Windows into the Earth: The Geologic Story of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks

Millions of years ago, the North American continent was dragged over the world's largest continental hotspot, a huge column of hot and molten rock rising from the Earth's interior that traced a 50-mile wide, 500-mile-long path northeastward across Idaho. Generating cataclysmic volcanic eruptions and large earthquakes, the hotspot helped lift the Yellowstone Plateau to more than 7,000 feet and pushed the northern Rockies to new heights Smith and Siegel bring to life the grandeur of these geologic phenomena as they reveal the forces that have shaped--and continue to shape--the greater Yellowstone-Teton region.

Robert B. Smith is a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah and a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Geological Society of America. He has spent his career studying the Yellowstone-Teton region. Lee J. Siegel has written about science since 1976, most recently as science editor of The Salt Lake Tribune. He contributed to the Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption by The Daily News of Longview, Washington, and in 1996, he won the Utah Seismic Safety Commissions first annual Outstanding Contribution to Earthquake Safety in Utah Award.