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Short essay on yellowstone national park
Chapter 5: igneous rocks
The introduction of Yellowstone National Park
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Yellowstone was the first national park established in 1872. From there, 58 other parks have been established. Aside from parks, national forests, monuments, and recreation areas are protected. National forests are unique because they allow restricted hunting. Minerals are naturally occurring, inorganic solids with a definite chemical composition and ordered internal structure. The lighter silicate minerals, such as quartz, make up the vast majority of the crust and mantle. These minerals are composed of silicon and oxygen. Silicate minerals are further divided into mafic and felsic based on density, brightness, and containing iron and magnesium. Non-Silicate minerals make up the nickel-iron core. They are further divided into six sections. Igneous rocks have a crystalline structure, are formed from lava, and make up two-thirds of …show more content…
The process of metamorphism to create these rocks takes place with temperature, pressure, or hot solutions. Metamorphic rocks are divided into foliated and non-foliated rocks. Folliation creates layers or sheets on the rock from stress. Non- foliated rocks do not produce these layers because they have uniform mineral compositions. Sedimentary rocks are non-crystalline rocks created from particles of other rocks. These rocks are associated with fossils. The process of lithification creates these rocks as the rock is compacted and chemical deposits fill the gaps. Clastic rocks are weathered fragments. Non-clastic rocks are divided into biological and chemical. Precipitate forms chemical rocks and biological fragments form biological rocks. The geological time scale stretches from the Precambrian to Cenozoic eras with notable events during each period. The Precambrian consists of soft-bodied life with rare fossils. Fossils in our area come from the Ordovician period. Mass extinctions ended both the Permian and Cretaceous
Shown in the picture above is volcanic extrusive igneous rock known as andesite. They were imported here to Laguna Beach to help minimize erosion (Merton Hill, p. 10-11). Extrusive Igneous rocks are formed on Earths surface due to lava quickly cooling or mixing with different materials such as ash or cinders from an eruption. There are two different types of extrusive igneous rocks; Plutonic and Volcanic. Andesite is known for being gray in color and being made up of very coarse grainy textures, which make it much harder to break down than sedimentary rocks. Unlike loose gravel and other sediments igneous rocks are known for being able to slow down seismic waves from earthquakes which cause less damage to surface structures.
Yellowstone park was the first national park in the United States. The park dates back as far as 11,000 years ago, when the Native Americans were the first to stumble upon the
Basalt forms due to the partial melting of the layer of the mantle called the asthenosphere. The asthenosphere is the plastic zone of the mantle beneath the rigid lithosphere. Mantle plumes coming from the mesosphere can cause the asthenosphere to melt with heat or even if pressure decreases, which is called decompression melting (Richard 2011). The magma that forms from this melting is mafic magma that solidifies once it reaches the earth’s surface and cools quickly. The above process mainly occurs mainly during intraplate igneous activity which is the main explanation for volcanic activity that occurs a long distance away from a plate boundary. If the tectonic plate above the mantle plume is moving it can create a string of volcanic activity such as in Hawaii. See Fig 2.
In 1916 President Woodrow Wilson signed the act that creates the National Park Service This was a new federal bureau in the Department of the Interior that was responsible for protecting the thirty-five national parks and mountains, which
States. National Park Service. (2014, May, 12). History & Culture. National Parks Service. Retrieved May 18, 2014, from http://www.nps.gov/yose/historyculture/index.htm
Yellowstone became a national park on March 1st 1872. It is the first and oldest national park in the world. A small portion of the park can be found in Montana and Idaho, but most of the park is in Wyoming. Yellowstone is commonly known for features such as the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, and the Old Faithful Geyser. Millions of people come from all over the globe to visit the beautiful sights of Yellowstone every year, but the summer of 1988 brought a shock to people everywhere. The summer of 1988 was the worst forest fires of Yellowstone in the parks history. It consumed vegetation faster than experienced firefighters ever thought possible.
...nd Stromatoporoids (a kind of sponge with a layered skeleton) were common rock builders of the Northern Hemisphere. Moss was common in shallow seas. Among the arthropods, the giant eurypterids (sea scorpions) have been found in the Old Red Sandston facies (see image above). The first insect was part of a group of wingless insects that feed off of debris and soil. Conodonts were vertebrate animals abundant in marine life. Many of the fish were heavily armored and the earlier fish (agnathans) had no jaws and were mud eaters and scavengers. Chondrichthians are sharklike fishes that were first found in the Middle Devonian. In terms of plants, many vascular plants emerged and a varied flora was established. There is evidence of algae, bryophytes, and charophytes. Algae and fungi also existed. As previously stated, the first known forests are from the Devonian Period.
