| Yellowstone Falls, Wyoming. Viewed from Artist Point, Lower Yellowstone Falls thunders over a 308 foot lip of resistant volcanic rock. About 630,000 years ago, a huge volcanic eruption occurred in the Yellowstone region and formed a several thousand foot-deep caldera 30 miles wide by 45 miles long. As this caldera filled with lava over the next 40,000 years, flows from the east overlaid thermal areas which extended east from the present-day location of this waterfall. As the waters of the ancient Yellowstone River flowed across the hard lavas west of here and encountered the weaker, undermined lavas at this spot, the falls began to form. All photos in these galleries may be ordered as fine art framed prints or for stock photography usage. |
