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Three million visitors each year marvel at Yellowstone's Rocky Mountain splendor,
including its thousands of steaming geysers, shimmering thermal pools, and bubbling mudpots.
But the greatest wonder of all goes mostly unnoticed. Hidden underground, powerful volcanic,
tectonic, and hydrothermal forces are continually reshaping the landscape of America's first and
foremost national park. Symptoms of the underground turmoil include numerous earthquakes
(most too small to be felt), uplift and subsidence of the ground surface, and persistent but
ever-changing hydrothermal activity. Eventually, the unrest will culminate in another large
earthquake or volcanic eruption, both of which have occurred many times before in
Yellowstone's geologic past. Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of
Utah are studying the Yellowstone region to assess the potential hazards from future earthquakes
and eruptions and to provide warning if the current level of unrest should intensify.
-- Dzurisin, et.al., 1995
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