Volcano Heat Melts Popular Yellowstone Road

Photo via National Park Service
Photo via National Park Service

Heat radiating from an underground supervolcano in Yellowstone National Park combined with the summer sun to create a hazard to tourists last Thursday.  The combination of these heat sources literally melted a frequently-used roadway in the park, causing officials to shut it down.  The following is a snippet from livescience.org’s piece on this event:

Yellowstone National Park closed a popular road Thursday (July 10) after geothermal heat cooked the asphalt.

Part of Firehole Lake Drive, a scenic one-way road off of Yellowstone’s main loop, was shut down for repairs when oil bubbled to the surface, damaging the blacktop, the Park Service said in a statement. The closure doesn’t affect the Grand Loop Road, which sees 20,000 visitors per day during the summer.

Park spokesman Dan Hottle told Live Science that Firehole Lake Drive’s surface hit 160 degrees Fahrenheit (70 degrees Celsius) on Thursday, about 30 degrees to 40 degrees F (17 to 22 degrees C) hotter than normal.

The piece published by livescience.org has more information on this event, and I encourage you to go check it out.  It really breaks down the details regarding the cause of this event.