old Faithful Visitor Education Center will tell the fascinating story of Yellowstone’s hydrothermal wonders. Beginning with world-famous Old Faithful Geyser, exhibits and other interactive media will explore this unique area which is unlike any other on the planet.

Project Goals

The overarching goal for the OFVEC exhibits and programs is to help visitors understand and appreciate the geysers, hot springs, and other hydrothermal features in Yellowstone; the powerful volcanic forces that fuel them; and the microbial life within them. The following learning goals describe the desired project goals and cognitive outcomes:

• Develop systems and programs that emphasize sharing current scientific knowledge among researchers, educators, students, citizens, and visitors representing a national and international constituency. Integrate more than 100 years of existing and emerging research with a state-of-the-art public education facility through the exhibits, an academic speaker series, programs, curriculum-based activities, and online programs combined with a variety of web-based “virtual park experiences.”
  
  
• Heighten public awareness and understanding of geoscience and microbiology in YNP. Feature and connect visitors with current research on Yellowstone’s hydrothermal systems, the hotspot that fuels the system, the extremophiles that live in the thermal waters, and other related topics. Make this science relevant and accessible to the public, and promote life-long learning opportunities.
  
  
• Help audiences understand the natural world and the role of humans in it. Engender an ethic of stewardship and protection toward Yellowstone and all our national parks.
  
  
• Use appropriate and innovative technology throughout to illustrate and explain the mystery and magic of Yellowstone, particularly its geysers, hot springs, and other geothermal features. This technology will be used to enhance the visitor experience both on-site and on-line.
  
  
• Help audiences understand that the thermal features in Yellowstone preserve gene pools that include rare and endangered species and that these living creatures not only survive but thrive in environments that would be lethal to humans.
  
  
• Engender interest among students in the study of geoscience, microbiology, and related fields. Produce curriculum-based school programs that help students understand how scientific research works and how science, math, and technology relate in the context of the OFVEC interpretive themes.
  
  
• Identify the interrelationships between cultural knowledge and scientific inquiry.

Interpretive Themes

The primary theme for the Old Faithful Visitor Education Center exhibits and associated programs and curriculum-based activities is:

Yellowstone National Park protects the rarest collection of geysers and hot springs on Earth.

The OFVEC exhibits and associated programs will be developed based on the following five subthemes (these ideas are not prioritized or in any particular sequence):

1. At Yellowstone, hot water helps shape an extraordinary landscape of rare hydrothermal features—geysers, mudpots, fumaroles, and hot springs.

• Yellowstone’s more than 10,000 geysers, hot springs, mud pots, and fumaroles represent the greatest concentration of thermal features in the world.

• Hydrothermal features require a heat source, abundant water, and a “plumbing” system. The heat source in Yellowstone is a magma chamber. While it is uncertain exactly where all of the system’s water comes from, the region receives an abundance of snow and rain.

• Geysers are rare in the world because they require a special underground “plumbing” system. This system involves rhyolitic rock that is riddled with cracks and fissures yet hard enough to withstand significant pressure. Many geysers and other hydrothermal features within a geyser basin are interconnected, and patterns of activity can be found that allow predictions.

• Yellowstone is home to the world-recognized icon, Old Faithful Geyser, as well as other geysers and hot springs of note including the world’s tallest active geyser (Steamboat Geyser), the world’s largest hot spring (Grand Prismatic Spring), and a rare acidic geyser (Echinus Geyser).

• A wide variety of colors can be found in hydrothermal features and their runoff channels. The colors are due to reflected sunlight and dissolved/deposited minerals (e.g., iron and arsenic) as well as living organisms such as bacteria and algae.

• Yellowstone’s hydrothermal features are in what are essentially the only undisturbed geyser basins left in the world (most other geyser basins have been modified or destroyed by human development). These basins represent a world-renowned preserve and provide important opportunities for research and education.

2. Yellowstone’s hydrothermal features exist here because of past and ongoing volcanic activity.

• Yellowstone sits on a “hotspot” that the North American plate is slowly passing over as it moves southwest. The hotspot has created a magma chamber under a large portion of Yellowstone, and this is what fuels the hydrothermal landscape (Smith and Siegel, 2000).

• Earthquakes occur frequently in Yellowstone. Every year there are around 2,000 earth tremors recorded in the Yellowstone region. Most of these earthquakes are not strong enough to be felt by humans, but they can and do affect geyser activity.

• Earthquakes occur along fault lines and can be triggered by crustal plate movement, rock slippage along the fault, or (in Yellowstone) even movement of hydrothermal fluid.

• Small earthquakes are necessary to maintain the “plumbing system” for Yellowstone’s hydrothermal features by keeping the precipitating silica from sealing off the underground channels.

3. Yellowstone’s thermal waters are habitat for diverse thermophilic microbial life forms that we are only beginning to understand.

• About 40 years ago, unique life forms were found in Yellowstone’s thermal springs living in conditions that were thought prohibitive to life (Brock, 1994). Today, many scientists believe that the diversity of life harbored in Yellowstone’s hydrothermal features may be greater than that of the rainforests.

• The various microbial life forms and communities found in Yellowstone live in a wide range of different hydrothermal conditions, from acidic to alkaline to high sulfur conditions and along thermal gradients (Brock, 1978; Ward, et al., 1989; 1992; 1998).

• These microorganisms are aiding scientists in their search for the origin of life on Earth and whether or not life exists (or once existed) on Mars (Walter and Des Marais, 1993; Farmer, 1996).

• Yellowstone’s extremophilic microorganisms have immense value for society. Heat-resistant enzymes found in Yellowstone’s extremophiles unlocked the key to DNA fingerprinting, leading to DNA medical diagnoses and DNA-based wildlife studies (Brock, 1997).

4. Americans’ fascination with and pride in Old Faithful Geyser has transformed it into a cultural icon, a place of pilgrimage, and a shared legacy.

• The sounds and smells of Yellowstone as well as its sights have fascinated visitors for more than 10,000 years. Native Americans, early explorers, mountain men, artists, and park visitors of all types and from all eras have enjoyed and been inspired by Yellowstone.

• Rumors of Yellowstone’s hydrothermal wonders led to three organized expeditions coming to the region to document the geologic features unique to this area (the Folsom-Cook-Peterson Expedition of 1869; Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition of 1870; and the official, government-sponsored Hayden Expedition of 1871).

• Old Faithful Geyser’s predictable eruptions have drawn people to it from the park’s earliest days. Old Faithful symbolizes the National Park Service ethic of preservation for future generations.

5. Yellowstone is a rare living laboratory that draws scientists who want to explore the interplay between the volcano, the hydrothermal features, and the diversity of life found here.

• The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, a partnership between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the University of Utah, and the NPS was recently established. This entity formalizes efforts to monitor active tectonic, magmatic, and thermal systems of the region and encourages innovative and integrated studies.

• The University of Utah maintains the Yellowstone Seismic Network—a system of seismographs set up throughout the park to measure and record real time earthquake information.

• Montana State University houses the NASA-sponsored Thermal Biology Institute, which brings together local scientists studying the bacteria, archaea, algae, fungi, protozoa, viruses, plants, and geochemistry of geothermal areas. The Institute also promotes interactions with the many other microbiologists around the U.S. and the world interested in extremophiles.

• Yellowstone’s thermophiles are being studied by the NASA Astrobiology Institute, which believes that these heat-loving microscopic organisms might be similar to life forms that may one day be found on other planets with extreme environments.