Yellowstone National Park, a national park mostly located in Wyoming, on March 1, 1872 U.S. President You Lixi Simpson Grant Adams signed the bill passed by Congress after the establishment of the world's first national park. Yellowstone National Park, its abundant wildlife species and geothermal resources famous Old Faithful geyser is one of the most famous attractions. “Half of the world's geothermal features are in Yellowstone, fueled by this ongoing volcanism.”(Geothermal Features and How They Work. National Park Service, February 17, 2007 retrieved). Especially Old Faithful Geyser, one of the most famous landscapes in the park. It also has many types of ecosystems.
What is a crystal? Crystals are made up of elements which form amd there molecules form a certain pattern. For example, a volcano happens to erupts and magma flows out to the surface of the earth As the magma runs outward then slowly starts to cool. crystals may develop. This is call crystallization. From this occurring expensive crystal like rubies and diamonds are form, sometimes even emeralds. Crystals can have many different shape from the result of the type of molecules and atoms present in forming the crystals. Crystals can be put into thirty-two crystal classes then further put into a total of six systems..
Magma is a hot liquid made of melted minerals. Minerals can form crystals when they are cool. Igneous rock can form underground, where the magma cools. slowly. Or, igneous rock can form above ground, where the magma cools.
Convection currents deep in the mantle of the earth, begin to well up towards the surface. As the pressure increases, it sets the crustal plates in motion. There are different kinds of mountains - Volcanic, Folded, Fault-block, and Dome mountains. Volcanic mountains are formed when magma comes up through cracks in the Earth’s crust and explodes out of lava and ash. The Hawaiian volcanoes, Mt. Hood, Mt. Etna, Vesuvius, and Mt. Saint Helens is an example of volcanic mountains.
With its abundance of genera, the Burgess Shale is one of the world’s most important fossil fields. It’s discovery in 1909 led to over 100 years of paleontological study in the Canadian Rockies, a majority of which has been carried out in two quarries known as the Walcott and Raymond quarries (Hagadorn, 2002). Though he was originally in search of trilobites in the Burgess Shale Formation, paleontologist Charles Walcott also discovered a diverse group of soft- and hard-bodied fossils, from algae and sponges to chordates and cirripeds (Hagadorn, 2002). Soft-bodied fossils are incredibly rare due to their delicate structure and susceptibility to decay, so it is hard-bodied fossils that more regularly occur in fossil findings. However over 75,000 soft-bodied specimens have been found in the Burgess Shale formation (Hagadorn, 2002). These specimens are preserved in layers of shale formed from deposits of fine mud. One of the most significant species discovered is the Pikaia gracilens. Believed to be an early chordate, the Pikaia gracilens existed very close to the beginning of the evolutionary path that ultimately lead to humans (McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia, 2006).
Igneous rocks are formed from the ejection of earth’s volcanoes. Deep down inside earth’s mantle there lies hot magma. Magma is molten rock that is kept below the surface. This mixture is usually made up of four parts: a hot liquid substance which is called the melt; minerals that have been crystallized by the melt; solid rocks that have made themselves tangled in the melt because of loose materials, and finally gases that have become liquid. Magma is created by an increase in temperatures, pressure change, and a alter in composition. When this magma is ejected from earth’s crust it earns a new name called lava. The lava hardens and becomes an Igneous rock.
The field of geology has many different branches. Some of these areas have hardly anything in common. The one thing that they all include, though, is that each one concentrates on some part of the Earth, its makeup, or that of other planets. Mineralogy, the study of minerals above the Earth and in its crust, is different from Petrology, the st...
Sediment maturity is due to the transportation and environment of sediment. There were two types of sediment maturity, the texture of grains and the composition in the rocks. Grain textures were the roundness of grains and sediment sorting and presence of clay (Bokman, 1955). The definition of roundness was the ratio of average radius of corners and edges and the radius of maximum inscribed circle (Richard, 1988). The rounding of grains was due to the energy, duration and mechanism of transport. Grain surface textures can be angular and rounded. Quartz was the most abundant minerals. We can use quartz for an example to classify the surface texture of grains. Angular grains of quartz would have conchoidal fractures and could be formed in glacial environment. Quartz grain which was water-deposited had rounded grain and grooves surface caused by impaction of other sediments (Richard, 1988). Quartz grain in aeoli...