Terrifying Today: Live Footage of the Yellowstone Geyser's New Eruption Underway in These Seconds
Travertine deposition rates at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park are very high (~3 millimeters per day) compared to other calcium carbonate systems. For example, fast-growing corals deposit travertine at an average rate of 1 millimeter per day, and the rate is ~0.2 millimeters per day for calcium carbonate deposited by cold fresh water (called tufas). The growth rate of calcium carbonate in the deep sea or in terrestrial caves is even slower! One reason for the high rate of travertine deposition in Yellowstone is that thermophilic bacteria that live in Yellowstone's hot waters encourage travertine deposition.
About 20–22 million years ago the hot spot diminished, perhaps because the rise of magma to the surface was blocked by a plate of cold oceanic crust that had been replaced by the North American continent. Magma built up beneath the slab and finally broke open nearly 17 million years ago with the Columbia River Basalt eruption — a massive outpouring of molten basaltic lava that occurred along much of Idaho's border with Washington and Oregon and caused lava flows all over. road to the Pacific Ocean. A series of more explosive eruptions also began, forming calderas similar to those at Yellowstone today. A series of now-buried caldera systems stretches from the Nevada-Oregon border and across the Snake River Plain in southern Idaho, progressively younger approaching the Yellowstone caldera
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