Historic Water Chemistry Data for Thermal Features, Streams, and Rivers in the Yellowstone National Park Area, 1883-2021

Dates

Start Date: 1883-10-10
End Date: 2021-06-15
Publication Date: 2024-02-13

Citation

Price, M.B., McCleskey, R.B., Oaks, A., Hurwitz, S., and Nordstrom, D.K., 2024, Historic Water Chemistry Data for Thermal Features, Streams, and Rivers in the Yellowstone National Park Area, 1883-2021: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9KSEVI1.

Summary

Yellowstone National Park (YNP; Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, USA) contains more than 10,000 hydrothermal features, several lakes, and four major watersheds. For more than 140 years, researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey and other scientific institutions have investigated the chemical compositions of hot springs, geysers, fumaroles, mud pots, streams, rivers, and lakes in YNP and surrounding areas. Water chemistry studies have revealed a range of compositions including waters with pH values ranging from about 1 to 10, surface temperatures from ambient to superheated values of 95°C, and elevated concentrations of silica, lithium, boron, fluoride, mercury, and arsenic. Hydrogeochemical data from YNP research have led to insights on [...]

Summary

Yellowstone National Park (YNP; Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, USA) contains more than 10,000 hydrothermal features, several lakes, and four major watersheds. For more than 140 years, researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey and other scientific institutions have investigated the chemical compositions of hot springs, geysers, fumaroles, mud pots, streams, rivers, and lakes in YNP and surrounding areas. Water chemistry studies have revealed a range of compositions including waters with pH values ranging from about 1 to 10, surface temperatures from ambient to superheated values of 95°C, and elevated concentrations of silica, lithium, boron, fluoride, mercury, and arsenic. Hydrogeochemical data from YNP research have led to insights on subsurface conditions of temperature and chemistry, water-rock-gas interactions and processes of high-temperature mineral alteration with dissolution and precipitation, redox processes, thermophilic microbial metabolism under extreme conditions and effects of thermal water chemistry on river systems.

In this Data Release, water chemistry data for 4,918 water samples are reported for numerous thermal features, rivers, streams, lakes, drillholes, and precipitation in and around YNP. The data for these samples were originally located in 38 reports published between 1888 and 2022 and in multiple unpublished documents. Spanning more than 600 unique sampling sites throughout the YNP region, this dataset includes samples collected as early as 1883 (Gooch & Whitfield, 1888) and as recently as 2021 (McCleskey, et al, 2022). The thermal features sampled most frequently include Cistern Spring (180 samples) and Echinus Geyser (73 samples) in Norris Geyser Basin and Ojo Caliente Spring (143 samples) in the Lower Geyser Basin, while more than 500 sites have 5 samples or fewer. Water chemistry data from thermal features, rivers, and streams are most represented, comprising 75% (thermal) and 17% (rivers/streams) of the dataset. Across all major areas of the park, Norris Geyser Basin has been sampled more than any other basin, with more than 1,100 samples reported in this dataset.

Contacts

Point of Contact :: R Blaine McCleskey
Originator :: Margery B Price, R Blaine McCleskey, Angela J Oaks, Shaul Hurwitz, D Kirk Nordstrom
Metadata Contact :: R Blaine McCleskey
Publisher :: U.S. Geological Survey
SDC Data Owner :: Volcano Hazards Program Office
USGS Mission Area :: Water Resources
Distributor :: U.S. Geological Survey - ScienceBase

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Yellowstone Water Chemistry 1883-2021.xml Original FGDC Metadata	View	169.37 KB	application/fgdc+xml
report_citations.csv		10.63 KB	text/csv
Yellowstone Water Chemistry 1883-2021.csv		1.97 MB	text/csv

Purpose

The purpose of this report is to compile water chemistry data in digital form from numerous reports published throughout the history of Yellowstone National Park, including information on sample collection, preservation, and analytical methods and quality-control procedures. Detailed information for each sample allows the user to filter and search the dataset by sample location, sample type, source report, date of sample collection, or by sample ID, among other information. As not all samples were originally assigned unique sample IDs in their respective reports, they have been designated a unique numeric database ID in this publication. By harmonizing units and analytes across all sources, we allow users to investigate spatial and temporal trends in chemical constituents throughout the Yellowstone National Park area.

Historic Water Chemistry Data for Thermal Features, Streams, and Rivers in the Yellowstone National Park Area, 1883-2021

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